The 3 Fixes That Made this Service Business Sellable

On paper, MotiveBase looked like a sellable business. It served blue-chip customers like McDonald’s, Target, and General Mills. It generated millions in revenue. Margins were strong. Yet when founder Ujwal Arkalgud first tested the market, acquirers hesitated.

Not because the business wasn’t attractive. But because it was too dependent on the people who built it.

Acquirers don’t just buy performance. They buy continuity.

Instead of pushing forward with a compromised deal, Ujwal and his co-founder stepped back and rebuilt MotiveBase with one goal in mind: remove the reasons buyers hesitate.

They focused on three changes that turned a profitable but founder-dependent business into a sellable one.

1. They Created Monopoly Control

At first glance, MotiveBase looked like another market research firm. That put it in a crowded category where buyers could easily compare it to alternatives.

Ujwal changed that.

Instead of positioning MotiveBase as a trends company, he anchored the business in cultural anthropology. His team wasn’t made up of analysts. They were “anthropologists.”

This wasn’t cosmetic branding. It reflected a real difference in how the company worked. MotiveBase didn’t just report trends. It explained the deeper cultural forces behind them.

That distinction mattered.

At Value Builder, we call this attempt to differentiate yourself as carving out Monopoly Control, owning a distinct position in the mind of the buyer. In fact, according to Value Builder analytics, companies with a monopoly get 25% higher offers from acquirers.

2. They Shifted to Predictable, Recurring Revenue

From 2015 to 2018, MotiveBase operated as a services business. It worked well. The company grew to approximately $3.5 million in revenue with EBITDA margins approaching 80%.

But project-based services are difficult to sell. Revenue is episodic. Forecasting is harder. And delivery is often tied to the founders.

MotiveBase transitioned to a subscription model with an “all-you-can-eat” value proposition. Customers paid an annual fee for access to the platform and unlimited support from the team.

Instead of limiting usage, the company encouraged it.

Over time, annual contract values increased from roughly $20,000 to more than $220,000 per customer.

The transition wasn’t smooth. When the services business was shut down in 2019, revenue fell to under $1 million. But the new model eventually scaled past $7 million in revenue with very healthy EBITDA margins.

More importantly, revenue became predictable. Buyers could underwrite it.

3. They Removed the Founders From the Sales Process

Even with differentiation and recurring revenue, buyers still needed proof that the business could grow without the founders leading every pitch.

So Ujwal and his partner documented their way of selling.

They identified what made their sales conversations effective and turned that into a repeatable process. They hired salespeople who could carry the message themselves instead of acting as intermediaries for the founders.

By the time MotiveBase was sold, most sales were handled by the team. The founders stepped in selectively, but the business no longer depended on them day to day.

That removed one of the biggest remaining risks.

The Result

After addressing founder dependence, MotiveBase returned to market. This time, buyers were comfortable. The company attracted multiple offers and was acquired by a private-equity-backed buyer for around 15x EBITDA.