Scaling with Purpose: Anne Mahlum’s $100M Success Story

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 31 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 -- In this episode of The Exit: entrepreneur Anne Mahlum shares her incredible journey from founding a nonprofit running club for homeless men to building Solidcore, one of the fastest-growing fitness studio chains in the U.S. After scaling to 100 studios and weathering the chaos of COVID, Anne exited the business on her own terms with a $100M payday—negotiating not only her valuation but her taxes and an additional $10M kicker. She reveals how she planned her exit from day one, built bench strength to replace herself, and why founders shouldn’t be afraid to ask for more. Anne also dives into the dangers of taking on preferred equity, the power of clear end goals, and the importance of sharing wealth with the team that helped build it. Her parting advice? Think big, stay bold, and trust yourself—because no one else will see your vision the way you do. -- Anne Mahlum is a founder, entrepreneur, CEO, philanthropist, motivational speaker and athlete whose mission is to help as many people as possible live their most optimized lives. Anne's entrepreneurial ventures have resulted in a personal net worth of over $100M and an impact on hundreds of thousands of lives. She is the Founder and former Executive Chairwoman of [solidcore], a fast-growing boutique fitness company with over 100 locations in the U.S. Anne sold her shares of [solidcore] in April 2023 for an undisclosed amount and shared millions with her employees who she valued for staying by her side. A lifelong visionary, Anne is also the founder of Back on My Feet, a national non-profit organization that uses running as a vehicle to help those experiencing homelessness change the way they see themselves and become empowered to change their lives. Anne Mahlum on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-mahlum/ Website: https://www.annemahlum.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annemahlum -- 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.
0:06.1	If you are an operator right now running a business and you're thinking about exiting,
0:10.8	you are going to want to get a free online business valuation on the exit landing page.
0:16.7	Without a doubt, it is the smartest thing you can do to start a process and get yourself organized.
0:23.0	So you're going to go to the URL, flippa.com, slash exit, to check out more, and let's jump into
0:28.1	the interview.
0:29.2	Below and welcome to the exit presented by Flipup, the number one platform to buy and sell online
0:34.2	businesses.
0:35.2	Flipa manages over a billion in deal value annually and combines
0:39.4	expert buy and sell side advisory with its market leading valuation tool, deal room,
0:43.9	off market offering, market insights, an AI-based deal-by-deal matching engine. Now for the exit.
0:50.9	The exit is a 30-minute podcast featuring awesome entrepreneurs who have been there and they
0:54.8	have done it. The exit talks to operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes.
1:00.3	You learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits. It's a world
1:05.1	occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. On this episode of the exit, I sit down with
1:10.5	Ann Malam, a fantastic entrepreneur, an investor,
1:14.1	and we walk through her journey, building and exiting Solid Core.
1:19.3	This is a fantastic, wide-ranging conversation about really going from zero to one and scaling
1:25.7	extremely quickly and also the COVID craziness that happened
1:30.1	doing a brick and mortar business and the complexities there and how quickly Anne could pivot
1:35.9	and make it work. And I think this is such an inspiring episode for many reasons, but also
1:42.5	just because Anne knew what she wanted. She knew the number that she
	...

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