312: Creating and Exiting a Business with Will Trapp of Gratavid

Summary: Welcome to another great episode of Startup Junkies! On this episode, hosts Caleb Talley, Jeff Amerine, and Davis McEntire sit down with Will Trapp, founder and CEO of Gratavid, a tool for collecting and sending personalized videos. Before Gratavid, Will became a recognized expert in web development and design systems as the director of technology at Saatchi & Saatchi X. Throughout the episode, Jeff, Davis, and Will discuss the variety of ways customers utilize Gratavid, the process of being acquired by a private equity firm, and the benefits of bootstrapping.    Shownotes: (1:12) Introduction to Will (2:02) About Gratavid (3:45) Acquisition by Private Equity Firm (5:28) Bootstrapping Gratavid (8:04) Finding Your Niche (13:07) Pros and Cons of Being Acquired (15:05) Integration Period While Being Acquired (21:10) Different Ways Customers Use Gratavid (22:45) Building the Gratavid Team (24:26) What’s Next for Will (25:42) Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs (30:30) Advice to Younger Self (35:28) Closing Thoughts   Links: Caleb Talley Jeff Amerine Davis McEntire Will Trapp Gratavid   Quotes: “And I remember my lawyer, he said, ‘Start a business to run a business. Don’t start a business to try and sell a business.’ And I genuinely never intended to sell Gratavid.” - Will Trapp, (4:07)   “Companies that want to stay relevant have to embrace the fact that they’re going to have entrepreneurial people if they want to maintain a competitive advantage. And those entrepreneurial people are going to have side hustles going on.” - Jeff Amerine, (12:09)   “There’s just two different ways to go about it. You can raise money or you can bootstrap. I think your chances of success are so much higher if you can figure out how to bootstrap for as long as you can.” - Will Trapp, (34:27)