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Build a Business Worth Buying brings you candid conversations with industry leaders, M&A experts, and successful founders. Learn advanced strategies to scale, optimize, and prepare your business for an acquisition—because building a business worth buying starts with smart decisions today.
Jeremiah Curvers (00:00)
These years that could compromise your personal life, your family, and all that, in my personal opinion, are not worth any money in the world. think of it this way: could you shorten that span in order to have a decent earnout? Maybe not as much as you wanted to, but at least keep your sanity, so to speak.
Aaron Alpeter (00:53)
Hey everybody, welcome back to Build a Business Worth Buying. I'm your host, Aaron Alpeter. Today I have one of my favorite Montrealers on the podcast. So Jeremiah Curvers is the founder and CEO of Polysleep. He built Polysleep in one of the most unforgiving consumer categories, and that is mattresses. It is competitive, it's operationally very heavy, physically very heavy. I tried to move a mattress this past weekend. Very difficult. it's expensive to market, it's difficult to differentiate, and it's full of companies that have raised enormous sums of money who
try to convince consumers that sleep is both deeply personal as well as something that's highly shippable. What makes Jeremiah really interesting for this show is not simply that he built a Canadian sleep brain and scaled it and took it through a transaction. It's what in my mind happened afterward. And that's that he chose to stay on with a version of the company that he sold and he continued as as an operator. And it's it's much more of a complicated story than the usual founder exit narrative that we have because selling is is so often treated as the finish line.
And for many founders, a transaction is not the end of the relationship with the business. It can really be the beginning. It's it's a moment where the change of control happens, incentives change, decisions change, and the founder decides if what it means to keep leading something, they're no longer fully owned. And so in this conversation, we're gonna dive into the psychology of that decision, what happens when you build something, sell part of it, and then have to keep showing up for the next chapter. how does your relationship with your company change?
And what decisions become easier or harder. And so I'm I'm very excited for this conversation about exits and and more specifically what comes after the exit. So Jeremiah, thank you so much for being on Build a Business Worth Buying.
Jeremiah Curvers (02:30)
Thank you so much for inviting me, Aaron. Thanks for great intro as well.
Aaron Alpeter (02:34)
No, my my pleasure. I'd love to just start by maybe you can share a little bit about yourself and Polysleep and kind of w how did you find yourself getting to to this point?
Jeremiah Curvers (02:43)
Yeah, it's an interesting story, one that I wouldn't even believe myself if you were to go back call it ten ten plus years ago. originally my background is in graphic design and animation for video games. was not the best at it, so pivoted towards something that I was good at, which is sales, building strong relationship. And eventually I ended up early in my career at the Yellow Pages group, where I had
management role quite early. I was, I think, 23 when I had my first management role. learned a lot there and ended up in a startup that was incubated by the Yellow Pages group to migrate their national, their biggest account revenue towards digital assets. So I was in Martech for call it another six years and had the opportunity to work with some of the biggest Canadian brands, Bell, Wawanisa, Videotron, a lot of telco, a lot of
large retailer as well. and understood a lot of the complexity behind how to make a brand alive online. And what happened right before I started Polysleep is that Casper, one of the largest players in the US, was looking for a supplier in Canada to attack that market. It happened that this person was a good friend of mine and that he told me based on your experience, you know what? Maybe you should try something, because I think
Canadian brand would really perform well. And with your background, you could do well. And my first reflex was like, absolutely not. I know nothing about mattresses. I'm not interested in this. It's such a boring category. And just like life is great at just throwing curveballs. A couple of weeks after that conversation, I hurt myself double herniated at a disc, bedridden for a couple of months.
And this is when it started, just going the extra mile in my mind, doing its work. And after barely a month, I contacted my friend and said, you know what, let let's let's do a couple of prototypes. If I can convince myself I could make the best sleeping surface to recuperate on, I think I might have a good product market fit. This is how it started. So he was crazy enough to follow me in building these prototypes.
Made about twenty two of them before going to market with the polysleep mattress. And that's how the story started basically.
Aaron Alpeter (05:07)
I love it. And and so how long were you building polysleet before you decided that, hey, an exit is something that I'm interested in pursuing?
Jeremiah Curvers (05:17)
So I did a mistake that many founders in in following, let's say, a sequence like I did do. And it's not even planning for an exit when I started a business. It was my first venture, it was my first business, and one of the biggest mistakes I made is I I didn't foresee what a five-year exit plan could look like. So what happened is we had great
Traction. You know, we we were amongst the fastest Canadian company in terms of growth after three or four years. everything, every signal was like, whoo, we're gonna hit the moon, you know, we're we're we're not gonna stop. And it worked up until the pandemic because it there was just a natural evolution where there was so many, so much money poured by all the competitors and the category towards moving.
From retailer who were offering at the time a very poor experience to a digital experience where you can try the mattress at home. So us, including all the local competitors in North America and Europe, went on that bandwagon. And it grew so fast up until the pandemic, where it was almost 50% of the category being purchased online. And then when stores started reopening, it not only slowed down, it declined.
And at the time, this is where I start already seeing my competitors like Andy, Silicon Snow, Hush, and some other company, they were either purchased by large retail group or going bankrupt. And I was like, okay. I'm not in a position to be attractive to a retailer right now. And by the time I will be attractive, I'm I might be too late.
Because the market will consolidate. So what am I really good at? And how can I pivot toward an exit? Because at some point, you cannot be the smallest fish in the pond It's not gonna work out. so that's one of the hard lessons I've learned, you know, after five years of occupation. Not having a plan is not a plan.
Aaron Alpeter (07:32)
Yeah. I I can imagine that that is there's a lot of things happening at the same time where the economy's turning, the business is there, you see what's going on with your competitors, and you're you're probably very busy trying to solve all of those problems and now you have the added burden of trying to actively sell your business. talk to me about what what what that was like.
Jeremiah Curvers (07:54)
So there was a lot of pressure in our category because of the 150 competitors that were there, but also a lot of cheaper brand emerging from the Asian market, pushing marketplaces, pushing other retailers to make their own white label products. And unfortunately that hurt the category as a whole. Bed in a Box, who originally was a great delivery method, become synonym with
Cheap mattresses. So that really hurt us in a way where we had to fight that perception back having a premium product. So that's the first thing we had to deal with. On top of that, well, nobody can escape the the gaf attacks, I call it. You know, Google, Amazon, Facebook. Their algorithms are just so well built that as soon as you start making money and there's a couple of competitors in your category.
Guess what? Before any competitors, the first one who are gonna make good money with you guys is them. you you will not stay ahead of the ad spend in any given category. They're they're just gonna continue to grow and you'll have to find new technique to remain profitable in a category where we have very little repeat, right? the average lifespan of a mattress is between seven and ten years.
That was one of the challenge. And the second challenge was okay, amongst the retail landscape, who might be a good potential buyer? And the way we built our brand was really for longevity and having best in class customer experience, not maximizing profit, having the nicest ebida at the bottom line. We're really trying to resonate with being the brand, especially in Quebec and
Rest of Canada that is synonym with durability, longevity, and quality. So we really spent a lot of money building that brand. And that unfortunately had a major impact when it comes to, you know, the Ebitda because we sponsored teams like the Rampart for Quebec, and that was like a a lot of money. We had NASCAR supports, we did research with athletes. we did a lot of these initiatives that cost money, which
Work in the long run, but when you're planning to exit, you will not be able to monetize that right away. So that was a big problem. On the other hand, though, because we were core to our business, which which would what I mean by that is we were producing mattresses, pillows, and really element that will improve wellness through sleep. and we were gathering more and more customer, a bigger audience, we were better at analyzing that data.
What I did instead is pivot towards B2B in order to leverage all the data and experience we've had building that brand towards an audience that a lot of DTC brands were not even considering. So that's where the game completely changed. We built a separate sub-brand called PolySleep Signature with product curated for retailers. We started pivoting towards how can we
use our studio where we make all our picture to make a better product catalog for people who would like to go with a white label product. Because we understand the product market fits amongst different categories and types of people, how can we give advice other than just a foam specs and some colours for someone who would like to create a product for children, for example? So that's what we started doing. Adapting our tech stack accordingly.
And then that's when I went to market. And I had a very limited amount of potential buyers who were in the manufacturing world. And I was using a playbook that worked well in the United States by a company now called 3Z Brand. They merged a couple of DTC brands that were struggling on their own, and they actually purchased a manufacturing facility.
aggregated all these brand and now because they're vertically integrated, they have a better bottom line. They were able to scale faster, better, have more control. So that's the playbook I sold to the company who bought us, Dump Foam.
Aaron Alpeter (12:23)
Yeah. No, that that's interesting. talk me through 'cause it almost sounds like you were in this position where you were building the business the right way, as if you were gonna hold it forever. Right. You were doing the the long, arduous work of actual brand building as opposed to just advertising and and acquisition. And yet you still felt this pressure that, hey, I I don't know if I will survive on my own if I continue to work in this way.
can you just talk about like what was that tension like in terms of, hey, I I know that I need to give this up some way, but but are you know are they gonna value this the same way that I value it? Am I gonna stick around with the company? Like what was going through your your emotions at that time when you were really feeling confident about the trajectory that you're that you were on, but maybe feeling a little insecure about your ability to to stay the course?
Jeremiah Curvers (13:19)
I think you bring up a point that is quite important to mention here. Anyone who is in a crowded category that is hitting that maturity level, think of it as Formula One. Between the first and the last one, there's barely a couple of seconds if if there's any seconds. So it's ludicrous to think that only the good one will survive. They're all good.
After a couple years, everybody who remains there, they're all good. If you were to score them on 100%, the number one is maybe at 99, and the the last one might be at 94. So they're they're doing everything right. You know, you can swap digital agencies as often as you want. When everything is done properly, the the level of optimization, you're gonna get a couple of points here and there, but that's it. So that
Basically, what's what was happening in in our landscape is it was just getting harder and harder and harder to get to the extra mile without diversification, without retail footprint, without these massive investments. And these massive investments, this is where at some point you're you're you're asking yourself, am I the right person to do it? Or
Am I better being part of a group that have that expertise, that have these people who have that experience in order to continue to grow to the next level? growth is really not linear. And sometimes the step is just too high for yourself to go over the next one. And and that was that was the reality at the time when I was considering selling. It's just that I would have loved continuing growing organically, but I think the the industry.
was going too fast for me to continue to do that alone. And and that's where I started looking at vertical integration. That's why I also consider retail, but it was a complete different positioning. So I would say that's probably one of the biggest lesson. now in terms of valuation, well, it's the hard reality. Nowadays it's
What's at bottom line and what is the multiple people are willing to pay? You know, people are not buying company not to make a great deal. I'll put it this way. They want to make a good deal. So ultimately, yes, you can spin your story. Yes, there might be synergies, but an Excel document remains an Excel document. It's hard to to change a number on on the bottom line.
Aaron Alpeter (15:57)
Yeah, for sure. did you ever consider selling it and walking away, or was it always looking for somebody that was gonna come in and partner with you, but you still wanted to lead it? And and how might you have gone about the the sale process differently if if you were making sure that you went with the deal or didn't go with the deal?
Jeremiah Curvers (16:14)
So it takes at least, in my opinion, two or three very good resources in a company for the CEO to start working on the business rather than in the business. I really started seeing that shift when I was able to hire my three directors, the one that are still with me now post acquisition. So right now, when I wanted to sell, the idea was to how can I make sure that brand, because I'm loyal to the brand I built.
I have a responsibility towards this brand. And this is where maybe I differ from other people, because I think building a brand that have a mode, a mission, is as equally, if not probably, in my opinion, more important than the earnout you can get and what's gonna be left in your pocket. You're not going through 10 years of excruciating pain building something as hard as building as a brand, just to think of the multiple. Well, some people do.
Some people have home runs, good for them. But if you want to have, in my opinion, if you want to build something that is potentially, I'm not saying there's guarantees, but potentially is going to outlive you, you got to do it the right way. And this unfortunately takes time. So being able to post acquisition ensure and solidify the core value of the company, make sure these are transferable assets rather than
Than something that dies out when the founder leaves was something important and something I'm really happy to be part of. was there a moment where I was thinking of leaving? No, because up until now, I was still necessary. But you get to a point as a as a founder and CEO where you you when you think like, hey, you know what, my team is solid enough to run the business where I can just
Think about the next five years plus, when you get to that moment, it's it's really, really rewarding. And I hope a lot of founders will get there. It's just at some point you gotta accept that I think if the business continue to grow at a pace it grows, I might not be the right person to be the operator. And this is where you have to have enough maturity to let it go and give it to somebody else.
Aaron Alpeter (18:31)
Yeah. How do you how do you recognize that though? Because as the business grows, you're also growing as a leader. You're learning from your mistakes, you're becoming more confident, things like that. But you're right, like if if the business is growing faster than your ability to grow, there becomes a gap there. And so how do you recognize if the business that you love is better off being led by someone else versus your ability to hold on to it? Because you don't want to be the bottleneck. You don't you don't want be told that you know you're no longer
Fit to run the business.
Jeremiah Curvers (19:01)
Well in in my opinion is
How can you accelerate that at the same speed it was early on? And if you feel, and you have to be honest with yourself, at some point you're gonna feel like either you're gassing out or the market you're going towards is not familiar weather And yes, of course you can learn. But if I was in a position where we were grow, we would grow.
By acquisition, which at some point mature business do, I know I don't have that experience. I know I'm not the best person to do it. So at that point, I might want an advisor seat or a board seat and put someone who has that experience to bring it to the next level. Or if B2Bs continue to go on that path, the next natural frontier for us would be really going heavy in the United States.
I don't have the network I have here in Canada in the US. I don't think I'll be the right person to accelerate that as fast as we could. And that's what I mean by having the maturity to accept that as an operator, you have strength, you have weaknesses. My strengths are really around my capacity to build a brand, building a strong brand, my capacity to aggregate a small team of very efficient people, especially now with.
the advance of AI technology, building a very solid stack. But when it comes to scaling by acquisition, when it comes to opening fifty, a hundred retail stores within a couple of years, it's it's just not me, right? So if we get to this point, I will have to step down and and pick somebody else to to do the job.
Aaron Alpeter (20:40)
Yeah. Now after you went through the acquisition and you decided you were gonna stay on, what what was that like? I mean, was it kind of, you know, you were used to making the shots? I don't know if you had partners or investors beforehand, but there's there's a moment there where you recognize that you're no longer in charge and that you are executing someone else's directive and hopefully you have a shared vision and things like that. But what was that moment like where you recognized that
You know, this this this isn't my company anymore. I d I I still am the founder, but it's not mine the way it was before the acquisition.
Jeremiah Curvers (21:16)
First off, it's it's always a bittersweet situation where you gotta let go of the baby. it's it's not your brand anymore. And just accepting that is is kind of weird. but at the same time, I think you have to and you will always have to be a good salesperson when it comes to attracting great talent, when it comes to talking to banks or investors, and it's the same with a board, you know, when when you're a subsidiary like us, the good thing is.
Because we're a subsidiary, we are still in control somehow of what we want to do. But you got to sell the vision, you gotta sell the idea. and it's not just to a bank anymore. It's it's to people who own the assets of the company. So being able to understand what they want for their future and how you align these with the needs of the company in order to execute your vision is a fine line that you need to,
be really agile at crossing sometimes or not. so I would say this is probably the hardest thing to do. But early stage the hardest thing to do will be to convince a bank to give you money or investor or or you know building your first prospectus because you haven't built it and you're talking to a VC firm and they want more than they should. So it's just a different headache.
But it's it's a good one if you find synergy with your investors, which is something I would really advise people to do is selling to a financial partner is a good thing, but try to make sure they have someone internally who understand the nature of your business and that you're not just a number at at the end of a balance sheet. Cause that could cause, of course, something a little bit harder to manage down the road than finding someone who understands your industry and and that is synergetic with the company you sell.
Aaron Alpeter (23:08)
Yeah, it it you know, it's not uncommon for a founder to go through a deal and for there to be some sort of earnout period. And I know that, you don't have to look far on the internet to find horror stories of earnouts being set too high or people having misaligned incentives and and just kind of having a lot of friction there. What advice do you have for founders that are sticking around after the deal, either as part of the deal or or by their own volition?
Jeremiah Curvers (23:16)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Alpeter (23:36)
to really make sure that you're on the same page or if you're not on the same page that you get on their page as opposed to trying to convince them over to what you're doing.
Jeremiah Curvers (23:45)
In my case, one thing that I and it's not conventional, in order to be able to pursue your role, whoever acquires the company, make sure the earnout suffice to make you happy. And that anything tied to performance, you can see it or you shall see it as a bonus. The idea of thinking you're gonna hit a hundred percent of the earnout based on performance over three years.
I mean, let's be realistic. Did we really knew three years down the road what the post-pandemic era would look like or the current tariff situation looks like? It's just so hard to predict. So, of course, it it's an incentive to continue to push, but at the same time, in my opinion, the longevity of the brand, ensuring that rather I stay longer or not, that brand is is gonna be.
loyal and stay true to the to the moat we build, me and my team together, is as equally important as the money down the road. So the airnaut is one thing, but if it's the only kicker that keeps you in your company, yeah, maybe you should you should consider passing the rein faster. You have to be passionate about about the project still.
Aaron Alpeter (25:03)
Yeah. And and you know, I I think l people have lots of different reasons why they sell. Sometimes it is a loss of passion or just they're burnt out and go through this. what advice do you have for someone who is trying to think about like, all right, I either I'm handcuffed this thing for another couple of years, or I'm now able to focus on the things that I actually want to.
Jeremiah Curvers (25:24)
Yeah. So in term of earnout, if it's tied to performance and you're already tired, you gotta be honest with yourself. Will you have enough gas to get to that finish line? Because exhaustion is a real thing. Entrepreneurs or not, you can burn out and your health doesn't worth that extra couple of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, call it what you want.
These years that could compromise your personal life, your family, and all that, in my personal opinion, are not worth any money in the world. So think of it this way: could you shorten that span in order to have a decent earnout? Maybe not as much as you wanted to, but at least keep your sanity, so to speak. Right? So that's the first advice I would give. yes, you worked hard. Yes, you might not have hit the milestone you had in mind, but you know what? Hey, if you can conserve a bit of that energy.
And have a good time personally with your family, you might gain back that energy and your next venture might be exactly or more than what you expect. So don't burn yourself to the point where you're just the shell of yourself after after that venture. It's it's hard enough, I'm telling you, it's hard enough to go through the process of selling your baby that knowing you're gonna have to stick there for a couple of years in order to to get what's owed,
Takes another toll mentally on any founder. So make sure you have the energy to back it with. The second thing I would say is if you have the opportunity to negotiate something that is heavier on cash than future incentive, do it. Because that's going to relieve a lot of stress. You might not get what you want once again. But
Sometimes you better have something in your hand than just running after the carrots forever.
Aaron Alpeter (27:17)
Yeah, well that that's that's good advice. you mentioned that there was a point there where you just had to come to this realization that you no no longer owned your baby, right? That sounds very simple on the surface, but it's I'm sure there's a lot of layers to it. What did you do or how did you prepare yourself to let go in the way that you did?
Jeremiah Curvers (27:28)
Mm-hmm.
I I think it plays on two aspects. The first one is to realizing, because I spoke with a lot of CEO. at that time when you start selling, one one advice I would give people is you probably can afford a peer group like YPO or Vistage or something like that. do it because it's it's a very lonely world and having 10, 15 other CEOs that might have been through that process already.
Giving you their advice, their experience will help. That's the first thing. So surround yourself with great people who will support you during that transition period. so that's step one. Step two, understand that it is going to be very close to grief. You you you will have day where you're like, Man, it's gone, you know, and it it makes you sad, it makes you happy, but it it makes you go through that roller coaster of emotion.
And and yeah, it's it's just you have to go through that process where emotionally you're gonna go through ups and downs. and if you accept that, then you can start focusing on the rest, which is you know what? somebody else have the opportunity to bring your baby to the next level. And and I'm gonna give all the energy, all the experience I have to to do so. and that somebody else can be your.
executive team, it could be the new group who purchased the company. but that's how I find joy in continuing working with with my company now for for so long is I can still feel I make a difference, but I share a lot of the burden that I was alone carrying for for eight plus years before that.
Aaron Alpeter (29:28)
Yeah, because you mentioned you were a solo founder, right? Yeah. So I mean, right there with you. And I think being able to have other people on there that are bought into this and literally, like I think there's there's just this psychological safety that can come from that. what what got better for you once you had that safety net? Because I mean, what's so remarkable is that you sold your business and then you decided to stick around and you know you were expecting it to be easier, you know, you were kind of
Jeremiah Curvers (29:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Alpeter (29:56)
doing s it almost sounds like a d defensive posture with what was going on. But what what got better after you went through the deal?
Jeremiah Curvers (30:04)
the first thing I would say from an operation standpoint is that we were finally vertically integrated, meaning we had more control over our product, but that's on that's on the on the production side. For me, knowing that I got a larger entity supporting me that I can capitalize on was a plus, both psychologically, financially, but also from a product development standpoint, R D standpoint, etc. So there was a lot of positive there.
and I think ultimately if you find synergy with your buyer, it's just gonna make it just so much more exciting. It's it's just like the perfect the perfect marriage between, you know, someone who's complementary to you. And I feel like building what the company who acquired us have would have taken me another 10 years. And I had this
In a couple of months. Is it perfect? No. But it would have taken me taken me another 10 years to get there. And this is why I'm saying at some point when you get big enough, I understand the nature of businesses just growing by acquisition. It's because if your structure becomes slower, if if your boat gets bigger, it's just harder to be nimble. It's just harder to be iterative and and change things.
But being acquired by a company that have strong processes, that have, you know, proper department structure and all that gives you a lot of advantage as that nimble entity joining the boat.
Aaron Alpeter (31:42)
Yeah. Is there anything you can point to as like a an aha moment or like, okay, this is why I did it. This is you know, I have access to these capabilities, these teams, this infrastructure that kind of was that palpable burden off your shoulders.
Jeremiah Curvers (31:58)
Well, think of it this time. Any company that produces goods, we went from requiring to stock inventory, managing crazy cash flow to become just in time. Because we're we we don't even need a 3PL right now. We send the PO down the stairs, and we know that within a couple of weeks it's gonna be done. And we have 18 loading docks and the truck's gonna show up there. You know like how much simpler it is logistically.
To be able to say, like, no, our cash flow, where am I gonna get that inventory from and where it's gonna go? And yeah, this would have been hell to build.
And with your operation background you better you you probably know that more than anybody, so
Aaron Alpeter (32:46)
Yeah, I mean like third parties and middlemen are great, but sometimes there there are efficiencies in doing it yourself, just like you're talking about, yeah. Yeah. When when you think back about different buyers or other companies that you've mentored along the way, what do you think most people get wrong about founder led businesses?
Jeremiah Curvers (33:06)
I'll go even before that be when even before you consider
Thinking about selling your business, make sure your structure is built so that in 24 hours you can just dump document in a data room. And you know, you can find plenty of checklists online. Go online, Google what are the requirements to build a best-in-class data room, and make sure that your Google Drive, your SharePoint, whatever you use.
Is organized in a way where you can just plug and play these elements in the data room. and you know, do you have a proper org chart? do you know, do you have audited financials for the last five or ten years? Do you have all this? we were pretty organized. So I would say 50, 60% of it was done. And you know, that made it easier, but
If I were to start back a business tomorrow, trust me that the processes from day one would be to make sure we're compliant with anything we would need from a a buyer perspective or even a company that that can look for you at negotiating contracts to get the right buyers. that's something we don't talk, but you know, you help companies exiting and and I think there's people who are, due to their experience, great at giving advice.
also on on how to negotiate that. the the legal and fiscality element is something founders should not neglect, really not, because this is where a horror story happens.
Aaron Alpeter (34:50)
Yeah. What are some of those hindsight things that you've learned that you would you would implement day one that maybe you were a little bit lax of when you initially started?
Jeremiah Curvers (35:00)
Depends on depends on who you deal with, you know, but when you're when you're getting acquired, make sure you got a strong team of lawyer and fiscalists to make sure that there's due deal on your side as well. a lot of company when you're gonna be in the in the process of trying to sell are just want to take a peek. Right? And if you're not experienced or you don't have the right partner, it's not that it's a terrible thing.
But you're just gonna waste so much time and energy doing that. so that's that's one element I think I was not prepared for. In in my in my mind, you know, a bunch of people are gonna look at, we're gonna get a couple of LOI and woo, that's it. Yeah, no. So the reality is is far from being that simple. I think that's where I was the most surprised. how how much longer it can take and
that due deal process and negotiation and then something happened, something shows up. hence what I'm saying that data room. The the clearer, the more concise, the more efficient the data you can provide is, usually the easiest it is to know if someone is serious or not.
Aaron Alpeter (36:17)
Makes sense. And and is it in in terms of just wasting time or not, is it is it like on your side just pulling everything together, or is it something more where you're able to give them what they're actually asking for without showing everything? Because you y I mentioned people who are looking to take a peek, those could be competitors, they might be investors and competitors or comparing, you know, between different opportunities. And so I I think that there's there's always this fear of like, well.
you know, even though we signed an NDA, you can't unsee what you see. And so what do what advice do you have there in terms of people who just are like, all right, how do I protect myself during the diligence process?
Jeremiah Curvers (36:55)
Yeah. The first thing I would do again is get an independent Eval, eval of your company, by one or two people, just so you get an unbiased opinion when it comes to what's your true valuation. Then you can work with companies to build that scenario and make sure that scenario is built towards the type of seller you're you're going after.
Very rapidly when I saw my valuation in the market and the bottom line and all that, I was like, Yeah, I'm not going after a retailer because I'm I'm I'm gonna get dismantled there. It it's not gonna be interesting for me. And probably for them as well. So you completely shift the narrative. And this is where also you have to be patient. it took me two years from the moment where I was like, Okay, if if I want to sell there, you know, I need to build best in class state of the art CRM.
I need to be able to leverage the direct-to-consumer data in a context of B2B. I need to be able to do a couple of case studies. I need to have people vouching for me in the hospitality industry, in the in in the heavy industry, in amongst retailers, in Canada, in the US, and before even considering it, right? So it can take time. But stick to the plan, structure yourself correctly.
And again, try to stay as close from the reality of the market rather than your own biased opinion. it's very easy with an Excel sheet to to tweak some numbers to get a number that makes you happy, but it's not a reality necessarily.
Aaron Alpeter (38:36)
Yeah. No, it it's it's much harder to tweak numbers in the bank account. t two years is a long time to be going through a process. What what were you thinking during the was there a point where you're like, Well, maybe this isn't meant to be or I'll just keep doing what I'm doing? Or was it something that you were kind of dead set in what you needed to do that it was easy to execute on that regardless of when that acquisition came?
Jeremiah Curvers (38:40)
Yeah.
So that's what I was saying. The first five years of the problem, I didn't have acquisition in mind. So when when you get to that, I was also at the moment where direct-to-consumer brand were still somehow considered digital brand with multiples that were completely ridiculous. and when I realized it might have been time to sell, that's when the market went.
completely the opposite way around, looking at ebidda multiple by category and and it was not pretty to look at. So that's the first step why it took me longer before I became attractive is is because, well, the bottom line had to be corrected. That's the first step. The second thing is how do we balance not neglecting neglecting our brand and investing at the right area towards that sell and that's why it can take time. So
The process of going to market is not that long when I say you built that data room and all that. But if you know for a fact that you're not gonna be in shape, I would say, to go to market and be attractive for a buyer, don't go to market right away. Work towards that goal. If you can afford it, of course. In my case, I was, and it all goes back to.
I want this brand to be a hundred year old brand. I would love to at least. so it's it was not a spin-off. It was not something I wanna be like, hey, you know what, it's gone. I have a lot less control over it now, but the way we structured it, I think we're in a very good position to to be to be a brand that's gonna stick and and remains in market for for years to come.
Aaron Alpeter (40:45)
Yeah. That that's that's fascinating. Jeremiah, this has been fantastic. do you have any last parting advice in terms of either for an acquirer who's looking to make a soft entry for someone who's coming in or someone who is is joining an acquired company? Like what what what do both sides need to do correctly in order to be successful?
Jeremiah Curvers (41:05)
founder roles and CEO roles or operator roles are are very different. That's what I realize now. I I am the founder, but my role right now is an operator role. And your your loyalty lies to the brand, of course, but also to whoever owns that brand and what's their financial target. So that adds a layer of complexity.
Where sometimes you're gonna have to take a slower road than the founder road, which is, you know, let's go all gun blazing and and try to cut corners because we wanna get there in twelve months. if it takes thirty-six, but we're profitable during this these thirty-six and we slow down a little bit, if it's fine for for for the company as an operator, this is what you might have to do. so understand that the the role of founder and the role of operator at an executive level are.
Or can be completely different. This is one of the realizations I say. And based on that, try to identify what type of person you are. Because an operator is not necessarily a great founder, and vice versa. And I realize right now that I'm probably a better operator than I am a founder, because if that opportunity didn't really and life didn't throw all that at me, I might have not started that business.
Aaron Alpeter (42:30)
that. Well thank you so much for being on this episode of Build a Business Worth Buying and we thank our listeners for joining as well. if they want to learn more about Polysleep or listen to your podcast, what's the what's the right way for them to get in touch you?
Jeremiah Curvers (42:43)
Well, of course, if they want a good night's sleep, so polysleep.ca if they're in Canada, polysleep.com if it's in the US. I have Up at Night and I thank you again for for joining me, which is just great conversation about CEOs, founder and and people who are in the private equity world or the business world. So it's just sharing good conversation. So people can Google that. Up at night podcast by Jeremiah Curvers. And yeah, I'm always on LinkedIn also, so don't hesitate.
Aaron Alpeter (43:14)
Well thank you guys for tuning into this episode and good luck building.