Tactical Acquisitions and the Importance of Scaling Fast with Anthony Westfall

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on The Exit: Anthony Westfall, an expert in business mergers and acquisitions, shares his insights on growth acquisitions and multiple exits. After working at Cisco during the dot-com bubble, Anthony moved to a startup, got laid off, and transitioned to the wine business. His first solo venture was an online wine startup catering to nonprofits, which didn’t scale due to the nonprofits' business approach. Once again Anthony needed to pivot. He moved to a private sale model for wine during the financial crisis, targeting high-end wine consumers. Despite initial success, Anthony missed out on scaling his venture fast enough and securing significant venture capital, leading to competitors surpassing him. Anthony eventually grew his company through acquiring distressed assets and focusing on customer acquisition rather than tech or anything else. Anthony also ventured into the cannabis industry, intending to bring out-of-state brands into California. Realizing the industry's high risk and capital intensity, he ultimately sold that business within 14 months. With multiple exits under his belt now, Anthony now leverages his deep operational experience in brokering business sales to help others exit. He emphasizes the need for growth and understanding the intricacies of scaling ventures. Anthony Westfall is a seasoned corporate executive and entrepreneur with a truly diverse background across multiple industries. Tony has worked on and led multiple M&A deals throughout his career. As an entrepreneur he has made several successful acquisitions and turned those bolt on acquisitions into substantial exits from multiple companies that he founded. Tony has founded at least a half dozen companies and made several successful exits. Tony has his undergraduate degree in Economics from Michigan State University and his MBA in Finance and Supply Chain Management from the Broad Graduate School of Management. LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-westfall-650776/ Exit Strategies Group Website - https://www.exitstrategiesgroup.com/ -- 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	Hello and welcome to the exit presented by Flip Up the number one platform to buy and sell online businesses
0:05.9	Flipa manages over a billion in deal value annually and combines expert buy and sell side advisory with its market
0:13.0	leading valuation tool, deal room, off market offering,
0:16.3	market insights, an AI-based deal by deal matching engine.
0:20.7	Now for the exit.
0:22.0	The exit is a 30 minute podcast featuring awesome
0:24.4	entrepreneurs who have been there and they have done it. The exit talks to
0:27.6	operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes. You learn
0:31.5	how they did it, why they did it and get
0:33.8	exposure to the world of exits it's a world occupied by a small few but
0:38.2	accessible to many on this episode of the exit I sit down with Anthony Westfall. He's an awesome entrepreneur and
0:44.6	operator that has now transitioned into brokering the sale of businesses and this is a
0:50.6	special episode because he really digs into the tactics, the tactics that it takes to get a business together, get it prepared, and get it out to auction and get a bunch of bids and get people the exits that they want.
1:05.3	And I really like the knowledge that he says midway through this interview you're not going to
1:09.8	want to miss it around the strategic buyer versus the financial
1:14.8	focused buyer and that is private equity on the financial side where you're
1:18.3	going to get more focus on the profit versus the strategic buyer where you're going to get more focus on the profit versus the strategic buyer where you're going to get more focused on the technology.
1:25.6	I really think that this is an understated differentiator.
1:29.8	For anybody out there running a business, it's listening to this, it's a fan of the podcast.
1:34.7	They're definitely going to want to listen to how Anthony describes
1:38.0	the difference here, because these two unique perspectives basically determine the valuation of your company and who
1:46.7	you're selling to really determines the type of outcome you're going to get as obvious as that sounds, it's just different
	...

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