Alex Carroll, seller of e-commerce brand Alpine Rings, shares advice with host Andrew Gazdecki for founders struggling to find product-market fit.
Insight
Carroll: Buying an existing business de-risks ventures versus starting from scratch
“Having started a bunch of businesses and then sold a couple before this, buying a business is now like, man, it's so much better. You can use a lot more of your experience to improve it, we found than the other way around. Just, it's all, it just de-risks it u…”
Insight
Carroll: Acquiring a business lets founders bypass early customer discovery pain
“The person before that spent the two to three years to build it to where it was, they went through all the pain of, like, who is the customer, what do they want, you know, and trying to build the product. Based on that, we got to, like, interview the customer,…”
Insight
Carroll: Founders who do not track daily financials cannot create shareholder value
“You need to know every dollar in and out every day of your business and how it translates to the P&L and the balance sheet in QuickBooks Online or whatever accounting software you use. If you don't understand it, you will never create shareholder value. You wi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carroll: Alpine Rings Grew From $300k Revenue to $2.4M Run Rate Before Sale
“I think at the time it was making 300,000 in revenue and then at the time we sold it, we were at a run rate of, like, 2.4 million.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carroll: Custom engraving drove 30% to 40% revenue boost for Alpine Rings
“But honestly, the biggest unlock for the business is custom engraving. So we offered, we weren't offering custom engraving on the rings, and then once we offered it, we picked up an incremental revenue of like 30 to 40%.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carroll: Alpine Rings buyer paid all cash at closing, zero seller financing
“So they had all cash at closing instead of any seller financing after that.”