Branching Out: TreeFork Strategies
Host Elizabeth Shea sits down with seasoned founders and CEOs who have successfully sold their companies through a strategic or financial transaction. They discuss the thinking and planning that went into their decision to sell, what worked well, what they would do differently, and the valuable lessons they would pass along to founders with a sale on the horizon. This is a podcast for business owners looking for a playbook to use in order to approach their own sale with confidence and clarity.
Episodes
20 episodes
Worlds Apart: Interview with Hunter Jensen
Elizabeth Shea chats with Hunter Jensen, founder and CEO of Barefoot Labs and author of The Killer Use Case. Hunter shares his journey from becoming a self-taught programmer to bootstrapping Barefoot Labs over two decades, funding earl...
Put Your Chin Strap On: Interview with David Tobin
Elizabeth Shea chats with David Tobin, Managing Partner of TobinLeff LLC, about how founders can best prepare themselves and their businesses for a successful exit. Drawing on his experience as both a former agency owner and longtime M&a...
Quarterbacking the Deal: Interview with Salman Husain
Elizabeth Shea sits down with Salman Husain, co-founder and managing director of Monument Capital Partners, to discuss the evolving M&A landscape for founder-owned government services companies. Salman shares his journey from government con...
Find Your Platters: Interview with Sue Keith
Elizabeth Shea sits down with Sue Keith, co-founder of Ceres Talent, to share her story of building a specialized recruiting firm and navigating an unexpected path to exit. Sue discusses her unconventional career journey, how she and her partne...
Alpha the Deal: Interview with Chris Mechanic
Elizabeth Shea sits down with Chris Mechanic, co-founder and former CEO of Web Mechanics, to share the story of building and exiting a successful digital agency. Chris reflects on his entrepreneurial beginnings, from an early online venture to ...
Better Together: Interview with Houston Goodwin
Elizabeth Shea talks with Houston Goodwin, CEO of Better Impact, about a different approach to growth: entrepreneurship through acquisition. Houston shares how he stepped into Better Impact through a private equity partnership and led the strat...
Built to Sell: Interview with Wayne Schepens
Elizabeth Shea sits down with Wayne Schepens, founder of LaunchTech Communications, to share the story of building a cybersecurity PR firm with the goal to sell. Wayne discusses how he created an agile business and honed a disciplined approach ...
Stock Your Shaving Cream: Interview with Sean Griffey
Elizabeth Shea sits down with Sean Griffey, co-founder and former CEO of Industry Dive, to discuss his journey of building a bootstrapped media company and navigating two successful exits. Sean shares how he and his co-founders left stable care...
Stress Test the Deal: Interview with John Burns
Elizabeth Shea sits down with John Burns, founder and managing director at Clare Advisors, a boutique M&A advisory firm specializing in marketing and advertising services agencies. John explains the advisor’s role throughout a sell-side pro...
Know Your "Why": Interview with Karl Sigerist
In this episode of Branching Out, Elizabeth Shea is joined by Karl Sigerist, author of Selling Your Canadian Business, a book written for founders contemplating the sale of their privately owned, lower middle market Canadian b...
Set Up to Sell: Interview with Ab Emam
Ab Emam shares how WDG evolved from a single website project for a friend into a full-scale, midmarket agency he deliberately built for sale. He breaks down why founders should plan years before they initiate a transaction, why hiring the right...
Building Deal Value: Interview with Jim Datovech
In this episode of Branching Out, Elizabeth Shea sits down with Jim Datovech, former CEO of LKC Technologies, to explore the long road from acquiring a medical device company to refining the product and orchestrating a successful exit....
Hot Potato: Interview with Andrew Sherman
In this episode of Branching Out, Elizabeth Shea sits down with Andrew Sherman, senior partner at Brown Rudnick, for a candid look at how deals really get priced, structured, and won. Andrew explains why M&A is cyclical, t...
Take the Leap: Interview with Bess Winston
In this episode of Branching Out, Elizabeth sits down with Bess Winston, the founder of The Winston agency. She talks about how one modest media relations project-turned-campaign laid the foundation for her to meticulously build a nati...
A Niche of One: Interview with Allan Klassen
In this episode of Branching Out, Allan Klassen, former CEO and managing partner of Albi Homes, shares how he helped turn a Calgary-based luxury home builder into a “niche of one” and a strategic acquisition target which was acquired b...
Closing a Chapter - Interview with Ethan McAfee
In this episode of Branching Out, Ethan McAfee shares how he built Amify from a one-man operation in his Arlington townhouse into one of the largest Amazon agencies in the country, helping major consumer brands with their strategy cont...
When Cultures Collide - Interview with Susan Apgood
In this episode of Branching Out, Susan Apgood, the former CEO of News Generation, shares candid insights about her journey selling her company in April 2020 in the midst of the COVID lockdown. She opens up about navigating a challengi...
Setting Up for Success - Interview with Jake Bittner
In this episode of Branching Out, Jake Bittner, former CEO of Qlarion, recounts his path from co-founding a government data analytics firm to leading it through a successful acquisition by GCOM in 2021. He offers a transparent look at ...
A Serendipitous Sale - Interview with Cary Hatch
In this episode of Branching Out, Cary Hatch, former CEO of MDB Communications, opens up about the deals she walked away from, the one that finally felt right, and what it takes to step away from the CEO seat after decades at the helm....
Shift Your Mindset - Interview with Viraj Gandhi
In the inaugural episode of Branching Out, Elizabeth Shea interviews Viraj Gandhi– former CEO and founder of Paradyme Inc. – about his 21-year journey from building a local and state contracting business to leading a major federal cont...