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Exit-Ed: Stories from Grind to Sale
Join us on Exit-Ed, the podcast where successful founders share the untold stories behind building, scaling, and selling their companies. In each dynamic episode, we go beyond the headlines to explore the challenges, strategies, and pivotal moments that shaped the journeys of entrepreneurs from each corner of the globe.
From the long nights spent grinding to the high-stakes negotiations that led to rewarding exits, our guests provide practical insights, hard-won lessons, and inspiration for anyone on the path to success. Whether you're an entrepreneur preparing for a sale, an investor looking to understand founder dynamics, or a business leader seeking new growth strategies, this podcast is for you.
Learn from those who've been there. Get Exit-Ed.
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Welcome to Exit-ed stories from grind to sale. This is the podcast where we dive into the journeys of founders who have navigated the path from building their companies to successful exits. We interview entrepreneurs from around the US and around the globe, exploring their experiences, scaling processes, and the lessons they've learned. We'll talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. We're excited to have you with us. Let's get started and let's get excited.
Hey guys, this is Gabby here with Exit-Ed. This is the podcast where we talk to founders, talk about them, their lives, their grind, their burnouts, their exits, and all the things that even come after the exit. Today, we're going to be talking to Andy Smith. Andy is an entrepreneur based in Atlanta who has experienced some great exits. And I can't wait to have you guys listen to everything that Andy had to say.
And here we go. All right, guys. Well, welcome to Exit-Ed the podcast where we talk with founders from the topics of from grind to sale. And today we have Andy Smith. Andy is joining us from Atlanta, Georgia. And Andy and I actually met last year in Miami at Miami Tech Week. This would have been in twenty twenty four. And so, Andy, welcome to Exit-Ed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So.
Fun to be here and such an interesting title of the podcast, which I so relate to in entrepreneurship. So I love it. So thank you for having me. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I actually, I'm very proud that I came up with it on my own. really, how the title came up is I obviously, what do we do when we're trying to find information? We talked to Judge BT and Judge BT wasn't giving me anything. And cause I was like, Hey, give me like something funky, something different combination of words.
And suddenly it actually dawned on me, exited. I'm like, woo, it was good. It was good. Well, that is great, Andy. So, you know, something that everybody knows about these podcasts is that I don't know everybody's story, like the details. So we're here to kind of talk with you about your story as a founder, as an entrepreneur. And, you know, I know that from what I know, you have a fantastic, fantastic, you know, story. So.
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I guess to kick it off. tell me, when did you find out that you were an entrepreneur? Yeah. So you don't really know, right? There's no like hidden button that just tells you, Hey, today I'm going to wake up and be an entrepreneur. And so I started to realize when I was working in the corporate world and I started as an engineer, went into the corporate world as an engineer, when it became a sales engineer and then realized I was finding myself very frustrated every day at work.
And I'm like, why am I so frustrated? I would come home and tell my wife, I'm frustrated. I didn't know why. And what I, what I know now is that I was feeling like I was being put into a box. Right. And so when you're in that box as an entrepreneur inside of you, get frustrated. And so this was chugging along 2000 to 2007 timeframe. The frustration continues. Finally, a coworker looked at me and said, Andy, why, if you're so frustrated, why don't you do something about it? And I was like,
That's a clever idea. I should have thought about that because the world needs more positivity, not negativity. And they certainly don't need me complaining every day in a business job. And so my first co-founder called me in August of 2007 and said, Hey, Andy, I've got an idea. Let's start a business in the U S he lived in the Netherlands. So he was a Dutch guy, met an American completely on the other side of the pond. And in August of 2007, we launched our very first business on a Friday night and we were all
into the grind and into the trenches. Right. And you know, that is a very common thread is feeling caged. Yeah. Right. You know, in my case, I keep sharing, actually realized I'm an entrepreneur and I didn't realize until like last year. And but I can see throughout my life how I just didn't want to conform with the boxes I was put in, like ever in my life. you know,
So that's something that's so interesting. Like we don't find out until we experience things. And that's the beauty. Do you feel like some people say like you're constantly solving problems, like in your mind, you're like, what's the problem with that? Let's fix that. And is that something that it's part of you? Yeah. I, you know, so I say it's contributed to the engineering brain, but
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It's really always been there. Like it's not the engineering brain that caused it. It was just the problem solving ability. that's, that is the number one thing in entrepreneurship is you're solving problems. mean, from a market problem, wherever you build the business around to then when you turn around and look at the business, every day is freaking hard and everything is a problem. And you don't know how to tackle that every single day. And so yes, it is a constant dilemma of problem solving and opportunity building the bridge to solution.
That's amazing. So we know seven when you and your partner out of the Netherlands were launching your first, what problem were you solving? So we had been in the oil and gas industry and the clean energy industry. And the company that we worked to was a great Belgium company, a pretty big Belgium company. They had diversified product lines. And so they had launched a product into the market. There was a clean energy oil and gas play. So it burned off waste gas from a mine and oil and gas facility landfill.
And so we saw an opportunity to launch a similar product into the market that, and you build a business and our goal from day one was just to replace our salaries. Like we weren't thinking about exiting. We weren't thinking about making millions or billions or billions. We were just thinking about how do we replace our salary and get out of the box? And so that was our initial sort of thing, but we were, yeah. So we were launching an emerging, innovative oil and gas, clean energy product.
Right. mean, that's pretty, I mean, when you tell me oil and gas, I'm like, that's really complex. Was it complex, like scientifically complex? was it, I mean, you, had been in the oil and gas industry before, right? And then you were, okay. So was it learning a lot or you already kind of brought some of background knowledge? So here's a, here's a question I get nowadays and I didn't appreciate it at the time. The question I get nowadays is, do you partner with people or do you want to go at it alone?
And my answer today is 100 % partnership collaboration with others. At the time though, I didn't realize that at the time I didn't realize I was super naive to entrepreneurship. was super naive to building a business. I didn't know anything. And I was probably in my mid to late twenties. And what I realize now, if I look back, I had an amazing partner who knew really well technology. He knew how to engineer the thing and
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He had a sprinkling of entrepreneurship and business in them. More business, little bit of entrepreneurship. I was business development with a sprinkling of engineering. So we had the perfect team of two hungry dudes from opposite sides of the world who had a neat little sort of overlap and were ready to go build something from scratch. And we bet the house on it. Like we literally took a $26,000, you know, home equity line of credit.
That was our investment. put his investment in and we were all, what, was, were you married at the time or were you, yeah. I don't know if I would do it again, I was, yes, I was married with the kid. The kid would have been five years old and very soon after we had our second kid. so, yeah, there's no, there was no plan B plan B for us, which we got to eventually was looking for jobs. That was our only plan B. so
Very risky, but I also see with partnership, right? Like I celebrated an anniversary yesterday with the wife and you need that partner in your life. Right. Or otherwise you don't, you have to have that understanding, balancing partner because entrepreneurship is not for everyone and it's scary and it's risky and it's weird and it's, you know, uncertain. So you need that partner who understands and who will back you up in all of that.
Right. And you know, it's interesting because you need the right business partner and then you have, you know, if you're married, you need the right partner to work with you. Right. Cause it's not any, it's an ups and downs. It's emotional. Right. So, okay. So wait, so how did you meet the guy in Netherlands again? Remind me. we, worked together. So he was like a functional, like a matrix boss, right? You know, the matrix structure of organizations. So we had worked together and
We had known each other for probably three years. He had sold his business to the company and was, had been there for about four years. so, So he was like, maybe doing an earn out. And then, and so when that was over, he was looking for his next big thing. And that's where it all started. He's like, I'm going to do it with Andy. Yeah. And I'm so thankful for him as well. And we, we never fought a day in our lives. It was great. We had a lot of pushback and a lot of challenging of one another, but never.
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was always a very amicable, respectful relationship. Yeah. not every founder or entrepreneur can say that, right? Like, we found you were with the right people. Because being with the wrong people can actually destroy the business. We've seen, and our background is with legal, is we see when people just don't have a meeting of the minds.
That actually results in literally destroying an entire business that you might have been building for years and years. So how do you know that this is the right person? do you have, and I mean, this is seven, we're talking, you know, this is almost 20 years ago. And obviously you probably didn't have the wisdom you have today, right? You learn so much throughout your life. You build wisdom, you build knowledge, information. How did you know, or did you not know at the time?
You know, do we get along? Like there's so much these days, like personality tests, like what's your background, my background checks? How, how did you just go all in and like kind of like cross your fingers? I think you're a question I had. I had known him for some time, so we knew each other's, we knew how each other worked. We knew it personally. We knew each other. So there was, there was some background in some history there, but I, I didn't know how that was going to be day one of starting a new business. Right. And when you,
risk everything on the line. so I didn't know, and I didn't know that that would work out well. And after, he said almost 20 years of doing it, like I've met some people, I've had some bad partnerships that's gone wrong. And that can cost you years and years of struggle and destroying businesses, destroying lives, all that. And nowadays I'm very, it's a dating phase, right? And then you kind of marry. And I found that the right people,
just make it. And so I've seen other people do it really well. And it starts with like an interview process of what am I looking for? What do I know about myself? What do I need as a founder or a co-founder to compliment me? And I think you learned that down the road as you go, but it's so hard. I don't have a secret for that. I now can say, this is the type of person who would work really well with me and fits me really well.
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And then after you do that, still you have to determine your role in that relationship. Because even today, if I start a business or co-founded business with a partner, I'm not always the leader of that. I might be someone who's taking advice from a younger person if they're a subject matter expert. So it's hard. don't have any, at the time I didn't know anything. Nowadays, it's fun to kind of first learn who you are and then be able to learn your...
your strengths and weaknesses, but really your blind spots and then team up with someone who can help you do that. Yeah. You know, to your point, I'm about to say something that's probably unconscionable for many lawyers to say, but in my experience, it doesn't matter how much you paper up a deal. It really comes down to the humanity of people. Like you get a good partner and and you may not even need the document like.
You know, I recommend the people do it, right? I don't want them to get the right impression, get the paper. But at the end of the day, you can do great business with great people and you can do really bad business with bad people, no matter what papers you have, how many lawyers looked at it and how many big firms, small firm, it doesn't matter who looked at it. It's going to go bad if the human is not right on the other side. Right. And it usually comes down to so in the let's say the partners that maybe the partnerships didn't go as planned.
Do you think there was like, it was a greediness? Was it like lack of transparency? What are the qualities of people that are just not good to do business with? Yeah, for me, it's, it's those things, right? It's like the greed is a huge one. I mean that, that will take it immediately. the, that's probably the biggest one, right? Like humility and understanding and trust are, are enormous. But if people, if two parties don't trust each other immediately.
the relationship breaks down and then it's just fighting. And so yeah, you nailed it. mean, it's those things. It's those qualities. Yeah. Trust is a big one. I recently read this speed of trust. Really, really, really good book. Probably one you need to read over and over over your life. But trust is an art to learn to trust, to learn to give trust. It's just big. And I think trust is everything in business. Do you agree? mean,
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I agree. And it's funny because nowadays with this social footprint, right, you can kind of go and see what are people doing online and how are they expressing themselves socially on any social platform. And then when you meet that person, same person that you know socially in real life. And it's funny because if you meet someone who is strikingly different in person than they might be on that, you've seen them throughout social media, because now you can build breadcrumbs up of a
Yeah. You have a connection of a network through social media. But when you meet that person in real life, like, is that the same person? Right. Is that the same? So that's another factor of trust. And it's just so incredibly important. You know, that's such a great point because social media, you know, again, the biggest issue is that we all put our best versions of ourselves. And then, you know, we also are human and we have defects and we come with issues. that's that's that's a that's a really great. I actually hadn't thought about it.
But yeah, I recently hurt. ahead. I was going to say, was going to tell you a funny story. The, talking about finding partners. So I was, I was dating a potential partner, right? They were looking for a certain operating partner in a company and was up in New York city. And I went up to meet him in person for the first time. And I had talked over the phone, had all the different stuff. So we met in person. It was great. We then went to lunch. They were watching how I opened up my nap.
and I had my plate and how I put my forks down. if my forks were straight or a little crooked and also like the phone, like when I put my phone on the table, like facing them. Yeah. And was it even or against the lines with the side of the And because what they were looking for was structure. Like is this person able to not only come in and be a good human and all that, but are they able to structure eyes their business so that they can scale it?
And so it was interesting. So interesting. It's such an eye opening thing because after that we went to the little happy hour, right? And they were like, Hey, we've been watching the whole time and you've been, it's been a test the whole time. And I was like, Whoa, this is so neat. Like, what did you do? Unwind it on me. Cause I'd love to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, I'm not, it's funny to be a student of the game and always be learning. Cause you're always watching other people and taking what you love and seeing if it fits your way and just, just learning. That's interesting.
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I actually never, never had somebody tell me that they had been, you know, in a test I have had in the, have, I have had deals where I heard, you know, anecdotes where, you know, like if, you know, we're usually on the cell side and, and, and some of our cell guys, you know, stories where they've been invited to a social event and then they participate in a social event. And then, you know, after the close two months later, the buyer was like, well, you know, at that happy, I say kind of.
hour, you know, we were watching you, we wanted to see your real persona. So it is important. the social, I mean, that's a good point, right? Because everything is done online, you know, everything is Zoom, everything is chat, you know, the new generation, all they do is they just text each other. Like my kids are teenagers and I'm like, it's almost like dating by text. It's so funny. But in business, you're just, you just
Business is still done and should be done face to face. I agree. That's funny because I went down to tech week this week and or this past week for 2025 and it was interesting because technology right now is evolving so rapidly, so fast. Everything's moving to a large language model or an AI this or an AI that and
And entire industries are getting disrupted by the thing called AI, right? Or automation or technology. But what you saw at that last weekend, Miami at the tech event was human people getting together to do business. Right. People going to events, after parties to talk and to share and to learn and to grow and, and coming to events to listen to Pitbull or Damon John talk about their experiences. I, I love the human side. think the human side is only going to get
more and more, doubling down on the human side, because relationships are gonna be more important than ever. And business is done with people. I agree. And you know what the sad part I think is like, younger people are online so much and they're not having eye to eye contact with teenagers these days, the kids, the younger kids, even some young adults, they won't look at you in the eyes. And I'm thinking one of my theories is,
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The kids that are good with eye contact, the kids that are actually able to speak with an adult, are ones gonna be the leaders of tomorrow because technology is doing great things, but also, you know, leaving, you know, some kids are gonna stay behind in terms of the human interaction because they're just not comfortable. know, even our generation, because I think you're not about the same age. I don't know. Do you love talking on the phone? I mean, I'm not as much. I got rather text. Like if somebody calls me,
Leave a voicemail. If it's somebody that I have some level of like try some texting you back. So I don't know. That's good and bad, but we should be picking up the phone a lot more than we do. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's I mean, I remember my first job was sales engineer role for that Belgium company. There was an older gentleman. He was in charge of a country manager and he spent every moment on that phone talking to potential customers because he couldn't see them. If he could see them, he would have been there with them. And it's just that human element side and.
Yeah, it's so critical and it's you can't replace it and the cool I mean, so I've plugged into my local university and I go and so this afternoon is one of these events where young entrepreneurs will think of an idea, right? And they'll come present it to a panel of OGs who are sitting there giving away a little bit of the university's money to help them grow. Most of the founders are tech founders, so it's something techie and
Very few will look you in the eye. Very few will come and shake your hand before the presentation. Very few will remember any of that. Now they know their stuff, right? They know their stuff. But when you meet the one who comes up to you afterwards and talk and says, Hey, I love what you did. Can you me more? Hey, can I intern for you and just be a part of it and, have that, I don't know, is that that charisma to talk to people, the human factor, they just, they are just
I just see them accelerating into the future. Right. You know, you said a word, the magic word, charisma. How important is charisma in the life of a founder? mean, is it a trend that the more charismatic you are, the more... Because I feel like, you you get more influence, right? You get the sales going. People like you. They want to talk to you. They want to hear you.
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How, how, how important is Curry's? How important has been Curry's made in your life, I guess, or in your, you know, growth as an entrepreneur? I think for me, it's been hugely important because I've always played the, the business development face of the company, brand builder kind of, kind of role, right? I didn't know that going into it. It's kind of fell into it because it felt more natural. And what a lot of people miss when you're starting and launching a company is that
Brand will come eventually, but it doesn't come day one. And so you've got to go, you've got to go sell your face off. Basically. You got to go sell something to make your business take off. so that's, and to sell something you're trying to understand and communicate your value proposition to the problem that the customer has. so charisma and empathy go hand in hand, because I think it's so important to understand the, the buyer side and be able to communicate and meet them where they are.
into the seller side. I think it's so important in entrepreneurship. I think it's so important in raising kids. I think it's so important in meeting a friend on the street because it's just how, and maybe another word would just be, I care for you. I care for you. I want to pour into you. And charisma is piece of that. So it's not, it's real. It's not sleazy. It's just more, I want to give back to you. How can I help you? And that's, yeah, I built my career on it for sure.
Empathy, another good one, Like, know, especially once we've had an exit, and I want to go back to talking about some of this scaling in a minute, you know, empathy is not necessarily paired up with a word money or wealth or, you know, there's, but, but, but I think they should, you know, you should be, I think, because I think entrepreneurship is leadership, right? And leadership has to have empathy. So there's like,
Right. This connection. You know, what, are your thoughts? Like I meet founders that don't seem empathetic, you know, especially in certain circles or since there's a money aura here and maybe some elitist things. Have you, what are your, like your empathy? Let's talk a little bit more about empathy. Would you, would you have been as successful as you have, you are? We'll talk a little bit more about your exits, but empathy, right.
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You've got to trust. You've got to bring like when you're like we bootstrapped it right. So when you're bootstrapping a business, you've got to bring people got to trust you. They got to they got to believe that you're selling a vision that they understand and they can get behind because they're taking an enormous risk, enormous risk. And so I I think first you've got to meet people where they are. You've got to build that trust really quickly. You've got to continue to show up so that you, as you said, that speed of trust that you get there over time and they continue.
because ultimately your first employee has to trust you. Your 74th employee has to trust you and want to come on this journey with you. And so it's a critical part. And I'll say it too. mean, not everybody has to be, you know, the superhuman qualities out the gazooka of everything, right? That's where the word partnership comes in, in my mind. Because you can, you could be the best subject matter expert around your thing. You can know it hands in that.
And you could be just a curmudgeon who has no people skills at all. Right. But guess what? You could partner with someone who loves that and they could be that bridge for you. And so that's a that's an opportunity for us all. Right. And then again, going back to dating those potential partners and then the words I think we've used here today, which is a mare, it's a marriage. Yeah.
You know, you're technically married to your spouse and you're also married to your partner. And it is that that an important, you know, trust relationship where we have we have the ups and downs together. That is so important. But OK, so with your so let's go back. you built the you've been building in this renewable industry company with the the guide of the Netherlands. Was that a business where you like the fundraising or was that a business where you were?
kind of bring money in money that we reinvest in the company. Cause I think, you know, there are some companies where obviously if you go out, you raise money, seed money, all of that series, say maybe even beyond. And then there's the companies that we have an idea, right? And then we, bring money in and we reinvest and we kind of grow more organically. Have you, was your first venture?
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The organic one or more like the let's just pop some money into it and get the. Yeah. So my first venture was totally bootstrapped and we didn't even know you could raise money. And that's cool. And so we were that night. Right. And so we set out to simply build it based on one job at a time. And it was very interesting because we started in August. We thought we were going to get a bunch of early customers. We didn't get any. Right. And so.
Our first customer was actually in, I would say month five or so. And it was a Mexican customer with the Chilean engineering firm. So it wasn't in the U S it was, it was completely outside of what we had thought. And, and that was month five or six month four, we got sued by the company that we left for a non-compete violation, which we didn't have. didn't have a non-compete document.
But they still try, they still would try, the lawyers would try to find it out. Because it ties you up in litigation, right? You to pay for it. got to go higher. you down. It puts a cloud over you and it makes you afraid. Yeah. And so, know, one day at dinnertime, I get a knock on the door with being served on... summons. Right before Christmas. And it was a 80 page document. like, crap. So then you find an attorney, right? And you have to pay a retainer, 10,000. we...
We've a ton of money into just trying to stay alive early on. And so you got to get really gritty, really grindy and really, really, really creative as to how you're going to get that first customer and then how you're going to structure your deals going forward. Right? Wow. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, the L word litigation, nobody likes it, but I feel like, you know, if you have something good going on, they're going to come after you. mean, somebody will.
I mean, if they feel threatened, they will, and then they will lose the lawyers as their tool. And then they grind. So by the way, not easy to have a lawsuit because you're still bootstrapped. mean, you just left a job, you have a kid, your wife is probably stressed out, like now we're getting sued. That's not fun. But your passion's driving. What's driving this?
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Yeah, you have to find that inner gear, right? And you have to believe in yourself so much that you can make it. You have to be almost get to be almost optimistic. Plus, plus, plus, plus, even more. And so you you get and you get hungry and you get creative and you start to learn like, is what am I foundationally relying on? You know, what am I? What do I what do I go to when I feel the most stress? How am I going to shake that off and be positive? Right. And it it gets you at your core.
of who you are in entrepreneurship and it can happen really quickly or it can happen after an exit, right? It can happen anytime on the journey. Wow. OK, so obviously lawsuit didn't stop you. You guys continued scaling. Let's talk a little about the scale, the grind, the long hours, the burnout. Did you have burnouts with that first venture? I'll tell you one thing about the lawsuit and this is a
You never know, right? Everything kind of can be a blessing in disguise, but we get that lawsuit and to get out of the lawsuit in month four of litigation, we went to mediation. So we're sitting in a room, you know this very well, but we're sitting in a room, in our table with our attorneys and the other folks are another room and their attorneys, got a mediator walking back and forth. That's just fun. I'm sure it's fun, you know, walking the park. We were there for, we got there at 8 a.m. and we left at 11 p.m. and it was the whole day.
And what we ended up giving them was, Hey, we're not going to sell this particular product to the market for two years. And we're going to put it on our website that we don't sell that product. We had an order from the Mexican customer at the time to sell the product. And we were like, Holy crap, what are we going to do? We had to go find a product now to serve that quotation that we sold to Mexican customer with a Chilean engineering firm. And it caused us to get really creative, really resourceful, found the right product. That product.
ended up eventually allowing us to scale. Wow. Where the other product that we had originally thought we were going to go after didn't has not gone to market yet. And so things happen. That's in disguise. 100 % of blessing in disguise. just a core principle for me is faith. And it just reinforced the faith. And what it does too is it says, okay, now I went through a hard time. I can go through another hard time because I believe in what I believe in. And I
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have seen that perseverance really matters. And so you develop that, I don't know if it's that trust in yourself or that, that willingness that, okay, that door closed. That's not always a bad thing. I can be open-minded to where the next door is going to go. Because every day is hard, right? And no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, it's hard. Exiting a business, that's hard too. mean, that- That's hard. It's hard. And so every bit of it is hard and you find those muscles and you develop those over time. And, yeah, I mean that-
I'll say to you a little bit, it's been on my mind recently is creativity. that's like that Mexican customer that we got. Yeah. I had to fly down alone to Mexico and do a deal ultimately in Spanish. They knew a little bit English. knew not much Spanish and there were at least 17 people in the room and little old Andy. I was scared to death. And so I asked a friend, dad was retired. He was, I forget where the truth is from. If his dad would go with me and act as a
business partner in the deal because he spoke Spanish. And so this gentleman, I fed him and we ate together and he sat in on the meeting just to make sure things were like, okay. And you gotta do crazy stuff you wouldn't normally do or that they don't teach you in corporate America, right? Yeah. And I feel like sometimes you need to step into that persona that you are in your mind or want to be in your mind. But maybe you feel like I'm not there yet, but you gotta go and play. Like you have to go and start running.
And, and like, just keep running, jump over the hoops or go over the mountain, whatever you need to do. mean, I totally agree. it really, it's, it's all here. Like you have to invent it's a hundred percent in your head. I asked a mentor five years ago. We were talking about when you start a company, you launch it, right. And when you get to momentum phase, that's where every founder wants to be, because that's when you start to really scale and grow and have fun. And our first business, we got to momentum phase right before we exited.
And I'll, Hey man, we're starting this new business again, business number three or four, stupid hard. We're having the same problems and struggles we had, you know, 20 years ago. How, what determines the speed between launching your business and momentum phase? I was like, do you think determines that? And he was like, two things, Andy, mindset and resourcefulness. That's it. If you have those two things, which what you just said, right. It's in your mind and knowing and being able to put yourself out there and
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and break away. That's what I loved about Miami last week. I got there and it's this it's this immigrant mentality that I think entrepreneurs need where it's like, okay, I mean, you're preaching to the choir, but yes, my community doesn't know that. My community doesn't know. Absolutely. You get into a talk about it. Yeah. And you have to now go make business to survive. That's different language in a different country.
in a different culture with different people who may not understand you. Right. So the question is then, so how do you do that? Right. How do you do that? Well, you got to take every limit that you have on you that you've put on yourself or that others have hung on for you that you're carrying and you got to strip it away. Like I'm running on the boardwalk and I'm seeing a lady shooting fitness videos in full display of everybody and she's got her whole community online. Why? She doesn't care what people think.
She's not being, she don't care that people are sitting on the benches judging her. Some are like, Ooh, some are like, you know? And so she doesn't care. She's on limits off. Or you've got a gentleman from Cuba who got into the United States and is now driving Uber or Lyft and learning English and learning his ways. that immigrant mentality. I saw it last week. I was like, how, how do you win at the game? One, you have to take all the limits off. Two, you have to be just insanely creative. Take all limits off and get wildly creative.
and forget what everybody else is And the resourceful part of it too, because you don't have the resources. know, I recently, you know, I've launched a couple of businesses, you know, besides the law firm that we run here. And, you know, I recently went to an event in Dallas, you know, and I met someone who came from the oil and gas, you know, a person about my age and, you know, comes from generations of influence and abilities. And I'm like, man, it must be really cool.
to just like, you know, you have a family name and you just start, you know, but for me, it's like, I'm the first one here. So I'm like, why don't we have, you know, I remember when I launched the firm, had like this old computer and, I think my husband, gave us, gave the firm, got $5,000 loan to like buy, I don't know what we needed, email, whatever. And it's like, you know, old computer, you know, and I'm actually happy to be like, you know, I've had all these other computers we bought, we got iPads now we got beautiful stuff.
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But we started with what we had, which is that old computer that we brought from like, I don't know, who knows from California, way back in the day, was zero money. was invest when you're poor, you're paying your student debt. So yeah, I love it. I love it. And I mean, that's a great point. And we need more of that hunger, the hunger, because I think some of our country has become very complacent. We're very comfortable because nobody understands, like everybody's doing pretty well.
Like, you know, obviously we have poverty, but we don't have like kids like literally starving at the rate that, you know, in some other countries or some of the other issues that are come from the country, you know, but going back to that thought, everything is in your head. But one of the other things I see, we have some people coming to us with the abundance mentality, but we also have a lot of people with a more the scarcity mindset.
because they do have scarce resources back home. And so they come here with that. And then you get into the cheating, the cutting corners and doing things. And so I actually, work with a lot of immigrants or call it foreign founders. And sometimes, you know, we have these conversations about guys, you know, this is plenty, there's plenty here for everybody. There's plenty clients for everybody.
But it's a joy, honestly, to work with a segment because they really are looking for every possibility. It's challenging. Yeah. So that's a big one. I grew up in small town Alabama and small town USA. so there you had people who had really some have never left the town or they would do an annual vacation and it was, you know, call it lower to medium middle class. And if you had something that meant they didn't have something.
Right. And so it's, that's a huge one in that abundance piece. That's a whole different light switch in itself. And you can switch that into there's enough for everyone. got to add a, launching a little AI automation agency and I had a call with a potential founder and he, he was talking about, aren't there so many of these companies doing it? I'm like, I don't know right now. We're just collaborating. World's changing so fast. mean, it wasn't a competition or he versus them or any of that. was just a, it was just a collaboration and a partnership. So it's a different mindset.
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Totally. I love that abundant versus scarcity topic. That's a fun one. Yeah. you know, you mentioned faith, which is also a big part of my family and my background also. And, you know, it took time to step into that abundance mindset, which is not just like, it's just believe in abundance. It's just like, it. Live like there's enough for you. Build your business like there is enough for you. Because ultimately, my belief is God put us all on earth and there's enough for everybody.
And where there is scarcity for others is because some have been greedy and not allowed others to take, but there's enough. Right. And so, you know, that's one of the messages for founders. They're probably listening. There's enough just fine. Be resourceful, be smart about it, be bootstrapped about it, be empathetic, be charismatic, you know, all of that is the whole package. so Andy, let's talk a little bit about your exit. So how many exits have you had? If you can share.
Yep, so I've had I exited business number one in 2012 and it was for the financial folks out there Considered a recap by a private equity company So they private equity bought us had an exit in 2020 to a strategic buyer So a totally different buyer persona, right and then have had some businesses go completely belly-up which were total dumpster fires That's an exit. That's a big fat zero. That's a negative So I've had they happen. Yeah, and they happen so I and
Um, three or four, anything else would have been a really small, like just a flip, but had one, two really good exits and then one really big dumpster fire. Yeah. So, you know, okay. You, you, love, I love talking to you because you talk about a lot of the things that I already have in my head. Okay. So first question, your first exit, how did it impact your life? Cause it's the first time and it's like, you know what it says? I'm selling my baby. How does it impact your life to exit for the first time?
Our baby, we we 100 % called it our baby. That was our baby. That was the rest of our life. Our kids were going to take it over and we were going to, we were going to have this thing last forever. So we were in year five. We had grown it to about 12 and a half million in revenue. We were doing little over 4 million in EBITDA. Right. And so good little business. And I got a piece of paper in the mail that said, Hey, we want to buy your business. I was like, Oh, I didn't know you could sell business.
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And I put it on the fax machine. Like we had one of them things. I put it on the fax machine. And two months later, a partner in our industry called and said, Hey, Andy, we're looking to buy your business if you're interested. And I was like, whoa, two people now. So I didn't know brokers existed. I didn't know anything. So I, called the private equity company. I called a strategic and we ran a process. When I say we ran a process, it was my partner and I who lived in Europe telling me what he thought.
me taking that and going to the private equity company and saying, hey, here's our thing. Strategic, here's our thing. And it ultimately was like, you're going to pay X percent of the multiple. So you're going to pay six times. You're going to pay six point five times. And we went with the private equity company because our baby, our brand would stay. Right. OK. Right. And and what I did is part of their portfolio and they continue to operate it. Yeah. 100 percent. And then what I didn't realize is strategic was buying us
to then resell, they were already selling their business. So they were gonna arbitrage the thing and then flip it. Cool, I didn't know none of that existed. So we chose a private equity company, due diligence took us nine months. Why? Because we didn't know what was supposed to happen. You weren't ready. Yeah, I mean, just didn't know you were selling until somebody said, buying you, I'm buying it by you. And it ain't happening like that.
It's a hot mess, man. We had seven companies rolled up into this brand. We had all these different books. They were buying a single company, so we had to create it in there. We had all these forensic accountants and all these people coming through our doors. Only reason it took nine months and not four years was because I had said, hey, tax laws are changing at the end of 2012. We to get this done by December 31st. And we got it done on like December 28th or something, but it took nine months. And so if there's one piece of advice
to give a founder today, be exit ready. Be exit ready from day one. From day one. then as far as like my life, so it changed because what I realized at that time is coming from small town America with going on vacation one time a year, never felt poor, had great parents, just lived life. I saw above the clouds how everyone else was living. And I was like, hey, this is really great. You can make...
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generational impact now through entrepreneurship because you're able to give back. And I'll never forget my fondest favorite moment ever of building a business is the, there was this old saying back in 2007 and it's still around, but if you make it to year five, you've made it as a business. Well, we made it to year five and we were like, Hey, we made it. We're like, going to stay around for a little while. And then we threw a company wide party. we had, I think 74 employees. invited all the spouses.
We had like a full day of golf and spa and all this stuff. And we had a big party at the end. so a lady came up to me and she said, Hey, Andy, you don't realize this, but you've changed our lives for the better. You employ my husband. works up in Chattanooga. And I was just like, wow, even now I get to chill. I was like, that's what it's about building business impact families. if, yes, that, if that young welder goes home to us, the young family and can be positive, they feel it, they live their best. So you just have this.
this impact because I once asked a, um, was in a group and I'm asked the guy said, how do we change the world? Like, I want to change the world. How do do it? It was like one person at a time. I was like, ah, it's gotta be a better way, but it's truly one person at a time. I think he's totally right. person. Absolutely. And that's part of your stewardship as a human here on earth. And you'll be steward with the impact and the success that you've had and you're going to continue to have. And then what do do with that?
And so that is so important because helping, I mean, we can grow all the businesses that we want to grow. And, I think there is a little bit of perseverance, a little bit of charisma, the empathy. There is a formula that you will be successful, you know, achieve some success. But then is that is that what it's all about? You know, and it's not it's it's it's not all about that. Right. I don't know that I really had put my finger on it. I was saying things like infinite impact.
We're going to make impact. I don't know that I truly signed name on the line of no understanding that until last week. So I was in Miami and, and I'm watching there's two days of emerge America's right. had David John, come on. And they had pit bull. on. Pit bull was like the last thing, two o'clock in the afternoon. You thought everybody was going to be gone. Everybody came back to listen to it. And I'm, watching, I'm saying, okay, this guy came from nothing. Zero to hero. Great. But he,
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But what's he doing now? Right now he's focused on building schools around the country because a teacher, single teacher poured into his life while back. So I started looking back and I'm like, the people who really have this thing figured out called entrepreneurship is to get to a certain level where they can find how they want to leave a better impact on this world for others. People out there who are struggling, who are not entrepreneurs right now, who they don't, not everybody has to be an entrepreneur, but
How do they leave an impact other people so they change their life? And I'm like, now I'm like, that's the calling. And so looking around always for what is it that I, how can I best leave that impact in the future? What can I build alongside of collaboration that can change the world? And I think if we all found whatever's important to us, it just magnifies this place like crazy. Right. And you know, to your point also,
For those of, cause not everybody's an entrepreneur. Not everybody is going to own the business. Somebody, you some people may not be interested or just, you know, in a different path, but even those people, their impact is their children. And if they don't have children, their neighbor, and if they don't have the neighbor, know, somebody within their realm, because everybody's surrounded by people. And ultimately that's what it is. Right. It is beautiful to be able to build a business and even, you know, at least for us, you know, the different things that we do.
you know, we help a lot of people sell their business. help them sell their business. And then we actually start talking to them, you know, once we get the L I and like, okay, this is real. But even with the guys that are scaling, like, what is this for? You know, we have a little bit of a, of a therapy talk. What, what, what is this for? You know, how's your family doing? How's your kid doing? You know, how's your dog doing? Do you spend time with, with those around you? Cause those are the people that ultimately matter.
Right. Beyond the successful and the glamour of the exits and all of that. That's so true. I thought I was this big, bad, like, entrepreneur guy who could handle stress and all that stuff. There was a moment I asked my kids, I had three kids and they were at home. I was like, your old dad here, this guy, this OG is never stressed, right? Like you guys don't sit, I'm just like living it up. I'm kidding. They're like, dad, you're crazy. You're stressed all the time. Right. They see it on you. And so it's building that.
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building that freedom, that whatever, you can get around that. And I think there's an interesting topic too, you Nell, you talked about it with mentoring and psychologically being there with the sellers of the business. When they sell their business, there's another psychological thing that happens is you got to kind of figure out and go through and be prepared for it. It's like, I see it with other families. When your kids leave home, right?
You got to prepare mentally and physically for that emptiness. When you prepare mentally and physically for that business now, that baby, if it's your baby to be gone. And it's a, there's a whole lot of topics around all of that. Absolutely. But, but the other one that is huge is that, you know, you touched on it. It's like you, you made generational impact in your kids, you know, depending on the size of the exit, but then, you know, the conversation that we do, we do like a little cheers the evening before.
we know the people that we help. and I don't believe in these good luck is bad luck. No, it's just like, you know what? We're, we're on the finish line. We, got this and we're signing. There's nothing stopping us from signing next day. we get together and then, know, this is if, if, it's your first exit, these like your regular guy, I'm sure you're making good money, but the next day you're going to get a few million bucks in the account that can mess with your heart.
that can mess with your mind. And so you need to be prepared because again, you know, it's great to have the resources, but what are you going to use them for? If it's just to just pocket them and, you know, you're at the one point you're going to die. And then are you going to be remembered by the guy that just pocketed all the money here? Or are you going to be remembered because you are making impact. You are changing the world. You don't need to be famous to be changed the world by where you can be. You can be not famous and impact your entire community.
Your household, I mean, it doesn't need to be so big because you can change like the, people example, one teacher, that teacher technically through him is now impacting all these other people and communities. It's huge. So beautiful. that's it. And you're right. It's yeah. Even that day you referred to first time founder, the next day you sign, you see the wires come in, you got all this money in your account. You're like,
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still you you think back still the proudest moment for me is not that day it's that it's that lady coming up to me right and so it's it comes back to the people and the impact and the money will always find its way to figure out whatever it is you know yeah so andy how old were you when you did your first exit in in 2012 so i would have been early 30s 34 33 okay so after that you got you got your wires you got all that what was next
I mean, cause I know you've been, you know, you have your own venture group. Tell us more about what you're doing post-exit in this few years. So my biggest recommendation, there's lots of recommendations, but one recommendation to exited founders is to take an intentional pause. Right. I didn't take an intentional pause. I got a phone call. I'm throwing the football with my little young kid. The neighbors think I'm, they don't know what I'm doing. I'm retired or I lost my job. They don't know. And I get a phone call. It was a former employee. Hey, Andy, man.
I've got this business service company, oil and gas. We're, we're starting to grow two people and I can't handle it anymore. I, all I know to do is call you. I was like, ah, cool. All I know to do me, Andy was to acquire the business. So right. Started right back up next day. We acquired his business. So that's now we're on the buyer side, right? And ran that business until that was 2017, ran it until 2020. And we.
We did the first company and we bootstrapped and we're like, we're going to make dollar by dollar. The next company we thought we were like, we had gotten non humble. I had gotten very prideful. I was like, I'm a rock star. I just exited this company. Everything I touch is gold. Let's go. And we had built this entire business way over our skis. We had over invested and ultimately we exited. It was just to get basically the cash back more or less, but it taught me.
It reminded me the importance of the bootstrap mentality, why that's so important and why that's so critical. And it was a great business. We grew it. was, we made a lot of impact in a lot of people's lives. All that was good, but financially it was not the home run ball. Like number one was, but I, I then learned starting kind of at that point that there are a lot of opportunity in the marketplace for good businesses. How do we, how do we help those business owners as founders?
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grow their business versus us trying to be the end all be all acquire and build a portfolio of businesses that we own. So now it's a little bit different, mature strategy around helping and partnering with other founders and getting in the canoe with them, being a part of the struggle, but being able to pour some wisdom and some advice and some, you know, some we've done it before kind of kind of mojo into their bucket. so
Yeah, it's a fun game. love entrepreneurship, but we've learned how to kind of do it in a way that fits us better. Right. And it's beautiful, right? Because it's a learning cycles. And I feel like everybody I meet that has done several exits, it's like your version, the first exit is one version of you. Your second is a different version. And because you obviously accumulate again, a wealth of wisdom that will inform your decisions going forward, your interests. know, we get older, we know better, you know, all of that.
So that's really fabulous. So you mentioned today, what you tell us more about your focus right now is basically pouring into other founders. You have an organization you have, tell us more about that. So I've realized that where I've been very successful and very unsuccessful, found the ingredients, right? Like we talked about it with the partners early on, but I found the ingredients for me that makes my skills capabilities a success with a co-founder. And what that is is like,
help, I'm really high performing when I can help a founder tell their story, help them build their teams, help them align the golden thread through the entire organization. And so I've gotten my swim lane really focused into kind of emerging and innovative tech products. And I'm not a tech guy, but I can understand how to communicate value and complicated stuff pretty simply. And so how do we help tech founders who are subject matter experts in their thing?
How do we help them build businesses and launch businesses and scale them and then ultimately get the right people around them to exit those businesses? So my swim lane is kind of that tech emerging innovative tech, really focused around the industries that have come from oil and gas waste water treatment. Founded a company called Blacksmith Ventures five years ago because in venture number one, Blacksmiths were kind of early creators. And when we would go to, we needed fabrication partners and we would go.
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travel all over through small town America and we would call the little fabricators blacksmiths on the corner because they were entrepreneurs. They had gotten their little business up to a certain level, but they were scared to really grow to that next phase. wouldn't work two shifts because it meant rocking the boat of the way they did things. So to kind of honor them and help them sort of understand they too could have an exit because a lot of those business owners just turn the lights off and go away.
blacksmith became kind of a word that I love and sort of figuratively brings me back to that first venture and aligns me with the people we're really trying to help, which are those people who have built real businesses or want to build real businesses, don't know how to scale it, don't know how to exit it. so helping them get the tools, the automation nowadays, the AI to scale it and then getting the right people around them to exit it. so, yeah, I love it. It's a, it's a playground. You also,
I've learned you got to be very discerning. Like I like to chase shiny objects and not every business idea is a good idea. I've learned that. Right. So you, sort of, you're a constant cycle of learning. And even now, like I'm 47 now, like it's, I'm still learning. Like even last week in Miami, talked about, wow, now I see how, what the end goal is because I think one, one thing that has kept me now on the right path is getting really clear as to what I want that in game to look like.
Like if I look back, what do I want that journey to look like and protect that? What kind of lifestyle do you want? of all that, protect that and impact where you can, right? Yeah. No, that's amazing. That's amazing. Well, this has been so great to hear from you, Andy. You have a fabulous story. I'm so excited to see how you're going to continue.
to impact all the entrepreneurs and then make the impact in the world. I mean, it's just beautiful. We're free. know, something that I actually had this realization is pretty silly, but you know, enjoying life is like as simple as taking a walk and breathing. Breathing is free. Like you don't pay for air and pretty much you can walk if you want. And so entrepreneurship should feel like that, should feel like, you know, you can do it. You can do it. You can just...
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find your resources, whatever tools you have at hand. And it feels like everybody I've talked to has that. It's like, I just had to make do with what I had and make it work. And it's been amazing to hear. And I guess your last piece of advice, we talked a little bit about be ready on day one. Anything else we talked about, Carisma, what should be the takeaway for the founders that are listening to us? Yeah, I think if you are looking to start your business,
Sell, sell, sell, learn the art of selling. When it comes time to scale your business, make sure you've got the right tech and talent around you to do that. And then when you are ready to exit your business, make sure you have built a brand that is exit ready and you've got the right people around you to make sure you're systematized and you're exiting because the right people around you will make that exit process so much different. Our second business that we exited,
took us three months and was essentially a seamless process because we knew the game. so having those people around early and through the journey makes a real big difference. so, that's it. That's awesome. That's what we tell our guys when they sell, you have to be ready because you never know when it's coming. It might be any day. And then speaking the language.
speaking the language of sale, where the two languages, especially when you're negotiating is the financial and the legal. You gotta know those languages. You gotta get ready. That's so interesting. Well, maybe the next time we'll talk a little bit about getting ready, because that's a whole other, it's a whole other rabbit hole to how do you get a business ready? I'll tee it up with this. Our private equity buyer, when he came to buy us, his question to me, and I didn't understand the time was, when you hire an attorney, will you make sure you get a deal attorney, please? Like, huh? What does that mean, a deal attorney?
And it changed the game forever for us because we did find ultimately a deal of time, but game changer. yes, you have to, there's, there's a, yes, the whole topic of getting exit ready in the process around that and the who around that is important. We'll, we'll have Andy version two. We'll have a getting ready. I love to have that conversation too. Because that is very true. And a deals attorney is somebody who knows business and legal, but probably.
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a business person with legal background. It's like, it's a perfect deal attorney. So, well, Andy, we are so excited and look forward to talking again soon. You're a rock star friend. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Exit-Ed. We are passionate about supporting founders at every stage of their journey, from scaling up to planning an exit. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to me if you would leave us a five-star rating on your preferred platform. If you know a founder who would benefit from our insights or wants to learn more about exiting a business, let them know about our podcast, Exit-Ed. To stay in touch with us, you can follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and many other platforms.
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