Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Both an art and a science. Valuations are complex things and their impact is enormous, making the difference between generational wealth creation and a comfortable retirement. At Biswaal, we know how tough it is to grow and run a business, which is exactly why weve made valuations simpler. Whether you are using our online tool Biswile live, or reaching out to us for a concierge offering where we spend more time on your numbers and your business and give you detailed feedback, you can be sure that the same techniques being used by professional investors are also being used by us. And with Biswal Bootcamp, we will prepare you for those discussions with investors.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Welcome to this episode of the Biswile podcast, another international guest on this one, which is always so interesting. I just love getting these global perspectives. Linda Parr of the big exit it's very nice to have you on the show. You're a serial entrepreneur, and look, big exits are better than small exits, so that's quite exciting. And I think anyone listening to this is dreaming of a big exit. So it'll be very nice to tap into your thinking and your expertise and also just chat through some of the writing that you do. Obviously, for me, I also do quite a lot of writing, so it's something I've found very interesting, and we've had a couple of collaborations on some of the stuff that you've done, which is really nice. So, yeah, welcome to the podcast and thank you for making the time.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me, Ghost. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's going to be fun. So let's start with where in the world you are. For those listening to this who are.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Curious right now, I am very close to a beautiful city called Ghent in the country of Belgium.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: There we go. Fantastic. One of my favorite racetracks is in Belgium, so that's about all I know about Belgium. One day I'll need to come and watch a race at spa.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Next time, I'll see you there.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there we go. I kind of thought Belgium is basically just spa and then just, you know, the rest is just where some people live, basically. No, I'm just kidding.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Most. Most people think it's just Brussels.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. I have a bit of a different lens on it. So, look, it's not every day that I get to speak to a Forbes contributor, although of course, that's not what you do for a living, but it's just cool. And it's been nice to be able to work with you a little bit on some of that stuff. I guess. But what I'm really curious about is just your backstory, you know, how did you end up where you are today? Bring the Forbes writing into it just because I'm curious. But I think it's more the serial entrepreneurship that people will be interested in. So I'll just open the floor to you to kind of just tell us your story for a few minutes.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I'm one of those people who see opportunities everywhere and I think that kind of summarizes the reason why I'm a serial entrepreneur. I see a lot of opportunities and lots of chances and I always used to be that employee that, that would say, hey, we could do this differently or better, or why don't we do it this way? Very annoying for everybody around me.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yes, I was about to say, thereby annoying every boss you ever worked for. I was the same, don't worry.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Yes. So I think that let me into a journey of being an entrepreneur where I could choose how or which kind of opportunities to take on. I started very classically freelancing. So that was my first entrepreneurial gig until I realized there's not much free in freelancing and I was missing a lot of the freedom that I thought I was going to experience when I was an entrepreneur or would become an entrepreneur.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: That reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, which is I refuse to work 40 hours a week for someone else, so I'm going to work 80 hours a week for myself instead.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Exactly that.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Stick it to the math.
[00:03:32] Speaker C: Exactly that. I was lacking the freedom that I was looking for. So I learned a lot of things around what is actually a business, because when we are freelancing, it's a one man or one woman show, right? And that got me into literally business building and building businesses independently of me, which kind of changes the game a lot. So I switched from being a freelancer to being what I call a freedompreneur. And that got me really on my entrepreneurial journey. And a while back, whilst I was in a process of raising funds for a business school that I have here in Belgium, which is the biggest online business school that helps freelancers to become freedompreneurs, it's actually the journey that I have gone through. Whilst I was doing a funding round for that business and speaking to a lot of business investors and angels and the likes of these people, I came to understand that I had no clue about building a business that eventually could be sold. So I was really good at building a business that gave a lot of freedom and was independent of me. But I never really understood the game of selling and exiting a business. And I came to realize I was not the only one. A lot of small business owners that I know, and I know thousands of them, through the work that I have been doing for the last almost two decades, I came to realize I was not the only one that didn't know much about these things. So if you're not in this accelerator, VC funding, kind of entrepreneurial game, which 99% of entrepreneurs are not, they're often bootstrapped entrepreneurs. So if you're not in that game, you never really learn about what makes a business sellable, what makes a business worthwhile for somebody to acquire your business. And that brought me on a whole new journey that has basically evolved in a new business, which is called the big exit. Well, it's not that new anymore. We've been around the block for a while, but that's the most recent business that I have founded. The big exit.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Very cool. It's such a nice story. So I just want to tap into, and I'm going to still ask you about the Forbes thing just now, but I just want to tap into the freedompreneurship concept. So, yeah, I mean, hustle culture is the, is the opposite side of that coin. Right. So it's kind of like working all the time. You know, if you're not prepared to do 16 hours a day, nothing will go right for you. And that's been my life for the past three years. Four years. Yeah, four years this month. Not, not by choice. It's not that I love working 16 hours a day. In fact, I kind of hate it these days, and I really wish it was less, and I'm sure it will get there. But what does freedom preneurship really mean? I mean, is it realistic to think that when you start a business, you are going to have that balance, or is it something that you're working towards over a period of time? Because that's been my experience is it's. I don't know how I could have done this with fewer hours. Maybe I missed a trick somewhere, but I'm certainly working towards it being fewer hours over time.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question, and I get to, I hear this question all the time, to be honest. So, first of all, what's freedompreneurship? It's actually the opposite of being a slave of your business. That's how I tend to say, because a lot of people are slaves of their business. It is the story that they hear. It's the story that they read. It's what you read on the covers of the entrepreneurial magazines. It's what you read on the COVID of Forbes. It's what you read on entrepreneur.
It's everywhere in the media. It's the hustle, the 24/7 hustle and grind culture. So freedompreneurship is the exact opposite of that. I feel in entrepreneurship, there's some myth that expresses the fact that we can't have it all. We can't have a passion project that we really love, and that's the business that we have built or founded or are scaling or growing. So we can't have that passion with the wealth that comes with it. So making a lot of good money with the business that we have and have time, freedom as well. So there's a general belief that it's a trade off. You can't have all these three things simultaneously.
I do not agree with that. I am the living proof that you can have it all. I have hundreds of clients who are the living proof that you can have it all. You can have the passion, you can have the time, you can have the money, you can have all of these three things simultaneously. And yes, it requires work, but more than work, it requires mindset and strategy, doing the right things. And that's way more important. To answer your question, like, is it, like, do you need to hustle and grind first before you can transition into a more freedom kind of business? No, you don't. The hustle is a choice, just like freedompreneurship is a choice.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah. In retrospect, I tend to agree, and I think what I did was take on quite a lot. No regrets, because I think, you know, hindsight's easy. When stuff has worked out, it's quite tricky to say, okay, well, I'll do a bit less and hope that what I picked works. I do think sometimes that for business owners who are funded by angels, etcetera, it's a little bit different to bootstrapping. I can tell you when you're bootstrapping, then you are hustling for survival. But the reward at the end is that you end up owning 100% of whatever it is that you bought. So I guess it's a set of trade offs and a broader strategy at the end of the day. And also the region in which you start the business will make a difference here because the angel ecosystem is stronger in some places than it is in others. In some countries, you have little choice but to bootstrap. To be honest, South Africa is a little bit like that. There isn't a great culture here of angel investing. There are pockets of it, but it's very few and far between. Is Belgium a little bit better than that? Is there a decent angel ecosystem or is it also really difficult to actually raise?
[00:09:37] Speaker C: No, there actually is, and it has changed over the last probably ten years. We have had a lot of accelerators popping up and in the back of that, a more structured ecosystem of investors, both angel and follow up investments. So it definitely has changed over time. That being said, though, I mean, I don't know the exact numbers, but it's going to be something around like 98% of small businesses. And with small businesses, I mean, I'm not talking small, right? Like anything below 2 million, which a lot of people might not consider a small business anymore. But most small businesses are not funded and are running bootstrapped, which creates a level of freedom that most, well, all VC backed founders will never experience because they are working for a boss as well. And in this instance, it's the investor that is the boss. So it reduces a level of freedom. And you are often kind of pushed in a certain framework on how to build and scale your business, which whoever is a bootstrapped small business owner doesn't have that you have way more levels of freedom on how you build your business and you can do it on your own terms and on your own time and with your own energy that you want to put in and the hours that you want to put in there. So that's my experience.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we did a really cool webinar about a month or two ago on this concept of hybrid bootstrapping. So that's basically how Perzval is funded, essentially. You know, we have an investor, but he also plays a very important role in the business. He's very involved in the strategy, but he's really fantastic in that he also lets us kind of get on with it, mistakes and otherwise, which I think is important, you know, otherwise he's working himself into the business, which is exactly what he doesn't want. You know, that's why he's got the right people in the right seats. But that hybrid bootstrapping model is quite cool. And I don't think this is a, you know, this is not a concept that is internationally known. We just kind of came up with it, which is to say it's somewhere between your typical bootstrap, which is how I built the finance coast, there was no investment there whatsoever, and you're more VC rounds of funding, multiple players on the register. I've never lived in that world. I know people who have, I've certainly spoken to them, I've tried to learn from them, but it is a very different world. And I think, to your point, yeah, it's not. It's not freedompreneurship, it's basically just having a different boss. Your boss is on your cap table now, as opposed to in the office at the end of the hall. And it's still. It's still tough, you know, and you never really get off that trademark, actually, once you've become VC funded, because that's the business you've built and it's going to have shareholders forever unless you actually achieve, dare I say it, the big exit, which is, I suppose, where a lot of that concept comes in. So this is what people who don't understand, unless they've actually gone on this entrepreneurial journey, is all the trade offs you have to make along the way. Even when it works, which is already very rare, there are a huge number of trade offs along the way. Cross work, life balance. Who are you really reporting to? How big do you want this thing to get? But I think the core principle that comes through in a lot of what you're talking about is this concept of business independence from the founder, without which there is never going to be that big exit. Whether you were VC funded or not, that's the key, because that's the true freedom. When you've now sold a business, you're out of it and you made enough money from it that for the rest of your life, you are now choosing what to do with your time. That is true for me. That is true wealth. It's not about being a billionaire or hundreds of millions, it's just, can you wake up in the morning and be free? That's it. It's as simple as that.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: Yeah. 100%. And the way I have experienced that journey of freedom, preneurship, and you've mentioned trade offs, and trade offs for me is something like, I don't see that on my journey. I think it's more of a mindset thing. Like, if we believe that we need to make trade offs, then we will make trade offs. If we believe that we can have it all, then we will have it all. That being said, though, I have experienced as myself being an entrepreneur, talking about, when we're talking about independence, particularly when you start a business, you're the founder, you're the owner, you're the jack or the jade of all trades, you're doing basically anything and everything. After a while, maybe you're growing a little bit being supported by people who help you on that journey. And when the business grows a little bit further, you often will be transitioning from the jack or the jade of all trades into more of a CEO position requires different skills of you. And if you do a good job there, and I'm just going to leave that open, what that means, but if you do a good job there, you can transition from being the CEO to being the owner of this business. So for me, it's going through that journey. If we're talking about the journey of independence, it's the journey from the jack of all trade founder to the CEO, to being the owner of the business, the shareholder of the business. And every level of that journey kind of comes with different experience that you will have, different skill sets that you need to develop and with different kinds of independence and flexibility that you have. If you become someone who is mostly the owner of the business rather than even the CEO, you have created an extremely sellable business. You probably are in a position, you don't want to sell it anymore because why would you, right? It brings so much like joy and wealth and freedom to the table. You probably don't want to even sell this business, right? That's kind of like the stage where you want to be in, where you're like, well, if someone makes me a really good deal and offers an acquisition proposal, then I might listen to it, but I don't necessarily want or need to sell.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the best businesses are generally not for sale, right? Unless it's in a scenario where, you know, maybe the person's just tired of it or they want to unlock the capital for something else. What's health related? That's often a reason or just age related, but the best businesses are actually just kept unless someone walks in and makes a huge offer for that business. So, yeah, I think it's a really nice way to think. I kind of have this theory that ultimately you get the life you deserve, and that means that if you've gone and you've not taken the risk, you can't complain 20 years down the line that you're in a job you still hate. You kind of got the job you ended up deserving because you did nothing to change that life. It's the same in entrepreneurship. If you do nothing to improve your work life balance and the hustle and how hard it is, then you're going to still be complaining about it in 15 years time and 20 years time, nothing will improve for you. But of course, these things are easier said than done. Because like you point out, scaling is about moving from, in all reality, being the product owner. That's how your business started, right? Anyone's business starts with a service or a product. You need to be the owner of that thing upfront. Then you transition into more of a managerial role, which is basically HR actually, and strategy. And that's a big transition that a lot of entrepreneurs massively struggle to make. And then if they get that right, then, as you say, they step into that owner role. Now they have to hand over to someone else, not just to do the HR type stuff, but even the strategy. So it's all these little miracles in a row for that transition to actually happen. And I suppose the good news is it doesn't have to happen for all entrepreneurs. They can sell at any point in that journey. You can sell it as an excellent product business, but then the dependency on you is high and the price is going to reflect that. You can sell it down the line when at least there's a product team, but you are still strategy and management and everything else. And again, you won't get as big an exit as you might get further on when you've truly transitioned into being the owner. So I know you hate the word trade offs, I've learned this about you today, but I guess it is that again, right? It's how many years do you want to spend in this business? How much risk are you willing to take? People you're willing to hire in pursuit of the best possible exit?
[00:18:01] Speaker C: 100%. And I think that's where I have my mission of educating a million small business owners in understanding what it means to build a sellable business. You might not even want to sell your business, or not even think about selling your business, but knowing what drives the value of your business upwards and creating that option, or the choice to sell, if you would ever want to do that. I think that's also part of freedompreneurship. It's creating options, like, you've mentioned what freedom means to you and freedompreneurship means for you. For me, it's all about having choice, having the option to say no to whatever you want to say no to, and having the option to create yeses and opportunities, right? That's what freedompreneurship is all about. And I think for small business owners who are often so much in the trenches, still knowing what makes their business sellable is hugely valuable. Also knowing what their business is worth. A lot of small business owners have no clue how much their business is worth. Like, literally no clue they have a fantasy number in their head, but it often doesn't really touch or reflect reality at all.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: So it's like, no, speaking our language now, of course. Right, right. I mean, this is exactly why we exist.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: That's exactly why you guys exist. And I think if you know how much your business is worth and you know for how much you're willing to sell it for, then it's a question of, like, how am I going to close that gap? Because most of the time there's a gap there. Like, how am I going to close it? And do I still have energy left in the tank to close it? Because not everybody has energy left. Right. It really depends on where you're at on your entrepreneurial journey. If you're already at a stage where I just want to get rid of this thing because I'm sick and tired of it, you probably don't have much gas in the tank to make the changes that you need to make in order to be able to sell it for a life changing amount of money.
This is the kind of knowledge that I wish for us to spread more into the world of small business owners. It's like, hey, this is something of valuable information. You should know about your business, what it's worth, what you maybe want to sell it for eventually, and that will define your growth strategy for the next couple of years, basically. So if you're wondering, like, what should be my next growth strategy look like as a small business owner, you might want to put on the glasses of someone who might potentially sell their business in the next five years and craft your strategy from that perspective. You'll always win. Maybe you're not going to sell your business, but you're going to create a hell of a lot of an amazing business that you might not ever want to sell. Like, no matter what it is that finally is going to be at the end of that growth journey, you're going to be up for a really lovely, amazing journey in the next couple of years ahead.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds like so many of the conversations we have with our clients, because I have exactly the same view as you. If you build a thing as though you're going to sell it one day, you're going to end up with a better business that at least you'll have the option to walk away from. And that's a lovely thing because. Exactly. You may choose not to. You may choose to just collect those dividends, keep everything going, and realize that actually this is a wonderful thing. It's a business that you know and understand. You know, the growth prospects, you're not going and investing in something else that you maybe don't understand or that could potentially hurt you, or just getting someone to manage your money and hope to make your kind of eight to 10% return a year. You know, small businesses can make far, far more than that. And that's why they are so exciting. That's why the whole angel ecosystem actually exists in the first place, right? Is because of the opportunity, 100%.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: Like, if you look at the upside of having your own venture versus the downside, I mean, why would you not go for it, right? It's probably the highest potential return on investment you might get from spending your time and your energy and your passion. Does that mean it always works out? No, it doesn't. But for most small business owners, it does. Like they might be going through a little bit of ups and downs and grinding and hustling because they see that as part of, you know, getting the batch of honor kind of a thing. But in the end, I mean, the upside of being your own boss and having your own business is way higher than the downside you would be. I wouldn't say silly, but it definitely is worthwhile looking at that opportunity because the return on investment is just through the roof. Definitely.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: I think what helps with managing the risk in your own mindset is if you've been in a corporate and you've seen what happens when someone gets retrenched late in their career, so now they've stuck with a place for ten or 15 years, they think they are sorted out. You know, they've had a good pension the whole way through, they think they've got enough for their retirement, and then there's a big change of management or something goes wrong in that corporate and this happens, and then suddenly there's job cuts. And now that person in their prime earning years, you know, the kids are out the house now they're finally in a senior role, they're now starting to really make the money, and then bang, there's a job cuts program at that company. And now suddenly you need to go and find something at a high salary somewhere else where often those companies are promoting from within. They're not looking at bringing in an external executive. Like, that's risk, and there, there's nothing you can do to mitigate it. Actually, you know, if you just happen to be wrong place run time, you can have your entire financial plan thrown into disarray because you were just on the wrong side of a job cut. At least when you work for yourself. Yes, you can't be sure that it's going to work, but at least it's in your hands. You know, that's the first point. And the second point is the upside is not capped, whereas in a corporate, the upside is capped really realistically. So for me, that's always been how I get my head around. The crazy life that I chose is, yes, the reward is much higher, but also the risk is not necessarily that much higher.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: I can only agree with you 100%. Absolutely.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: So while we have still got a bit of time in this podcast, we do need to bring it to a close soon. I am curious about the Forbes writing. What led you to become a contributor to Forbes? And, you know, what do you hope to achieve with that? I guess, is it your concept? Just teaching? I think you said a million entrepreneurs.
[00:24:28] Speaker C: Yes. So with the big exit, I'm on a mission to educate a million small business owners on how to get their business exit ready. And just like you, I'm a writer. I wrote a bestseller book a couple of years ago. I love writing. It helps me clarify my thoughts. And from, I mean, that's the personal part of it. Like, I love writing and it helps me get clarity. That's one thing. And it helps me to educate my audience. The other part is, I also truly believe that content marketing is still here as a very powerful way to reach to your ideal clients. So I'm a big fan of content marketing, and I know we've shifted a lot to podcasts and video when it comes down to content marketing, but there's still a huge space for like written content. And from that perspective, I was wondering, with the big exit, I'm building it slightly different than how I used to be building businesses. This is a little sidetrack here, but I'm in a position now where I constantly think, where is the leverage in what I do? Like, how can I leverage, for example, the pieces of content that I write, how can I get it in front of as many people as possible? And that is not through my own channels, because our channels are limited in terms of audience.
If you're looking at Forbes, that's a very different ballgame. They have a massive audience. So for me, if I'm thinking about leverage in terms of content marketing, it's like, what are the channels where my audience is already at, where I can meet them and where they are hanging out? And Forbes is a medium that offers that specifically for massively in the US, but also outside of the US. And this might sound a little bit wibbly wobbly, whooshy but I asked the universe, and I said, where's the leverage in this content marketing strategy that I'm applying? And literally a week later, I see a post, specifically, I see a post on LinkedIn from one of my connections who's a Forbes contributor and who's like, they're looking for new contributors. If you want to apply, this is how you do that. And I said, thank you, universe. That's what I wanted. So I went through the process, which was very lengthy and pretty heavy. Due diligence. Took about five months, I think. To be officially be appointed as a Forbes contributor, kind of have to define your own unique thing that you're writing about. So I write about scaling to sell and freedom preneurship, all targeted at small business owners. So that's my swim lane. That's what makes me unique on Forbes. And that's kind of like how I pitched my content to them. And after five months, it was literally two days before Christmas. My present arrived early.
My Christmas present arrived early. And there you go. I became a Forbes contributor.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Amazing. I love it. So I think to end the podcast, I'm going to read the preview from your bestseller on Amazon. So this is from 2017. It looks like this was published at least in paperback.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: I wrote that book in 2017.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Okay, there we go.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Exactly. And you can buy it in ebook version as well. So.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Okay, so Linda Paul, 35, and wakes up every morning without any alarm clock and just stop there.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: That's seven years ago. Eh, when I was 35.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Right now, like, I'm giving away your age, but you've done that yourself on Amazon. But I think the point is the, I think the point is the freedom. So, yeah, it's just, it's just a really cool, it's a really cool concept. And I think I would have probably been a bit skeptical a few years ago when I started this thing. And again, hindsight is perfect, but I have definitely come to realize that if you don't put in place some of the steps to simplify your life and actually chase what it really is, that makes you happy, which for everyone is going to be different. For me, it's not a dream of this like endless amount of money. In fact, I think that's a very, very empty vessel at the end of that journey. I think it's more about having enough time to do the things I enjoy and to just choose what to do each day with the right people. I think that's happiness. You need money to be able to do that. Kidding yourself if you think that doesn't you know, that doesn't help you. But you definitely don't need to be a billionaire to have that kind of freedom. And in pursuit of that dream, you'll probably give up way too much along the way. So, yeah, I just wanted to thank you for your time today and for those looking for you. I'll leave it to you to tell people how to find you. Website LinkedIn and of course, the stuff you write on Forbes as well.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah, awesome. So we can probably put some show notes here, but if you look for my name, Lyndepaw on Forbes, you will find all the contributions that I do there. My website is the bigexit Dot Co.
And if you do a forward slash quiz, then you can immediately take our five minutes assessment, which is for free. And it tells you how sellable your business is at this very moment. And it gives you a couple of practical tips on how you can make it more sellable. And if you reach out to me via LinkedIn, my profile is Lindepaugh on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to connect with small business owners and people in the m and a space, so feel free to reach out on LinkedIn as well.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Thank you so much. What an excellent discussion. I really enjoyed it and it's been super nice to meet you. Thank you.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
