Small Company, Big Valuation
“Michia Rohrssen co-founded Prodigy in 2015 and eventually sold his business for $110M,” shares Sam Thompson a Minneapolis business broker and the president of M&A firm Transitions In Business. “In this episode you’ll hear how a business owner maximized his company’s attractiveness to a strategic buyer. We also learn how to streamline the difficult due diligence process.”
In 2015, Michia Rohrssen co-founded a SaaS business called Prodigy to help car dealerships sell online. He grew the company to $3.3M in annual revenue when he faced a difficult decision.
Rohrssen thought he could sell Prodigy for around 4-6 times revenue, but after paying off his investors, there wouldn’t be much left over for the founders. That’s when he decided to make a risky pivot to his business model. The change meant a short-term drop in Prodigy’s revenue, while also making it more attractive to strategic acquirers. Ultimately Rohrssen and his co-founder sold the smaller version of his company for a staggering $110 million, or around 65 times revenue.
In his first interview since announcing the incredible deal, Rohrssen shares how to:
- Maximize your company’s attractiveness to a strategic acquirer
- Avoid the $4 million mistake Rohrssen made
- Apply an intriguing filter to compile a shortlist of strategic acquirers
- Attract an acquisition offer higher than your industry’s standard valuation multiple
- Implement a “Manhattan Project” inside your company
- Streamline the due diligence process with a specific meeting strategy