Prepare for a valuable exit by removing the founder as key-person risk before the buyer starts looking. Build a leadership team, document how the company wins work, reduce founder-led sales dependency, strengthen margins, and decide what role you want after the transaction.
Listen to episode 356
$100m exit at 37: what they do not tell you about selling your business
Why this episode matters for exit readiness
Andrew Hulbert joined Dominic Monkhouse on Scale to Win to talk about building Pareto from a bedroom startup into a 500-person, £50m turnover business and a $100m exit. The useful part is not the headline number. It is the founder-readiness lesson underneath it: the business became more valuable when Andrew stopped being the only credible person in the room.
The target query is not “how do you sell a company?” It is “how do you prepare a company so someone else wants to buy it?” This episode gives a lived example of the answer: remove founder dependency, build a leadership team, keep selling strategically, and prepare psychologically for what happens after the deal.
Who is Andrew Hulbert?
Andrew Hulbert founded Pareto from his bedroom at 27. The episode description and RSS record state that he scaled the company to £50m turnover and 500 staff before a £100m/$100m-class exit. He now speaks candidly about the cost of building, the importance of time wealth, and why a founder has to know when their own style is helping or hurting the company.
Five useful takeaways from the episode
- Founder redundancy increases exit value. Andrew’s strongest exit-readiness point is that he hired a CEO who could take the business through the next exit.
- The buyer is buying the system, not your hustle. Founder energy can win early work, but it can also look like risk when corporate buyers or investors assess the company.
- Leadership continuity matters. Andrew says Pareto did not lose a senior leader during his decade as CEO. That is a powerful signal for a buyer.
- You still need founder-led selling at the right moments. The lesson is not to disappear. It is to know where the founder creates disproportionate value and where someone else should lead.
- Prepare for life after the deal before the deal closes. Andrew is direct that money gives you time, not automatic happiness. Post-exit identity is part of exit readiness.
Snippets from the episode transcript
These short transcript excerpts show why exit readiness is not just a deal process. It is a founder-dependency problem.
- Hire for the next exit. Andrew says that after running something yourself for nine years, you may need to “hire a CEO” who can take the business on and “get them through the next exit”. That is a hard founder transition, not a tidy succession chart.
- The exit had substance. Andrew describes taking Pareto to “50 million pound turnover”, 500 staff and a “100 million dollar exit”. The lesson is not theory. It came from building something buyers valued.
- Senior-team continuity mattered. He says they hired 15 senior leaders and did not lose a single senior leader in his 10 years as CEO. Buyers do not just buy growth. They look for a team that will stay and keep performing.
- Money buys time, not meaning. Andrew says “the key to happiness is not money and material things”. For him, money allowed him to buy back time after years of being always on.
- Founder control is expensive. Andrew admits he was doing “$10 tasks” because no one could do them better in his head. That mindset can build momentum, but it also explains why stepping back before an exit is so difficult.
Books and resources mentioned
These were mentioned in or around the episode and are useful follow-up reading.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a business ready for a valuable exit?
A business is ready for a valuable exit when growth, sales, leadership and customer retention do not depend on the founder being personally involved in every important decision. Buyers want evidence that the company can keep performing after the founder steps back.
When should a founder start preparing for exit?
A founder should start preparing years before the sale. The valuable work is not polishing the deck at the end. It is building a senior team, reducing key-person risk, clarifying margins, systemising sales and deciding what the founder's role should become.
Why does founder dependency reduce exit value?
Founder dependency reduces exit value because it makes the business harder to transfer later. If the customer relationships, sales momentum, cultural standards or decision-making sit mainly with the founder, a buyer sees risk and prices that risk into the deal.
Should a founder hire a CEO before selling?
Sometimes. Andrew Hulbert’s example shows why it can matter. If the next phase needs a different operating leader, hiring a CEO before exit can prove the business is not dependent on the founder. The timing has to be deliberate, not cosmetic.
How can CEO mentoring help with exit readiness?
CEO mentoring helps the founder see where they are still the constraint, what needs to be delegated or redesigned, and which leadership gaps would worry a buyer. The work is part operating judgement, part challenge, and part founder role redesign.
Where Monkhouse & Company fits
If you are preparing for a future exit and the company still relies on you for too many sales, decisions or customer relationships, start with Founder Coach & CEO Mentoring.
The commercial bridge is CEO mentoring for founder-CEOs who need to make the business less dependent on them before a sale, refinancing, succession event or next growth phase.