The Built to Sell Podcast – The Story of a £30m+ Agency Exit.
We are not ones to often shout about our own exits but in the interests of proving that we really can put our money where our mouth is and support agency founders in achieving their goals and ambitions we shared our story with the Built to Sell podcast team.
Run by the brilliant John Warrillow the pod shares the wart-and-all stories of founders and their journeys to exit and just before Christmas we were asked to tell the story of the Stickyeyes Group exit to IPG; a deal led by Stickyeyes founder Craig Chalmers and our own founder Simon Penson.
In the episode Simon shares the journey from the start of Zazzle Media, through its merger with Stickyeyes and onto the resulting sale to IPG from the perspective of a founder.
It’s packed with learnings and advice covering all manner of things, including:
- Some of the ‘glass ceilings’ agency owners come across as they scale.
- Getting to more than 200 people and all the challenges that brings with it.
- The inside story of the exit – what they looked for in a partner and why.
- How the earn out was structured and how it impacted strategy.
- What comes next once you leave – the emotional rollercoaster of leaving the business you built.
We hope you enjoy…
Senior Partner Richard Marriott has over two decades of experience running sales, marketing and commercial teams. Having worked client and agency side gives him great perspective on what it’s like on both sides of the table.
Richard previously worked alongside Simon growing his digital marketing agency and took the reins after Simons exit. Following this he led the business through a significant period of integration and change management as it amalgamated with the rest of the group to form a multi-million dollar agency with over 450 people in the UK alone.