Bootstrapping to Millions: Peter Corbett's Agency Exit Tale

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Want a quick estimate of how much your business is worth? With our free valuation calculator, answer a few questions about your business and you’ll get an immediate estimate of the value of your business. You might be surprised by how much you can get for it: https://flippa.com/exit ------------------- This week on The Exit: Peter Corbett, previous founder and CEO of iStrategyLabs, a digital agency he bootstrapped and sold to WPP, shares his journey from being laid off at 27 to building a 100-employee agency with tens of millions in revenue over nine years. Peter discusses key aspects of his entrepreneurial journey, including early hires, KPIs tracked, and the exit process. He focused on top-line growth, client exposure metrics, and internal leadership evaluations. The exit process began with informal conversations with potential buyers, eventually leading to a formal process involving 65 potential buyers and narrowing down to WPP, and closing the deal five days before his wedding. Peter provides insights on deal structure, including earn-out arrangements and his decision to leave after 18 months. He explains the timing of the exit, citing both business conditions and personal reasons. Post-exit, Peter has transitioned to executive coaching and is launching a micro-membership program in New York City focused on the mental health and well-being of leaders and entrepreneurs. For more details and insights from his entrepreneurial journey, listen to the latest episode of The Exit. Peter Corbett is the retired/exited founder and CEO of iStrategyLabs, a digital agency that develops solutions to clients’ challenges and brings them to life in the online and offline world. He’s currently an executive coach, and Venture Partner at Up.Partners, as well as the CEO and Founder of Still Rush. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corbett3000/ Website: https://www.stillrush.co/ Check Out Flippa’s Data Insights Tool: https://flippa.com/data-insights -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we get into the exit today, I want to talk about the certified M&A advisors that are on Flippa.
0:06.2	If you are an operator right now, running a business and you're thinking about exiting, you are going to want to get a free online business valuation on the exit
0:15.7	landing page without a doubt it is the smartest thing you can do to start a process and
0:20.9	get yourself organized.
0:23.0	So you're going to go to the URL FLIPA.com
0:25.0	slash exit to check out more and let's jump into the interview.
0:29.0	Below and welcome to the exit presented by FLIPA,
0:32.0	the number one platform to buy and sell online businesses.
0:34.8	Flipa manages over a billion in deal value annually and combines expert buy and sell side
0:40.6	advisory with its market leading valuation tool, deal room, off market
0:44.2	offering, market insights, an AI-based deal-by-deal matching engine.
0:49.6	Now for the exit.
0:50.9	The exit is a 30 minute podcast featuring awesome entrepreneurs who have been there and they have done it.
0:55.3	The exit talks to operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes.
1:00.1	You learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits.
1:04.4	It's a world occupied by a small few but accessible to many.
1:08.4	On this episode of the exit, I sit down with Peter Corbett.
1:11.5	He is a fantastic entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Still Rush.
1:17.2	He talks about his exit with ISL.
1:19.8	And this is a fantastic story about bootstrapping a company to tens of millions of dollars in revenue and exiting to WPP, a very well-known publicly traded company.
1:32.0	And now Peter is doing a lot of really cool things
1:36.0	with helping coaching other CEOs
	...

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