The Wise Exit

Cashing Out Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Podcast | E26 | What It's Like To Sell To Apple

00:00:02:06 - 00:00:28:11
Todd Sullivan
Welcome to the Cashing Out podcast, where our fellow founders share real stories and offer honest advice around selling their companies to some of the top acquirers in the world. My name is Todd Sullivan, CEO of Exitwise, where we help business owners create the exits they deserve. Today, my guest is a very experienced operator, entrepreneur Joe Meyer. Joe has built several large business units within larger companies like Upper Deck, PWC and eBay.

00:00:28:20 - 00:00:57:01
Todd Sullivan
And he's founded and sold multiple companies to corporate behemoths like AOL and Apple. Joe attributes much of his success to his unwavering perseverance, which was driven home when his college baseball career was painfully cut short, which we'll hear about later. Joe and I also talk about the Herculean efforts needed to get any new business off the ground and then properly positioned to sell when these same businesses are often days from bankruptcy before finding sustainable success.

00:00:57:17 - 00:01:21:03
Todd Sullivan
Finally, we'll learn about Joe's latest venture ExecThreads, which is a peer to peer job sharing network. Joe has built ExecThreads to close to 1 million of the highest quality business leaders from all walks of life who uncover and share some of the most sought after private job listings for top executives in the world. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Joe Meyer.

00:01:21:05 - 00:01:34:21
Todd Sullivan
Joe, thank you for doing this today. Really excited to have you on. Right. I've been anticipating this particular interview so much so that when Mark Cuban tried to take your spot, I said, No way, man, get back on the line. So thank you for being here.

00:01:35:00 - 00:01:37:17
Joe Meyer
No worries. Probably should have went with Mark Cuban, but that's fine.

00:01:39:07 - 00:02:02:14
Todd Sullivan
I guess what I'm excited about is you're you're this kind of self-proclaimed operator, entrepreneur. You've been in so many industries operating as kind of the XO. You've been founders of businesses, you've been in venture capital. You really kind of seen and done it all and not afraid to kind of reinvent yourself. And what's really important here right, is you've been part of these exits, right?

00:02:02:14 - 00:02:28:12
Todd Sullivan
Your built and sold business units to some the top acquirers in the world. And now you've got the latest exec threads of business that you launch that sounds like it's a runaway freight train. So I think there's a lot to get into, if you don't mind. Right. You've got a storied career. But I love how it kind of started when you and I talked, it was you've got a great story of it's like, hey, this was my life before college and now, you know, I'm going after it.

00:02:28:12 - 00:02:33:04
Todd Sullivan
And kind of perseverance is my superpower. So can you take us back a little bit?

00:02:33:12 - 00:02:58:03
Joe Meyer
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me on the podcast. I'm looking forward to it and having a good conversation. You know, I just decided at a really early age that I was going to have an atypical career. And what I mean by atypical career, I mean, you know, had a mom and parents who really reinforced education, but they really reinforced education really with two mantras.

00:02:58:03 - 00:03:18:01
Joe Meyer
One is, you know, get a good education, get college educated and have a better life than us because they weren't college educated, but also with the desired outcome to be or the objective to be a doctor or a lawyer or banker. And I had three older brothers and I saw it all go down the traditional career path.

00:03:18:01 - 00:03:38:16
Joe Meyer
So I didn't necessarily sense that they were overly fulfilled or gratified in those career paths. Plus my dad got re-engineered out of a job twice, you know, within a corporate banking setting. And I saw that at an early age. And I just said to myself, you know what? I'm just going to I'm going to control my own destiny.

00:03:38:16 - 00:04:01:06
Joe Meyer
I'm going to go in. I'm going to go down a career path where, you know, no one else can make decisions on how my career is going to play out except for myself. And for me, that was really an entrepreneurial. So you and I spoke last week and you said that entrepreneurship is a career path. I've actually said throughout my career that entrepreneurship is not a career path.

00:04:01:09 - 00:04:23:03
Joe Meyer
What I mean by that is you're not working your way up the corporate ladder. You're not trying to find the next best job within your company or outside your company. And there's no like steady progress points of, Oh, I'm a manager, then I'm a director, then I'm a VP in an SVP. You know, entrepreneurship is very choppy, very unpredictable, very at on forecast able.

00:04:23:22 - 00:04:44:08
Joe Meyer
And you're not really measuring your success by your titles or your income like you do in a traditional workshop. So, you know, the only thing I would you know, the other thing I would say is entrepreneurship is not for the light of heart. There is a lot of bumps in the road, a lot of pitfalls and peaks and valleys and and potholes.

00:04:45:05 - 00:04:57:07
Joe Meyer
And you experienced failure oftentimes much more than success. And you have to persevere through those, those challenging times which are never ending. And omni-present.

00:04:57:07 - 00:05:20:16
Todd Sullivan
Yeah. Thank you. I you know, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and actually I was meeting with one this morning and he said, you know, nobody sees the first three years of the herculean efforts that it takes to get something off the ground. And then as soon as they see you in the news and the company is successful and you go out and have an exit, they think it's this kind of turnaround success or you must have been lucky.

00:05:21:08 - 00:05:43:22
Todd Sullivan
So, yes, it's incredibly difficult. I appreciate you sharing that. We all recognize it. What I mean by career path and I think that this is really kind of proving out in today's world is that, you know, I come from parents who were entrepreneurs and they started a business, and if they were fortunate enough, they would, you know, take that business 40, 50 years.

00:05:44:07 - 00:06:16:09
Todd Sullivan
And they're either turning off the lights, handing it to the next generation or trying to sell it for, you know, asset value. Whereas today, what I see is and I'm an example of that, is I've started for businesses, I've sold for businesses. I am doing the fifth. I see it very much as a career path. And I think this path resonates with you because when we chatted, I think you agree is that it's not about getting up to the plate and trying to be at the exact right moment with bases loaded with one swing hitting a grand slam.

00:06:16:09 - 00:06:36:07
Todd Sullivan
That is not what we're doing here. Those expectations are ridiculous. We read about those. What entrepreneurship is, is really trying to build value, right? We're looking for product market fit. We're trying to get unit economics right. And at some point for every entrepreneur, they may find themselves that they are not the right person to lead the organization to that next level.

00:06:36:12 - 00:07:00:13
Todd Sullivan
And it may be time to hire around you, step aside or even sell that business. And what we're seeing today is there's more of that. Somebody is going to do five companies and three of them might work. Right. And I'm excited for this generation of entrepreneurs who sees taking some money off the table kind of early in that fourth inning as opposed to waiting for the 9th, or over time to monetize.

00:07:00:23 - 00:07:15:23
Todd Sullivan
I think you're going to see, you know, more satisfaction, kind of diversity of industries and experiences. And I thought, like, you know, when you and I first met, that's what really resonated with me as I think you saw all of that. So that's what I mean by my career path.

00:07:16:22 - 00:07:51:02
Joe Meyer
Yeah. And, you know, I'm glad you mentioned not not taking it to the ninth inning, but taking it to the fourth inning. An analogy I can relate to. I played college baseball, so I think about things analogous terms. But no, when I think about, you know, how hard it is not only to get an idea from idea stage to, you know, operating stage, but then how to get it from operating stage to monetization and how to get a and product market fit later that, but then get it to profitability and cash flow positive and, and scale, which is really kind of what it's all about.

00:07:51:18 - 00:08:25:08
Joe Meyer
I mean, the chances of that happening just dwindle every step of the way and there's very, very, very microscopic percentages of total new ventures that make it to that. And I final point, and I think there's that saying greed is good from the movie Wall Street. In some ways, I actually think greed isn't good in world of entrepreneurship because, you know, there's a lot of companies out there that could have achieved liquidity in the form of PR or an M&A exit, you know, earlier on in the process.

00:08:25:08 - 00:08:50:21
Joe Meyer
But they held out for a much bigger payday and there's a graveyard of companies that never achieve that bigger payday, you know, and knowing when to exit, when you do have that opportunity and, you know, playing your cards right is so important. And sometimes, you know, you should get out at the fourth or fifth inning, give it off to a relief pitcher as opposed to, you know, trying to pitch a complete game.

00:08:52:05 - 00:09:14:01
Todd Sullivan
Yeah. I like to say also that by putting wins on the board, right. Selling in that fourth inning makes the next one a little bit easier. And you. Right. You've played the venture game, right? You’ve been an Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR). So you're evaluating, making investments, following portfolio companies and those are a certain set of expectations, right. That you know, if you if you want to play that game, that's what you got to follow.

00:09:14:07 - 00:09:40:00
Todd Sullivan
And so you're going to see companies that get overfunded and over diluted and in the end, does it even make sense for those founders to sell at certain points where they could have liquidity? It maybe it makes sense to chase that kind of the biggest outcome because that's the only way they get a payday. So, yeah, there's some competing interests going on when you take on outside investment and you know, and I'm certainly a fan of it in certain certain situations.

00:09:40:05 - 00:10:04:08
Joe Meyer
Yeah. And the only thing I would say in that regard is a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the tech space, view raising venture capital as a litmus for success. And and as you probably know, it's only the start of the process. And yeah, you might be fortunate enough to raise venture capital, but at the same time, one, it's not a barometer of how successful your company is.

00:10:04:16 - 00:10:32:16
Joe Meyer
It's a lot of not so successful companies have raised venture capital, done nothing with it. But I would also say that once you raise venture capital, especially, you know, if you raise this amount of it, it really limits your liquidity opportunities because you can't entertain otherwise attractive acquisition opportunities at valuations that are lower than a certain point. But you could if you had never raised venture capital.

00:10:33:16 - 00:10:55:00
Joe Meyer
So it is a double edged sword in terms of, yes, it gives you the a fuel to ignite the fire sometimes, but a lot of times you can't pursue liquidity events because investors don't make the multiple that they're looking for it. And even though you as a founder would tend, it does create conflicting interests.

00:10:55:14 - 00:11:03:20
Todd Sullivan
It's a yeah, it's a great point when you actually achieve taking on venture capital. All you really did was great. Now you have a job and a new boss.

00:11:04:04 - 00:11:20:21
Joe Meyer
Well, not only that, but. But you also have to spend it and you have to spend it quickly because they're not giving you the money to sit in the bank. And a lot of times startups don't even know how to spend that money. Even though they just spent 6 to 12 months raising it, saying to those investors, Here's how I spend it.

00:11:21:10 - 00:11:30:06
Joe Meyer
When it hit your bank account, the expectation is you're going to spend it. You know, it creates a very interesting evolution.

00:11:30:06 - 00:11:46:19
Todd Sullivan
Well, let's let's jump back. I loved the college story for at least for me. Right. From an outsider's perspective, when I heard what you went through, that kind of shaped your career going forward and somewhat the success, maybe you could kind of step back and then take us into kind of the first venture?

00:11:48:01 - 00:12:11:20
Joe Meyer
Yeah, I mean, I would say we were all 18 or 20 years old, you know, at one point, and some of us were more mature than others at that age, and some of us were less mature. Then another was at that age. And I would put myself in the less mature category. And, you know, even though I went to a really good academic school, got some grades, you know, I played baseball in college at the Division one level.

00:12:11:20 - 00:12:44:21
Joe Meyer
And, you know, I prioritized other things over that commitment and, you know, eventually led me to leaving the team after two years and not fulfilling my obligations and not following through on my commitment. And then in the moment, it felt like the right decision because I was prioritizing other things that 18 to 20 year old to prioritize, but as I know, matured and and as I started to start and evolve my career, I look back on that and said, you know what?

00:12:45:15 - 00:13:20:01
Joe Meyer
I have a regret with prematurely. I let down my teammates, I let down myself. I didn't fulfill my obligations. I didn't take things to the finish line. And in some ways I kind of took the easy way out and that shaped me forever in terms of there are so many points in in a startups evolution, especially if you're the founder and founder where it's easy to quit, it's easy to give up that easy to, you know, does it just are harder to sludge through the mud that you need sludge through to get to the other end.

00:13:20:15 - 00:13:40:04
Joe Meyer
And I think, you know I look back on what has what has made me who I am and what has led to the perseverance and persistence and grit that I have. It's looked back on that experience and said, I'm never going to quit again, never going to persevere or persist and figure out how to overcome adversity and challenges.

00:13:40:19 - 00:13:53:21
Joe Meyer
And I think a lot of it is impacted by that experience of, you know, stopping playing baseball in college prematurely and and having regrets about it and not wanting to let my life such regrets moving forward.

00:13:55:01 - 00:14:17:08
Todd Sullivan
Joe, thanks for sharing that. I think a lot of people that'll absolutely resonate right particularly as as athletes there's a moment in time where you're you're hanging up the cleats and a lot of our identity is tied into that. And we all kind of think back, what if. Right. So those are hard moments. It sounds like you took some amazing lessons from that.

00:14:17:19 - 00:14:42:06
Todd Sullivan
And, you know, I after talking to the first time, I could tell, like, perseverance that that's your superpower. And we've all been there having started companies and not being able to make payroll, being on the edge of bankruptcy. And there's something in certain people that will say irrationally, I'm not letting this go. And and I have actually a really hard time recommending that to people.

00:14:42:06 - 00:14:58:14
Todd Sullivan
Right. Because we take it takes a real like emotional toll to go through that over and over. But you came out on the other side, right, where a lot of people would have given up in many situations. Can you talk to me about kind of that that first one where it's like, you know, you're up against the wall?

00:14:58:19 - 00:15:21:14
Joe Meyer
Yeah. I mean, it's really been my last two startups, this one ExecThread, my last one HopStop where both companies had multiple near-death experiences running out of money, if not having modernization model or good model figured out, knocking off stable operated in the red every month, seeing windowing cash the bay, not knowing if you're going to make payroll next month or next week.

00:15:22:01 - 00:15:40:13
Joe Meyer
And I would say that you know yes nine out of ten people would I would frighten the heck out of them. And, you know, they would they would run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. You know, in this people that run towards the fire, the people that run away from the fire. But, you know, you don't do it irrationally.

00:15:41:00 - 00:16:19:22
Joe Meyer
I'm not letting emotions or irrational to the way when I determine that it's worth it. Steadfast and pursuing something in spite of immense obstacles and unlikelihood of success. There is something there that is telling me that it's still worth pursuing and it's not illogical or irrational. It could be, you know, a lot of positive user feedback. It could be looking at engagement data that doesn't necessarily make the cash register ring, but gives you reason to be optimistic about the future, gives you reason to keep sticking with it.

00:16:20:15 - 00:16:41:18
Joe Meyer
My latest venture, ExecThread, my original VCs have largely given up on this. You know, they walked away or stepped off the board. We didn't go to, you know, 0 to 100 in 5 years or less. Yeah. You know, they even said to me, Joe, you know, opportunity costs would be better for you to find your next new startup or, or another opportunity.

00:16:41:18 - 00:17:10:22
Joe Meyer
And I said, you know what? There's something here. There's something here worth second for. And same thing with my last HopStop, and the last one wound up being a very successful outcome in spite of the challenges along the way. Having sold to Apple and ExecThread is now hitting its stride greatly accelerating and, you know, getting increasingly profitable and revenue getting increasingly interesting month after month and member growth being scaling.

00:17:11:08 - 00:17:27:18
Joe Meyer
But but it came after some near-death experiences, and it does take a different sort of mindset to to walk through those challenges and to not have it adversely impact, you know, the other parts of your life.

00:17:28:13 - 00:17:48:09
Todd Sullivan
So what I'd love to talk about is HopStop, right? That is it's a fantastic story, right? And you go to sell the company to Apple. Can you take me through up to the moment where you were being kind of tapped for acquisition or you made the decision to sell the company? What had you built to that point?

00:17:48:12 - 00:17:49:09
Todd Sullivan
Don't you tell us about that.

00:17:50:06 - 00:18:31:03
Joe Meyer
Yeah. So Hub Stop was a multimodal pedestrian navigation platform that started out as web only pre mobile, believe it or not. And then once iPhone was introduced, the one, you know, we morphed much more into a mobile app experience but we being HopStop invented the whole multimodal pedestrian navigation category, which is just a fancy way of saying the combination of public transit plus walking directions to get from door to door, point A to point B, point C, which is now pervasively distributed in Google Maps and Apple Maps as a as another kind of way to get from point A to point B besides driving directions.

00:18:31:16 - 00:19:04:01
Joe Meyer
But that whole use case exact thread was the first mover in that category. HopStop. Yeah. And not not necessarily always the best thing to be a first mover in this case, it worked to our benefit, mainly because it enabled us to establish a brand and if we were known for that use case, but Google came into the space two or three years after we, you know, after we invented the space, which was awfully validating but awfully intimidating as well, because Google gives away Google Maps for free.

00:19:04:01 - 00:19:28:23
Joe Meyer
So how do you compete with free? But it also enabled us to scale as well, because Google created some standards in the industry that enabled us to piggyback off of that. But in any event, so Apple, as we all know, introduced Apple Maps a few years ago, and when they introduced it, it was not a successful introduction and they didn't have pedestrian navigation in it.

00:19:29:08 - 00:19:48:15
Joe Meyer
And one of the biggest complaints that people had about Apple Maps early on was the fact that it didn't have, you know, walking in transit directions. So but but but Apple Maps had much bigger fish to fry in that first year or two post-launch. But they did reach out to us before, as well as shortly after the introduction of Apple Maps.

00:19:48:15 - 00:20:10:18
Joe Meyer
And we had some good conversations and they were very, very interested. But they went radio silent on us. They quietly went in the dark. They went from leaning heavily forward one day to not hearing them from them for, you know, two years thereafter. Radio silence. And then I just had a phone call from the head of engineering for Google Apple Maps.

00:20:10:18 - 00:20:30:02
Joe Meyer
One day, two years after not hearing from them at all, saying, you know, had an update and it seems like you guys are doing some interesting things, and after I gave him the update, he said, Yeah, I think I think we're addressing an acquired. And I said, Well, you know, that's good to hear. But you told me the same thing two years ago.

00:20:30:02 - 00:20:45:15
Joe Meyer
So what makes me, what makes you think you're serious this time? He said within 5 minutes you'll know that I'm serious. And 5 minutes. The Head of Corporate Development for Apple was calling me and sending me emails, and that's when I knew there was, you know, this was a little different.

00:20:45:15 - 00:21:04:06
Todd Sullivan
Yeah. Okay. Thank you for taking me through that. So I’ve got a lot of questions. But I think, you know, one of the learnings here is when you know, somebody in product is in charge of delivering that product for a company, gets enamored with a solution and finds like, hey, this is I can either build this or we can go out and buy it.

00:21:04:14 - 00:21:30:01
Todd Sullivan
And they bring corporate development into that conversation. You know, that conversation is is now serious. But stepping back, do you think that originally when they were reaching out, it was prior to launch, you said they probably anticipated, okay, we've got a gap in this product and we got to just kind of explore what what's out there today. Were they fishing for, hey, maybe we can learn something and build it ourselves?

00:21:30:01 - 00:21:35:22
Todd Sullivan
You think that's what that two years was about and realizing this is a bigger lift than we're willing to take?

00:21:36:18 - 00:21:58:03
Joe Meyer
I definitely think it was more of the latter, which is this is a bigger lift than we're willing to take, and we're going to need to bring in some expertise to help us do it. And perfect the great. I also think they underestimated how important of a use case that was to the navigational experience walking and transit directions, especially in big cities like didn't work in other metropolitan areas.

00:21:58:20 - 00:22:26:15
Joe Meyer
I don't think they were ever you know, maybe I'm naive. I don't think they were ever to acquire knowledge from us earlier on in the process when they could build it themselves. I think they were trying to get smarter and figure out, you know, ask and answer some key questions for themselves. But I remember after one of those early meetings, you know, two years before we were acquired, the head of engineering for Apple Maps sat silent in an hour long meeting with us.

00:22:26:15 - 00:22:48:19
Joe Meyer
The head of product was asking all the questions. And at the very end of that meeting, that of engineering, we didn't say a word in the first hour or two in the last 5 minutes of the meeting, said one thing, said Thanks for presenting. That was very, very impressive. And what you guys do is really hard. And that was all we need now.

00:22:48:19 - 00:23:07:09
Joe Meyer
It's all we needed to hear because like, yeah, when the head of engineering for a big business unit, you know, with Apple says what you do is really hard. I don't think he's saying that lightly. But we knew we knew if we just kept doing what we were doing that hopefully know it would come around, which say that that's great.

00:23:07:09 - 00:23:27:18
Todd Sullivan
It brings me to, I think, back of a couple of stories where I've been in those rooms talking acquisition with different stakeholders from a potential buyer. And I remember we were we had a product and it was Nike, and Nike was testing that product and they were out using the product out around the campus while we were having this meeting.

00:23:27:18 - 00:23:46:01
Todd Sullivan
And the product tester was brand new to Nike, had just gotten there that week, a professional skater, and he walks into the room and he's holding, you know, our product, our skates in his hand. He's like, This is a greatest thing I've ever been on. And they grab him and just pull him out into the room. Yeah, so out of the room.

00:23:47:12 - 00:24:04:14
Todd Sullivan
But that's great to have that kind of validation to saying you are solving a very difficult needed problem. So you got product, you got engineering, and now corporate developments got to go kind of do their job. Can you talk to me at that point? Had you hired an investment banker? Right. At some point, you know, this is serious.

00:24:04:22 - 00:24:12:00
Todd Sullivan
So how are you how are you thinking about representation and taking this from, you know, serious conversation to an actual transaction?

00:24:13:16 - 00:24:44:10
Joe Meyer
Yeah, You know, we didn't go with a banker. We went with kind of a triumvirate of, you know, the CEO, which was made a really good law firm and our board to kind of handle the process, you know, Apple's also an interesting acquirer in the sense of, you know, they do wield a lot of power. You know, in retrospect what I have done things differently, maybe one or two things, but we didn't really have a lot of time to create a bake off process.

00:24:44:10 - 00:25:14:17
Joe Meyer
And sure, it was very directly stated to us that if we did try to do that, that that I could risk things. So we had to kind of weigh the odds on how serious they are when they're saying that versus how quickly can we drum up other interest. And we just decided to stay focused on Apple. And the point that that head of engineering said, oh, I’ll have the head of Corp Dev call you in 5 minutes to the point that the deal was actually done.

00:25:15:07 - 00:25:35:07
Joe Meyer
I mean that it it the due diligence process was like no due diligence process you have ever seen in your life or will ever see in your career. Nothing against you. Todd Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put it in perspective. When we went out to Cupertino and presented to them, it was five or six of us. You know, I had to hit my head a bit here.

00:25:36:00 - 00:26:02:04
Joe Meyer
Two or three engineers had a data and my COO and we walked into a conference room and there were a hundred people in that conference room, all with laptops out, all typing away, taking notes during and then they drilled us for four straight hours, you know, and that was just the start of it. It lasted for months. The Head of Corp Dev said to me, either process you said and sat did or just expect this to be really painful.

00:26:02:09 - 00:26:22:01
Joe Meyer
It's analogous to a proctology exam at the start. You know, don't let that get you down. And then, of course, I was it was by no means a slam dunk it we good thing we had our ducks in a row because you know apple doesn't do things half assed or or half hearted.

00:26:23:20 - 00:26:53:16
Todd Sullivan
So yeah, let me jump in on that. So, you know, we we have kind of developed a bit of a specialty in that inbound interest segment as opposed to the retirees or saying, hey, I want to go to market for, you know, 7 to 9 months and maximize my outcome with multiple buyers at the table. And and what we have found is by bringing in a very industry specific investment banker who has already sold businesses to Apple, has a personal relationship across the table.

00:26:54:02 - 00:27:15:05
Todd Sullivan
It's not necessary sending the signal that, hey, we're going to shop this. What it's sending a signal is we're on our side, going to behave very professionally. We're going to be have all our ducks in a row for you, Apple. But by the way, because I'm on this team with three phone calls, I could introduce competition. So there's little bit of a threat.

00:27:15:05 - 00:27:36:04
Todd Sullivan
But what we also really encourage is that that timeline becomes a little bit more manageable when your investment banker is helping establish what is going to get accomplished at periods of time and holding the other side accountable. Right. So time isn't just sitting on their side the whole time. Now, I can't fault you, right? You have this amazing outcome.

00:27:36:04 - 00:28:05:08
Todd Sullivan
You sold to Apple and you're excited afterwards. So that is a win upon a win. And you know, many of these things just fall apart anywhere within the process. So, you know, kudos to you for getting that done. We've just found enormous success. When you get that phone call, we can essentially surround you very quickly to kind of reduce the risk, have the implicit threat of introducing competition at any moment and then controlling timeline.

00:28:05:08 - 00:28:16:06
Todd Sullivan
And it's not necessarily about maximizing value. We think it reduces risk and we seem to we have zero failures doing that. So we would encourage founders to look for help in that situation.

00:28:16:08 - 00:28:46:04
Joe Meyer
And what I would say is that opportunity were to have quickly and easily have presented itself at that point, and I probably would have given it serious thought and in retrospect, it probably would have only helped to not hurt. So I hear what you're saying and I agree with you, but sometimes you don't have the luxury, you know, slowing down the process, have it play out exactly how you would particularly want.

00:28:47:01 - 00:29:09:01
Todd Sullivan
I agree. I mean, that's one of the reasons, you know, we started is that it is really challenging to find who is the right person really quickly to put on this team. Right. It's just it's a black box. Sure. I think kind of legacy almost in that, you know, you got this amazing product. You know, why do you even want it handed to somebody that is not going to kind of take care of it?

00:29:09:09 - 00:29:27:00
Todd Sullivan
And I'm sure part of that due diligence process was kind of that integration planning. How do we ensure that we get the value out of this set series of assets, right, that we're that we're paying for and then for you right, to be able to see it live and thrive, live in the Apple ecosystem? I mean, that's fantastic.

00:29:27:00 - 00:29:28:15
Todd Sullivan
You point to that for the rest of your life.

00:29:29:01 - 00:29:59:21
Joe Meyer
Totally. And what I would say is I once I knew my job was largely over, yeah, there were more things I could have done. But once, once said integration was largely achieved. You know, my interest in staying great and amazed, mainly because I started experiencing what it would be like to work for that big company as just a small, little tiny microscopic cog in a very large we wheel.

00:30:00:20 - 00:30:03:15
Joe Meyer
It just became less interesting. That's when I knew it was time to.

00:30:04:17 - 00:30:09:20
Todd Sullivan
Joke and I asked, Did you have an earn out? Was there more than just integration? Were there really like milestones?

00:30:09:21 - 00:30:24:07
Joe Meyer
Yeah, yeah. There was an earnout and more tenure based than performance based. But but you know, Apple doesn't care if you're not performing in half right? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't need to be performance Great.

00:30:24:18 - 00:30:36:18
Todd Sullivan
Okay so I love to jump in and kind of ask some overtime questions before we jump back to exact threads. Yeah. So when you when you sold the business, when you into the deal and you knew it was done, who was your first call?

00:30:37:19 - 00:31:07:06
Joe Meyer
There wasn't a first call, to be quite honest, I there was eventually a conversation or a call, but I used to ride my bike to and from work from the suburbs of York City to New York City, where I was, which was a good 25 mile ride through some treacherous terrain. To be quite honest. But I, I biked to work that than any and I was intending to bike home.

00:31:07:06 - 00:31:25:23
Joe Meyer
And once the deal was all done I told them and it was the most liberating, enjoyable bike ride. You know, I just felt the weight of the world was off my shoulders. And I kind of did like one of those rocky moments where I put my hands in the air while I was on the bike, and it was just so fulfilling.

00:31:26:05 - 00:31:46:04
Joe Meyer
I didn't want to talk to anyone the first two to 3 to 4 hours afterwards. I just wanted to ride my bike, and to just feel free, you know? And then I got by that. But yeah, there wasn't a sense of urgency to call anyone. Yeah, and sure, that was it was just, I want to do a ride.

00:31:46:04 - 00:32:17:09
Todd Sullivan
Joe, I just love that answer because so much is on your shoulders building this company, right? All the employees, all the investors, so much of your time is in this. And now you're going through a monumental transaction where you're trying to run and grow a business while you've got a second job of trying to sell it. And when you achieve all of that, traverse that that peak, you know, I can I can envision you on your bike ride just throwing the arms up and feeling that kind of you can breathe.

00:32:17:13 - 00:32:25:14
Joe Meyer
Sort of like I did for I did throw my arms up when I was still in inner city urban areas. But once I got out to, like open road.

00:32:26:00 - 00:32:35:20
Todd Sullivan
That's Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Did you reward yourself with anything, any big purchase house, car vacation?

00:32:36:05 - 00:33:01:10
Joe Meyer
Yeah. So, I mean, I took my family on a 2 to 3 week vacation, which was very adorable. But the bigger thing was early, you know, in year one or two of HopStop, I bought two hundred year old house for 45 minutes outside of New York City in Westchester County, on a one acre of land, which is quite a big piece of land for being so close to the city.

00:33:03:02 - 00:33:49:11
Joe Meyer
And it was like, you know, it hadn't been touched in 200 years, if you know what I mean. Yeah, years. And it was one of those things. So my wife and I bought it, said, no, What if one day maybe we'll get resources to that to reduce that? So we did a two year, two and a half year historical remodel on the house not only house, the property in a block where that now it's you know what I mean and yeah restored this house back to its original know decore with all the modern rails and you know built our a home for ourselves that we truly enjoyed spending time in and year round that we'd

00:33:49:11 - 00:34:03:18
Joe Meyer
love and that we would come in every day. And that allowed us not not to be boastful or abnoxious or to brag or to show off, but just from an everyday fulfillment perspective for ourselves. Yeah, I mean.

00:34:04:16 - 00:34:05:16
Todd Sullivan
Yes, I do.

00:34:05:16 - 00:34:30:19
Joe Meyer
Yeah. And you know, what I would also say is, you know, there were a lot of the lean years there. You know, you were two failures from a startup perspective and a building founder perspective before this. Well, years of not paying myself or I was paying myself, paying myself woefully under market and you know that and all that. So there was some hills to climb that.

00:34:30:19 - 00:34:56:02
Joe Meyer
I mean, I had to climb out of some things too, from that acquisition. So yeah, besides, you know, doing the big historical remodel on our house and vacation right after the acquisition, paying off all my debts and all that, I didn't go buy boy toys or do any, I didn't go buy fancy cars or anything like that. I just, you know, I went right back to one.

00:34:57:15 - 00:35:18:10
Todd Sullivan
Good for you. All right. So I guess what I'd love to dive into is ExecThreads, right? So new company, new industry, right. Kind of reinventing yourself, but and founding again, raise some capital. Can you talk to me a little bit about really where you are today? Because this isn't so much about building companies, it's more about exiting.

00:35:18:10 - 00:35:27:05
Todd Sullivan
But I want to really promote what you've got because it sounds like a very, very valuable service to a lot of people and I want people to know about it.

00:35:28:10 - 00:35:53:02
Joe Meyer
Yeah, I guess a couple of things. First off, that easier decision would have been the stay at Apple. You know, they're paying me well and I wasn't working nearly as hard as I was a founder or as a CEO, if you know what I mean. And from a risk management and mitigation perspective, easier thing would be to just stay at Apple or to parlay my entrepreneurial success into becoming a venture cap investor or something like that.

00:35:53:02 - 00:36:15:12
Joe Meyer
Sure Do I still had the itch and needed to go do something, you know, entrepreneurial again and start another company. I just didn't know what it was. Part of the reason I started an Apple two, two and a half years was I needed to some time to kind of decompress, then I needed some time to for an idea again, and then I needed some time to take more of those ideas.

00:36:15:12 - 00:36:39:19
Joe Meyer
And I put meat on the bone and get, you know, some sort of validation. You know, that whole process took a good 18 to 24 months. But I soft launched and incubated a new idea while I was at Apple. You know, we ran it as a nonprofit while I was at Apple, so there was no conflict, but I had enough traction against it where once I decided to leave Apple, I said, you know what?

00:36:40:05 - 00:37:08:08
Joe Meyer
Raise money and jump off again. But the original premise is still kind of the value prop today, which is as an executive VP and above your access to career advance and job opportunities actually dwindles because the vast majority of the job openings at that senior level are not publicly posted. They're not on, you know, Indeed or Ziprecruiter or Monster CareerBuilder or anything like that.

00:37:08:14 - 00:37:26:22
Joe Meyer
They're being worked on by retained executive search firms and well, treat those searches as confidential. So the only way you could find out about them is if you're one of the very few chosen that they reach out to you about the opportunity as a candidate or if someone in your network lets you know about it. And I was getting approached more and more.

00:37:27:15 - 00:37:52:17
Joe Meyer
I was at Apple post-acquisition acquisition, probably not surprisingly, but I wasn't interested in the opportunities that I was being sought by recruiters. I was interested in the opportunities that I'm working on that they weren't and how to get access to them. And I was like, You know what I'm qualified for far more opportunities that I'm getting approached for and why can't why can't I get access to them?

00:37:52:21 - 00:38:14:00
Joe Meyer
It seemed ridiculous to me, right? And I was like, I bet if I'm experiencing that problem and I don't even need a job, I mean, what about people that are really kind of, you know, really need a job that that, that need more access. They must be feeling this pain point far more than I am sure that's what I set out to solve.

00:38:14:00 - 00:38:32:01
Joe Meyer
I said, you know what? I'm going to solve that problem. I'm going to forgive transparency to this hidden job market, which is simply defined as all the open recs out there at that level that are not publicly posted. I was set up going to create a platform that creates transparency into that hit a job market question was how? And I said, you know what?

00:38:32:09 - 00:38:55:16
Joe Meyer
Everyone here is being approached by every one of these executive recruiters with confidence knows about every single job opportunity out there. That's confidential. If I can create a network, a trusted network where we all share that information each other. And the reason we would share with each other is so that we share with each other. Then, you know, with what with the platform and then the platform shares that information more broadly.

00:38:56:11 - 00:39:22:12
Joe Meyer
You remember that platform, the motivation for me to share the job I'm aware of is if I share that job, I get access to all the other jobs that every other member of the network is sharing. It's come. Yeah. So I created a crowdsourced model to do that all organically, all from scratch. And we're a network from a few dozen executives agreeing to do this to that, a few hundred to then a few thousand to the tens of thousands so on.

00:39:23:00 - 00:39:40:02
Joe Meyer
And the thing that kind of struck me early on was those first few dozen or several dozen of people in the network were all people I knew. So they were sharing with me as a newbie, right? And I was sharing with them. But then they started inviting other people into the network that didn't know me or other people in the network.

00:39:40:02 - 00:40:04:09
Joe Meyer
And the sharing continued. And then early on, early adopters starting to get interviews for these jobs started to some of these jobs, and that's when I knew there was something here and that's when I left Apple. Six or seven years later, we're approaching a million registered members and you know, the first few years was all organic and product, but it's really accelerated.

00:40:04:09 - 00:40:35:13
Joe Meyer
We're now onboarding close to 3,000 new registered members a day. This one hour call, I'm sure several hundred people have joined just in this one hour calll if not more. And it's a value prop that I think is clearly resonating, especially in this economy where so many companies are downsizing. Here is a job platform where the primary value proposition is, hey jobs that you find on this platform are not only the best jobs of the world, senior jobs, but you're not going to find them on the other job boards.

00:40:35:13 - 00:40:57:23
Joe Meyer
You're only offering them here. That's a pretty compelling value prop, and it really resonates with underrepresented professionals, color, women, or any other constituency that feels marginalized. You know, where they get the least amount of access here. You know, we know we don't discriminate by color or, you know, or by gender or anything like that. Every ExecThread member has a chance.

00:40:58:08 - 00:41:11:20
Todd Sullivan
I love it. I love it. And hearing about the you know, the growth is incredible, right? You got that kind of network effect spinning. And I think you had said to me once, right, that it's growing while you're sleeping. Right. Those are fantastic businesses that have.

00:41:11:21 - 00:41:33:05
Joe Meyer
It's not only grow it and I learned this from my early density eBay. I was an early employee at eBay. I voted for the idea that we go witness and network. I love businesses where cash register rings while you're sleeping, where you don't need somebody selling it in a meeting room or a conference room, you know, trying to convince other human beings to buy it.

00:41:33:15 - 00:41:45:00
Joe Meyer
You know, this is all self-serve. It's all productized, all ingrained in the user experience. You know, it's very much an e-commerce business, only it's subscription based.

00:41:46:00 - 00:41:53:14
Todd Sullivan
That's great. So, yeah, people should check out ExecThreads for sure. You know, if they're in that position. Right. A VP and above is he said.

00:41:53:17 - 00:41:54:00
Joe Meyer
Yeah.

00:41:54:07 - 00:42:06:10
Todd Sullivan
Let me ask I got I got two final questions for you. So going through the M&A processes that you have is that you've done, what's the best advice that you can give to our fellow founders about M&A in general?

00:42:07:09 - 00:42:29:06
Joe Meyer
I'd say don't think about M&A, Don't worry about M&A, don't preoccupy your mind with M&A, until the opportunity presents itself, meaning you just stay focused on building a good business and the best businesses are the ones you don't ever want to sell. And I think ExecThread started to meet that criteria for me by my I would I ever want to sell this is a great business right?

00:42:29:16 - 00:42:54:17
Joe Meyer
This is the type of business that I would try to start this company ever sold. And I would want to try to start a company that would have these sorts of criteria. So, you know, and if you have a business that you never want to sell and it's great business, then guess what? They're going want to buy that business, But stay focused on building the business and turning it into a great, if not a great business and one that you enjoy, you know, growing and working on and don't get preoccupied with an exit.

00:42:55:02 - 00:43:03:14
Todd Sullivan
I love it. All right. Last question. So is there any person in your life that you'd like to thank who contributed to your personal and professional success?

00:43:05:01 - 00:43:24:07
Joe Meyer
I mean, these are this is going to be an answer that probably most people you're going to have your hopes different. It's really twofold. One is my wife, who has been with me every step of the way. Yeah, we've gone some through some lean years and some tough times, and a lot of it's from career choices I've made not to, you know, to take the path less traveled.

00:43:24:07 - 00:43:49:09
Joe Meyer
And so it's not always a financially fulfilling path and it's led to a lot of financially challenging times along the way. And she's you don't she's let me, you know, pursue my dream and I'll be forever grateful to her for that And then tours and then my dad who you know, as I said, he was re-engineered out of the job twice in his career.

00:43:49:09 - 00:44:04:06
Joe Meyer
And I would say if that didn't happen to him, if I didn't see that happening to him, an adverse impact that had on him. And I think only for me to then make a decision at a very young age, I'm not going to go do the traditional purpose, you know, at the age of nine. And I probably made that decision or ten.

00:44:05:11 - 00:44:07:14
Joe Meyer
If that didn't happen. I wouldn’t be on this path.

00:44:08:14 - 00:44:16:01
Todd Sullivan
Joe, thank you. This has been really inspirational and educational. I know for a lot of people they're going to really enjoy this. So thank you for your time.

00:44:16:15 - 00:44:19:06
Joe Meyer
Thank you for having me and enjoyed the conversation.

00:44:19:19 - 00:44:41:22
Todd Sullivan
Thanks again for listening to the Cashing Out podcast. For more founder exit stories, please subscribe to the Cashing Out podcast on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And please remember exercise dot com and the Cashing Out podcast are for entertainment purposes only. This should not be relied upon as the basis for investment decisions.