PODCAST · business
Startup Exits
by StartupSoft
Startup exits are the most sought after events in Silicon Valley, but very few people get to experience them. On the Startup Exits Podcast we chat with founders that started, ran and sold a tech company to learn about how it all went down. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Vasylyk and produced by StartupSoft – visit www.startupsoft.com for more info and other great content.
Episodes
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Ben Antier, founder of Publica: $220 million sale to $IAS
In the days when TVs were "dumb", everyone tuned into the same content. Today, the TV watching experience is highly personalized, including the ads. This realization led Ben Antier and Cedric Tournay to start Publica, an advertising platform for smart TVs that was acquired by Integral Ad Sciences...
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Rob Howard, founder of Telligent: M&A by Verint
In 2021 it's not uncommon to hear that you should build a community before building a product, but not many people could have told you this advice in the 1990s. Rob Howard, who built the early community for ASP.NET while working at Microsoft, is one of those people. After seeing the incredible...
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Carl Christensen, founder of Spacemaker: $240 million sale to Autodesk
“We’re building a city the size of Paris each week, so every non-optimal project that’s built today is a missed opportunity for changing the world” –– this is one of the reasons why Carl Christensen founded an AI-driven architectural design startup, Spacemaker. The company raised over $30…
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Revett Eldred, founder of Minerva: $25 million founder payout
Revett Eldred is a British-Canadian entrepreneur with two, eight-figure exits. After spending his career as a programmer in the 60s and 70s, he got tired of the bureaucratic nature of corporate America and started his own consulting firm, Minerva. Revett grew the company from 0 to 250 employees,...
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Paul Murphy, founder of Dots: $200 million sale to Take Two
Facebook purchased GIPHY for $400 million and Take Two purchased Dots for $200 million –– what do these two acquisitions have in common? Three things: both are 9-figure exits, both happened in 2020 and both were incubated by Paul Murphy. In this episode, we focus on Paul’s experience in…
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Janelle Benjamin, founder of SuperData: M&A by Nielsen
In late 2000s, Janelle Benjamin predicted the upcoming digitalization of the gaming industry and started SuperData, an ahead-of-its-time market intelligence and analytics company for digital games and VR. She grew the company to dozens of employees, millions in revenue and a successful exit to...
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Usman Haque, founder of Pachube: M&As by LogMeIn and Google
Usman Haque is one of the most influential figures in the world of Internet of Things (IoT). After studying architecture in London, Usman founded Pachube (now known as Xively), a pioneering IoT platform that went on to be acquired by LogMeIn and later by Google for $50 million. On this episode of...
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Shayan Zadeh, founder of Zoosk: $250 million sale to Spark Networks
With friend and co-founder Alex Mehr, Shayan Zadeh came to US from Iran at a time when both countries had no diplomatic relations or direct flights. They went on to study computer science, work at NASA and Microsoft, and start Zoosk – an Inc 5000 dating platform that went on to exit for $250...
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Thejo Kote, founder of Automatic: $115 million sale to SiriusXM
After coming to US as a student, Thejo Kote met his cofounder Jerry at the University of California Berkeley; there, they worked on a school projected that turned into a $115 million acquisition seven years later. Crazy! Thejo is a founder of Automatic, a "fitbit for the car" company that paved…
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Yan Pritzker, founder of Reverb.com: $275 million sale to Etsy
Since the beginning of his tech career in the 1990s, Yan has experienced multiple startup exits as both an employee and as a founder. Most recently, he founded and served as the CTO of Reverb.com – a wildly-successful marketplace for musical instruments that became a top 300 most visited website…
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Will Harbin, founder of Kixeye: $120 million sale to Stillfront
Will is a tech entrepreneur with multiple exits. In late 2000s he founded Kixeye, a game studio that pioneered the free-to-play genre and dominated Facebook gaming with hit titles like War Commander, VEGA Conflict, Backyard Monsters and Battle Pirates. Will led the company to millions of users,...
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Brett Lovelady, founder of Astro Gaming: $85 million sale to Logitech
Brett is a Silicon Valley OG and one the leading figures in the world of product design. Having founded a design studio in the 90s, Brett helped Fortune 500 companies make iconic tech products, such as the Xbox 360 and Nike's Triax watches. He then went on to start Astro Gaming, the DTC maker of...
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Andrew Wynn, founder of Sheltr: M&A by Hippo
After moving to Silicon Valley, Andrew experienced the costly and painful process of fixing things around his condo. But why fix, when you can prevent? So he founded Sheltr, a "physical for your home" preventative maintenance startup that grew to become a leader in major US cities and was…
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Chris Crane, founder of Scout RFP: $540 million sale to Workday
Few people know what procurement is. But this didn't stop Chris Crane, who saw opportunity in the very outdated and incredibly inefficient world of sourcing and procurement, from trying to disrupt it. Turns out that his efforts were worth it – 5 years and hundreds of thousands users later, Scout...
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Patrick O'Donnell, founder of Urbanspoon: $50 million sale to Zomato
Launched on the day the App Store opened, Urbanspoon was one of the most iconic apps created in the early iPhone era. Having been through a few exits already, Patrick co-founded and helped to grow Urbanspoon to millions of users and a successful acquisition by IAC and Zomato. On this episode of…
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Ben Rubenstein, founder of Yodle and Opcity: $550 million in exits to Web.com and Realtor.com
Ben is a fascinating founder. Over his 15-year career as an entrepreneur, he started and sold 2 companies – Yodle to Web.com for $350 million, Opcity to Realtor.com for $200 million – and hired over 2,000 people. If you do the math, that's about $35 million in value creation and 130 new jobs per...
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Grant Horsfield, founder of Naked Hub: $400 million sale to WeWork
After finishing his MBA in South Africa and moving to China in 2006, Grant was interested in selling to the Chinese, not buying from them. He started Naked Group, a luxury brand of resorts, and Naked Hub, a community and design focused coworking company that was acquired by WeWork for $400…
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Josh Hix, founder of Plated: $300 million sale to Albertsons
After finishing his MBA at Harvard, Josh Hix and co-founder Nick Taranto combined their passion for health and nutrition with a business opportunity and started Plated, a meal kit service company. Plated grew rapidly, became a dominant player in the industry and was acquired by Albertsons for…
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Mark Volchek, founder of Higher One: $600 million IPO
Mark Volchek is an entrepreneur turned VC. While a student at Yale, Mark set out to disrupt academia by making student payments electronic. Higher One grew to a thousand employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, went public on the NYSE with a valuation of $600 million, then went back private...
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Armando & Massimo, founders of AdEspresso: M&A by Hootsuite
Armando Biondi and Massimo Chieruzzi are Italian entrepreneurs that got tired of managing Facebook ads for their clients and decided to automate and optimize them via a SaaS product – AdEspresso. They grew AdEspresso to become world’s #1 Facebook ad tool and led the company to an acquisition by...
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Tim Gill, founder of Quark: $500 million founder exit
Tim Gill founded Quark in 1981, which built the world's most popular enterprise publishing software and held 90% of the market share at its peak. After selling all his shares in Quark for $500 million in 2000, Tim became one of the wealthiest 400 people in America and the single largest…
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Sean Byrnes, founder of Flurry: $250 million sale to Yahoo
Sean Byrnes is the founder and ex-CEO of Flurry – a mobile analytics company that lives inside apps on billions of devices and as a result has the best understanding of mobile consumer behaviour. Having held 90% of the market share, Flurry represented “mobile strategy in a box” for Yahoo during…
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Sonny Vu, founder of Misfit: $260 million sale to Fossil
Sonny Vu is a serial entrepreneur turned investor and advisor. Along with cofounders John Sculley (former Apple CEO), Sridhar Iyengar and Christy Trang Le, Sonny started, ran and sold Misfit – one of the most iconic wearable brands on the planet. On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we...
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Tim Jenkins, founder of SendGrid: $3 billion sale to Twilio
Tim Jenkins is a founder and ex-CTO of SendGrid, world's largest email delivery platform that sends as many emails per day as Twitter generates Tweets. SendGrid IPO'd in 2017 and was acquired by Twilio for $3 billion dollars in 2019. On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Tim...
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Chris Barton, founder of Shazam: $400 million sale to Apple
Chris Barton is a founder and ex-CEO of Shazam, one of the most iconic and loved apps that has ever been built. Shazam amassed over a billion downloads and was acquired by Apple in 2017 for $400 million. On this episode of the Startup Exits Podcast, we chat with Chris about: • Is it bad to start…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Startup exits are the most sought after events in Silicon Valley, but very few people get to experience them. On the Startup Exits Podcast we chat with founders that started, ran and sold a tech company to learn about how it all went down. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Vasylyk and produced by StartupSoft – visit www.startupsoft.com for more info and other great content.
HOSTED BY
StartupSoft
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Startup Exits have?
Startup Exits currently has 25 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Startup Exits about?
Startup exits are the most sought after events in Silicon Valley, but very few people get to experience them. On the Startup Exits Podcast we chat with founders that started, ran and sold a tech company to learn about how it all went down. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Vasylyk and produced by...
How often does Startup Exits release new episodes?
Startup Exits has 25 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Startup Exits?
You can listen to Startup Exits on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Startup Exits?
Startup Exits is created and hosted by StartupSoft.
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