Dave Sifry has founded nine companies, including Technorati and Linuxcare, raising more than $170 million along the way. In this episode of Built to Sell Radio, he reveals how he went from being worth more than $100 million on paper to watching that value disappear — and what he’d do differently if he had the chance again.
Despite those scars, Sifry has built an extraordinary career. He has founded nine companies and today is founder and CEO of Warmstart, a platform that helps entrepreneurs turn old contacts into new business.
In 2006, Tad Fallows and two friends spotted a problem inside Harvard’s cancer labs: researchers were spending more time managing freezers, fruit flies, and mice than actually doing research. They built iLab, a SaaS tool for universities and hospitals, bootstrapped it to high–7-figure ARR, and eventually sold to Agilent Technologies for roughly six times revenue.
But the journey wasn’t smooth. Cash was often razor-thin with 75 employees on payroll, and an early inbound offer at 3× ARR forced Tad and his partners to decide: take the deal, or gamble on building more value.
Ronan Berder built Wiredcraft to 140 people, then sold to Publicis for a reported 67 million euros. This Exit Story traces the moment he walked away from Techstars and a product dream to double down on services—and why that decision paid off.
Most owners want 100% cash at closing. Most acquirers want the opposite—they try to hold back as much as possible and tie it to future results. That tug-of-war defines the negotiation.
In this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, you discover how to turn common transition structures from potential pitfalls into opportunities for upside.