The 9-Figure Exit: Scaling a Restaurant Tech Powerhouse with Kevin Rice

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5.0 • 420 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2026

⏱️ 32 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, we dive into the remarkable journey of Kevin Rice, co-founder of a premier digital consultancy that achieved a massive nine-figure exit in late 2021. From teaching himself to build websites in a college dorm to leading a team of over 250 people, Kevin shares the gritty details of scaling, failing, and eventually winning big.   Key Takeaways: The Power of Hyper-Niche: How shifting from a generalist agency to focusing exclusively on the restaurant industry ignited their growth trajectory.  Building "NomNom": Why creating proprietary Intellectual Property (IP) changed their valuation and boosted their new business close rates to 80%.  The "Second Job" of Selling: Why founders must be prepared for the grueling reality of running a company while simultaneously managing a full-time acquisition process.  Surviving the Pandemic: How doubling down on digital transformation (online ordering and loyalty programs) helped their clients survive COVID-19 and grew their business by 100% in 2021. The Banker Advantage: Why Kevin highly recommends hiring a professional banker to create competition among buyers and maximize enterprise value.  -- Kevin Rice is an entrepreneur, operator, and leadership thinker with a track record of building and scaling high growth companies from the ground up. He has grown a startup from just a few people into a multi hundred employee organization with a successful nine figure exit. Kevin is also the host of the CEOs and ABCs podcast, where he explores how high performers can lead effectively at work while showing up fully in their personal lives. LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmrice/ CEO’s and ABC’s Podcast - https://www.ceosandabcs.com/  -- Timestamps: [00:33] The "Garage Start": Meeting his co-founder at Cal Poly and starting out in a dorm room. [03:34] The Pivot: Narrowing the focus to the restaurant industry after a 2016 layoff. [05:58] The Differentiator: Developing "NomNom" IP to move beyond the "we have the best people" agency cliché. [08:16] The Failed Deal: A raw look at an acquisition that fell through the day before Christmas. [13:14] COVID-19 Impact: How the pandemic accelerated the need for digital dining and fueled massive growth. [18:16] Lessons Learned: The mistake of trying to run two different business models (SaaS vs. Service) at once. [24:24] Personal Reflection: Kevin’s advice on being present for family while achieving high-level success. -- 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.
0:29.3	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 Kevin
1:10.7	Rice,
1:11.6	a fantastic entrepreneur who sold his business for nine figures in 2021.
1:17.8	This is a really great conversation about how COVID during the pandemic
1:22.1	actually ignited his business that was a service business focused on helping restaurants develop online ordering
1:31.2	and their CRM systems and really just exploded during the COVID era, which led to this awesome
1:39.3	exit. And he really walks through the whole process of hiring a banker, their first deal falling through, and sharing details with the team as they went through the process.
1:52.0	This is a really wide-ranging conversation also because Kevin talks a lot about his current podcast, CEOs and ABCs, which is about really just the entrepreneur and
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