Ryan Moran, an entrepreneur and investor known for his expertise in e-commerce and brand-building, shares the incredible story of how he sold his company for $16 million, only to buy it back later for pennies on the dollar. Moran takes listeners through his journey of building the company from the ground up, scaling it, and eventually making the decision to sell. He reflects on the highs and lows of the sale process and the unexpected challenges that came after the deal was done. Despite the success, Moran reveals how losing control of the business led him to rethink his approach to entrepreneurship and what he values most.The episode then shifts to a fascinating discussion of Moran’s decision to repurchase the company, a move that required not just financial investment, but a new mindset and a willingness to start over. Moran explains the process of buying back his company, the lessons he learned from both the success and failure of the sale, and the strategies he employed to rebuild the business stronger than before. Through his candid storytelling, Moran emphasizes the importance of resilience, the power of learning from mistakes, and how the experience has shaped his perspective on business and life. This episode provides invaluable insights into the entrepreneurial journey, showcasing the significance of persistence and the ability to pivot when faced with unforeseen circumstances.CHAPTER TITLES3:00 - The Journey Begins: Selling for $16M5:30 - Early Days: Growing the Company8:00 - The $16M Sale: What Went Right10:30 - Post-Sale Realities: A Sudden Shift13:00 - Buying It Back: The Big Decision15:00 - Rebuilding the Business from Scratch17:30 - Overcoming New Challenges19:00 - What I Learned from Losing the Company20:30 - The Power of Persistence in Entrepreneurship22:00 - Future Plans: Moving Forward After the ComebackConnect with Ryan Moran:SOCIALS - Ryan Daniel Moranhttps://www.capitalism.com/https://www.capitalism.com/playbookConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter
Chapter 1: What was the journey behind selling the company for $16 million?
Our business at its peak, we sold it for $16 million. Rudy, we were doing $10 million a year in sales when we sold it. It was doing a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue. That's how much that it had degraded. So we bought it back. We're on the same exact playbook. Hadn't changed. Same product, same people, same strategies. And guess what? The company is growing again.
Here's the takeaway that was so profound for me.
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What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. We have a special episode today with one of my longest internet marketing entrepreneur friends and a really cool story how he sold his supplement companies for $16 million and then re-bought it for pennies on the dollar and a very close friend for many years. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Rudy. I mean, we knew each other when I was just scraping this little company together on the climb up even before I sold it and then bought it back. So you've seen the entire journey. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, a long time. Literally, I moved to America, joined a couple of masterminds, met you at like one of the first. I was just like finishing grad school and starting my fitness business. And I think I shared this with you, like one of the first marketing events I ever went to in my life, especially in America, was your event, Saturday Night Live.
Yeah, I sat at the back of the room and like taking notes. And it was right before we went to Ben Greenfield's house. And I think you were there, too. And this was like, what, eight years ago. And then, you know, a few years later, we became close friends. And I spoke on that stage. And then, you know, we've been friends ever since. So cool full circle story. But let's let's dive in.
Tell us about you and the supplements to kick us off.
I cut my teeth as your traditional internet marketer, like many of us do, learning affiliate marketing or a skill set like SEO or pay-per-click marketing or whatever the hack is at the time. But about eight, nine years into my career, I realized that if you do this stuff for a real business, a real business meaning something that you can scale and sell, then then it works a lot better.
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Chapter 2: How did Ryan grow his company after buying it back?
Chapter 3: What went right during the $16 million sale?
I cut my teeth as your traditional internet marketer, like many of us do, learning affiliate marketing or a skill set like SEO or pay-per-click marketing or whatever the hack is at the time. But about eight, nine years into my career, I realized that if you do this stuff for a real business, a real business meaning something that you can scale and sell, then then it works a lot better.
So I applied my skillset into a physical products brand. This was early days in the dawn of Amazon FBA. And when that was kind of a new platform, And I put all of my marketing efforts into customer acquisition and follow up sequences and search engine optimization and content marketing into what I would call a real business, which allowed me to launch products quickly.
Chapter 4: What were the post-sale challenges faced by Ryan?
And I ran the math when I was, you know, 25 years old, seeing that if I could just get four products at 25 sales a day, that would be 100 sales a day. And at a $30 price point, that would be a million dollar business, which to me at 25, I never had a million dollar business before. So that was the end goal.
But then you realize as you get to a certain point that, oh my goodness, there's something called enterprise value. in business. We forget about this as cash flow entrepreneurs. We think about cash in, cash out. Wait a minute, there's this whole other side of it called enterprise value. That's the value of your business when it is sold.
And of course, there's a variety of different ways that you can calculate how much a business is worth. Poor man's math just is a multiple of profit. And our business at its peak was doing about $4 million. I think maybe a million. Now I forget. It's been so long. We sold it for $16 million. That was the valuation. But here's the kicker. Here's the asterisk. I didn't get all that money up front.
Chapter 5: What led to the decision to buy the company back?
I got most of it split with my partner, 50-50. But we didn't get all that up front. We carried some to ride with the private equity group. because they wanted to take it to $50 million, $100 million, and me at 29 going, you guys are the big guys with these deep pockets. You've done this before. You know how to build businesses to $50 and $100 million. Well, they don't know internet marketing.
They don't know the skills that you and I have and everybody listening to this is so good at. It gets corporatized and bureaucracized. And so a few years after selling the company, the company went bankrupt. They got away from the playbook that made it successful. They got away from the entrepreneurial spirit. And I bought it back for a few pennies on the dollar.
I've now been rebuilding that business. It's now pacing seven figures again. When we bought it back, it was doing a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue. Rudy, we were doing $10 million a year in sales when we sold it. $10 million. It was doing a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue. That's how much that it had degraded. So we bought it back. But on the same exact playbook, hadn't changed.
Same product, same people, same strategies. And guess what? The company is growing again. And we're still fairly early in that climb up process, but now we're pacing seven figures again. We're still relaunching the product line. And the intent is to bring it back to its old glory days. And then we'll see what happens.
We could sell it again or we could just build a really great business that we're excited to have. That's the full story.
Yeah, it's a great story. And I always love, like I've heard a few of the stories where entrepreneur sells it, PE tanks it, entrepreneur buys it back. I think it's like the David and Goliath. That's one of the best stories. And, you know, I've worked with some PE firms and I think they even admit like their success rate is like two out of 10, but the two...
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Chapter 6: What lessons did Ryan learn from losing control of his company?
Dell is like they get get it to nine figures or whatever. So it still makes sense for them, you know, but it's just funny.
Here's the takeaway that was so profound for me. This is how valuable our skill set is as entrepreneurs or marketers and founders. Sometimes we forget because most of us grew up just wanting to make money. We just wanted to have a different life. And so we learn a skill set. We learn to monetize it.
But when you apply it to a real business and you think about the enterprise value that it can create, oh my goodness, we have such a skill set. And we often as entrepreneurs sell ourselves short because we see all the problems in our businesses. But when you see that really deep pocketed investors and entrepreneurs
private equity groups, buy companies, get away from the thing that made it special and tank it, you realize, wait, maybe we're good at this.
And maybe if we can combine those different frameworks, we can take some lessons from the finance world, we can take some lessons from the PE world, and we combine it with our entrepreneurial spirit and our marketing know-how, maybe we can build some really exciting special enterprises.
Yeah. And I think it's interesting because like, you know, I've obviously had a mastermind and coached hundreds of people now. And I've seen like there's a certain percent, probably a small percent that actually can take companies, entrepreneurs that can take their company to 10 million and beyond because they're able to merge the entrepreneurial side and the corporate side.
Sadly, I don't think most entrepreneurs can, which is why most never get past a couple of mil. Um, and it, it, you know, I'm always emphasizing, I say people buy my masterminds and stuff for ads, funnels, marketing, branding, social, but half of what we're teaching is the boring stuff, right? How to make a higher VA, how to delegate, how to track KPIs.
And, you know, you can learn a lot of that great stuff from corporate, um, But I would love to just talk about the $16 million in sales or exits so we don't graze past it. If someone's listening, they're doing a couple of mil a year or scaling their business. What were some key lessons to actually building it to that level and then the exit part?
Well, the first is thinking about enterprise value as separate from cash flow. So I like to say there's three types of money. There's cash flow, there's wealth, and there's enterprise value. Cash flow, obvious. You're not listening to this podcast if you don't know what that is.
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