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Marc O’Dwyer 0:00
If you’ve agreed a price, and it’s the price you’re happy with, if you feel you’re right, you need to be resilient. Also always need to be in a position where you want to sell, not that you need to sell. You have questions about selling a business we have the people who’ve been there. This is Business Answers with Tommy Boyle.
Tommy Boyle 0:20
Welcome to Business Answers, the podcast where entrepreneurs who sold their business tell you what it was really like. My guest today is Marc O’Dwyer. Over a 33 year career, Marc bought 14 businesses and sold nine. But the big one, the one we’re here to talk about, was Big Red Cloud, the cloud accounting platform used by over 8000 Irish SMEs. Marc built it, scaled it, and in April 2025 he sold it to Ishikawa Technologies. I think I’ve pronounced that technologies. He got every cent up front was no iron out. Walked out the door on day one, and he hasn’t looked back. Though, as you’ll hear, looking forward wasn’t quite as simple as he expected. Mark, you’re very welcome to Business Answers, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Thanks Tommy for having me. Appreciate it.
The first question I’d like to ask you, Mark is, when did you make the decision to sell the Big Red Cloud? I think the moment I decided to sell, what the tipping point was? I had been in the ring with Mike Tyson on several occasions. I can’t specifically remember what it was, but it was a major blow that, you know, I said, You know what? There’s more to life than this, and I don’t really want to be continuing on on this journey when I feel somebody else can take up the button, put more investment into the business and grow it. So I got a little bit tired, and it was that last blow that said, let’s just sell it. Porrick agreed with me. Now I would say Porrik is still with the business guys. So he still has a son doing his leaving cert, and so he wants to stay with the business. He really feels still his baby, but he’s gone from a shareholder, director to an employee. The accountant and the bookkeeper, drug accounts clerk both took redundancy, so Porrik has now got the job of doing all the accounts, which is quite a big job within Big Red Cloud.
Marc O’Dwyer 2:07
He stayed on. But that tipping point was enough for myself and porrick to say, let’s move on. Let’s try and move this business to somebody who will take on the honour of big red and honour that and the customers and look after the customers. And the steward from Ishikawa has done exactly that to be fair to him and customers are still happy.
And had you other shareholders to consider in that? Or was it your own decision? Tommy, I own 90% of the business. However, my business partner, poor Nolan, owned 10% so it was our decision. Okay, that was an easy decision for both of you. It was easier for me? Tommy, yeah, porrick was the, if you like, the brains of the Big Red Cloud. I was the brawn, the marketing, the sales, all the other administration. But porrick, being a chart accountant and a technical background, had written Big Red Cloud. So he saw that as his baby. So was it more difficult decision for poric to make, but one that he did want to do. It was a joint agreeable decision in the end, and was it mark that you felt I’ve taken this as far as I can go, or it needs new energy, or it needs new investment, or I’m just fed up with this, I’m just tired. Or what was the reasoning behind that? Because, like, it was and is a very successful business, obviously, I’m sure it was giving you a good lifestyle. And then just to say, Okay, I’ve had enough. What was the thinking behind that? And how did your family feel about that? It was really a mix of all them. Tommy, the product is ripe to internationalise. I really didn’t have the motivation to jump on a plane at this age and take that challenge on. It did need investment. At the time, we had got investment before from dunport capital, and that had helped us grow the business to the point that it was very, very profitable and ready to be sold. And it needed an injection of new energy and new thought. And with AI come along, I just thought somebody younger that has those key skills would be able to take up the baton and take over the Big Red Cloud I felt when I took it over from the owners of big red book that I was taking on, you know, a Legacy product I was taken on something that was that had been in the Irish business industry for a number of years, and I felt obliged to make sure that I passed that on to somebody who would do the same and grow it even bigger, hopefully, than what I had. So it was really collective of all those things, Tommy, my family happy to back me in whatever decisions I made. Anyway, I had really probably had enough. I was coming up to be going to be 60 in January 2025,
so Tommy was just perfect when that decision was made and both of you had agreed on it, what was the first thing you did then? Like, who were the first people that you went to? Or how did you start the sale process? So we regularly got reached out to by companies that were interested in Big Red Cloud. I mean, that happened once, twice, three times a week, and we.
Ignored them in really, that often mark, three times a week. Would you Wow, wow. At least some of them were, you know, weren’t even worth replying to. Other people. We kept on ice. Tommy, just we thought they might be potential. I thought, you know, coming from a background of sales, that I had no problem selling the business myself, but I very quickly realised that you do need the professionals when you’re selling your life’s work and what you’ve put together for so many, many years. So being a business broker myself as well, I’m not going to disagree with you on that one mark. Oh, no. 100% yeah, there’s a role involved. You guys know what you’re doing. It’s a really important role. It’s really important that you get on well with your broker, and that there’s a good relationship there, because there’s going to be late nights, gonna be early mornings, and you need to have full trust in both parties. Need to have full trust. So you need to trust that these companies engage with you is not going to pull the tab halfway through. And likewise, the company that’s been sold, they need to have to trust that you are going to be able to do the job for them. So I guess we looked around and saw who we could potentially use, and that was the first step. Then the second step was to get our own house in order. Now, being an accounting software business, Tommy, our accounts were always at the cutting edge. We always had management accounts within four days the month end, we were on top of all our KPIs, and so that wasn’t really a difficult job for us to do. The other job to do is obviously get all the legal stuff in line and to make sure that is all in proper order for when you decide to go and then you produce, obviously, a teaser document, the teaser document, and then a full im so you throw out the teaser and see that’s like throwing out your fishing net, and see if you get a couple of fish, and then when you get the couple of fish, then decide who you think would be good partners, and get the im out to them. Very good, just as a matter of interest market, one of the things that’s really important in all of this is to get good tax advice so that the structure of the sale and the proceeds of the sale are, you know, efficiently managed from a tax perspective. Did you get that good tax advice? I mean, obviously your accountants background, that’s something that is most It was obvious to you, but how big of a consideration was it for you? So we were lucky enough Tommy, that our advisor that we used on the deal, we actually had two advisors, but the main advisor was our own auditors, PKF brenson Lawler, yeah, I know them. They’re good. We use the Tax Division within PKF. Brenson Lawler, so we were lucky that the corporate finance team in brenson Lawler were obviously working hand in hand with Michael O’Leary the tax advisor, not Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, gotcha, yeah, yeah. Very good. Very good. Okay, so you got your team. Your teaser was created. The im was created again. How was the value? I’m not interested in the value of it, by the way, but just how was the value decided upon? Was that you deciding this is my figure, because obviously you’ve had so many approaches over the period of time, you would have kind of known where you were at and what you wanted. Or did the advisors come in and say, Well, you might be thinking this mark, but this is what we think, whether that was higher or lower. But how was that value decided? So you are right. We had a fair idea of where the value would lie based on the interest that had been shown in the business. We’re not the only accounting and software business out there, so there’s market data that’ll give you an idea of what the multipliers should be. As you know yourself, Tommy, some acquirers have different rules. Some will go on a multiple of EBITDA, some will go on a multiple of recurring revenue, and some will go on a multiple of revenue itself, and some will go on a combination of all three. So we had a good idea of where we wanted. In conjunction with that, I had a great idea of what I wanted, and I wasn’t prepared to sell below that figure. The auditors and the accountants thought, you’re looking for a bit much there, they thought. But they said, Look, you know, if that’s where you feel the figures at, we will support you in whatever way we can to achieve that figure. Very good. So you’re on your journey now you’re going to market. What was your biggest fear at that point mark? The biggest fear was that the deal would fall through and I wouldn’t get the figure that I had in my head, because I told my wife what we were going to get, and she didn’t really believe me at the time. She thought that was just, you know, no way it’s not going to happen. So my biggest fear was not getting the figure and not getting the structure that I had hoped for. And over the period of time. How long, by the way, did it take from getting, we’ll say, the im created, to the actual conclusion of the sale? How long did that actually take? In months? Are you talking about the final when we did the deal? Are you talking about the two or three other iterations that we had along the way, from 2021 on, there was a few suitors. Tommy, yeah. Okay. My understanding, and again, correct me, my understanding is that the suitors you hadn’t gone to market at that point. So I’m really interested in the point that you actually went to market, because these other suitors had approached you, if I’m not mistaken, whereas before the end, then you decide, okay, let’s go to market. So it was when you went to market that period of time and you.
Created the im and you said we’re going to market now. How long did it take from that point to getting the sale completed? Does that make sense? Okay, so, so yeah, it makes total sense. And I’ll give you the just the direct answer is that we signed the loi, the letter of intent on the 17th of December in 2024
and we chose the deal at the fourth of April 2025
okay, and not an awful lot better for Christmas. And how many sleepless nights did you have in that process? And how demanding was it on you and parik and your family? It’s a very stressful time. Luckily, I was born with a weird personality that the more pressure I’m under, the centre I sleep, so I didn’t have any sleepless nights. My wife probably did have a couple of sleepless nights. And porrick, because he was the financial guy and basically helped with the full due diligence process, would have had the weight of the whole transaction on his shoulders, so it would have been a very stressful time for him. I dipped in on the sales and marketing and the bits that I and the negotiation, but in terms of pulling together the tax, the legal and the financials, pork was foremost in all that process. When you make a decision to sell a business, I think to a certain extent, and this is only my own opinion, but I think to a certain extent, you kind of leave the business at some point in your head. You’re kind of, you’re no longer in it, for want of a better word, just in relation to trying to run the business while the sales process was gone, had you told staff, or was it all covert? And how difficult was it to, kind of to seem your old self and seem interested, and what were the difficulties in managing the business and the staff, everybody’s expectation, and obviously customers, if they happen to find that maybe this was happening. So how did you manage all of that? Yeah, look, that’s a massive challenge. No, we didn’t tell the staff. Tommy in answer the question, you still have to run the business as if you aren’t going to complete the sale, because the business still needs to be profitable. It does take your mind off the day to day running, but you really have to be very disciplined and focused to make sure that you do keep looking at new opportunities for the business, that you keep driving it and you don’t drop the ball in terms of letting staff or customers know that there’s even a hint of the business being sold. So it is a challenge, but it’s very, very important that you do keep the business going and you keep your eye on the business, because we had two other offers before Tommy prior to this, and one of them fell short two weeks before the deal was to close, and one fell short two and a half days before its close. But we kept the business going, and even the final sale, we had a huge opportunity in the UK, which we kept nurturing to the point that when we did do the sale, the new owners were absolutely delighted with this opportunity in the UK. Did you feel? Probably the wrong word is guilty, but you know, not having told the staff and their colleagues and friends and inverted commas and Associates, and obviously there’s mutual respect there. So did you feel a sense of guilt about that? Or did they afterwards feel a sense of betrayal? Or how did that manifest itself, and when did you actually tell them? Only when you had to tell them, when it was signed because of your previous experience of deals falling through and at the 11th Hour. So how did you manage that? How would they say you managed it? Of course, I felt guilt not telling some of the key managers that have been in the business for quite considerable amount of time, but it was key to make sure that productivity stayed up, because there’s a chance that if you do let them know that they might start dropping the ball. And it’s very important that the business needed to keep running in the way it was running. And I guess the offset of the guilt was the fact that I negotiated that all staff were remaining with the business, or if they didn’t want to remain with the business, under the new owners terms, they were giving very lucrative redundancy packages, which was all part of the deal. So that made me feel much better about not telling them until the announcement, and then when the announcement was made, I had a really great working relationship with every member of staff, and it was really Pat mark on the back, fair play, because Tommy, there were times when I had to borrow money, remortgage properties just to pay the staff to keep the business going. And that was the foremost thing in my mind, just to make sure my staff got paid and looked after. So I really kept it going for 33 years, and I think at the end of the day, they respected the decision and said, you know, fair play. Mark got what he wanted, and you know what, he’s left us in a really good shape. We’ve got a job, or we can take redundancy. That’s great. That’s to your credit. It’s lovely to hear that, and it’s nuanced and it’s difficult, and there’s arguments for telling the staff, and there’s arguments for not telling the staff, and it depends on the circumstances, but you seem to have handled that very well, just as a matter of interest, was there ever a possibility of a management buyout, or was that ever considered the funds wouldn’t have been there for that, Tommy, I wouldn’t have been the appetite was there either? Yeah, I’m fascinated a little bit that you were walked up the aisle and jilted twice prior to that. I mean, just tell me a little bit about how you coped with both of those situations. As you say, this is a business you put your heart and soul into. You know, you had scary times. You know you had to find the way, just from some place, from your own resources, obviously, the impact on your family and your wife and all of that.
So then you’re in a situation the first time, and someone’s buying it, you’ve agreed to sell. And then what did you say, you know, two months before they pull out, and then another attempt and two hours or two days before? How did you cope with all of that? And how did that impact your relationship with parik, in particular, because he was a co shareholder as well. I mean, he was suffering as well as you. How did you manage all of that? They are not easy times, Tommy, I can assure you, and it’s down to resilience. You had so many blows before over the years, you get to know how to deal with, you know, bad times and disappointing news. They were extremely disappointing. Myself and my wife had really we’d gone past doing the deal, and we had thought about, you know, holidays, or, you know, maybe a new house, and we had gone to that stage. So when the first one happened two weeks beforehand, it was very, very upsetting time. But it’s a case of just dusting yourself down and getting back on the horse, and then the two and a half day beforehand, that was even worse. You know, you were in the 11th Hour. They appoint a new managing director, and they decided that wasn’t the area that they wanted to go. It was a, basically, was a payment processing company that realised how much potential there was within the customer base, within bigger cloud, and that’s why they were buying it. But then the new managing director came in and said, Look, this is not the direction want to go, and that’s why the rug was pulled under our feet. But they’re very, very difficult times. Thankfully, hadn’t told my four daughters that we were doing this deal, and it was literally just myself, my wife. So after that, she said, Mark, we’re not going to
assume that this deal is ever going to be done until the money is in the bank. And we took that attitude from that point on, I’ve had deals that I’ve worked on cancel at the 11th Hour, within 24 hours, and I’ve seen the devastation for the vendors of what impact, because, as you say, they’ve the money spent, they have their new life planned, and then it’s just swept from them. So I can imagine that being very difficult. So what were the things that you did, or you insisted upon with the people who you mandated to kind of broker this deal for you, that as far as was possible, that that wouldn’t happen again. Did you demand proof of funds early? What were the sort of things that you tried to, I mean, at the end of the day, any deal can fall through for any reason, because there’s never a deal until it’s actually the money’s in your bank. But what were the things that you said, you know, to get assurance that these were genuine buyers, that they were not going to pull out of the deal. What were the sort of things that you demanded, or did you What were your advisors advising you the deals that fell through? We had already asked for proof of funds. So you can ask as much as you want about proof of funds, their commitment that they are willing to move forward with a deal. But you can never manage. About a new managing director coming in, a change of staff, a change of direction, an event like covid, these are things you can’t manage. And I guess I’ve got a history in sport, and one of the things when you’re doing something like an Ironman is you can only control the controllables, so like, you can’t control the weather Tommy when you show up in the day, and it’s something that’s very similar the business weather, the business atmosphere at the time. So you can have all your ducks lined up, your T’s crossed, your eyes dotted, and something from left field can come in and scope for a deal. So we did put in all the requests for assurances to our advisors on every deal we went through. However, in two cases, it just for unforeseen circumstances. The deals fell apart when you were going through the process of the deal that did happen. Obviously, due diligence is a big part of it, and I know you would have had a lot of your ducks in a row for that. But how did that process go with the eventual purchases of the business. So Ishikawa got the funds from melier Equity Partners, and they used two sets of due diligence experts, both on the legal side and on the finance side. And it went very well given the time period. It was done very, very quickly, but they dived very deeply into the figures, much more so than any other due diligence process that I had been on before and asked different questions that we’ve been asked before. So every process brings in different personalities. Every personality brings in different queries and questions. Firm they used divided up some of the work between Dublin and their indie office. So they’re in the office working all sorts of hours. And throwing back, you’d come in the morning, at eight o’clock in the morning, there’d be a whole list of questions, and you thought you’d already answered them yes, so they just kept firing questions and questions and questions, and porrick was unbelievably good at getting back to them really, really quickly. And obviously you have the central data repository where you feed in the information, and you can see what questions are answered, what not our questions aren’t answered, and you can see how it’s going on the Gantt chart in terms of progress and project managing the whole process. It did look like it was going to go on longer, but luckily, we answered the questions very efficiently, thanks to pouric, I have to say, and got the deal over the line.
Was there many or any deal breaker moments that you had to navigate and that, I mean, I know you have to give a lot of information, but it’s not always deal break and stuff. But was there any point where you said, Hang on a sec. It is what it is you keep asking me, the same thing. It is what it is we need to move on from this. Or was there anything particularly tortuous in that process that you kind of went could have done without that. Yeah, I pulled the deal in February, Tommy, did you? Yeah, melior, were that was eight weeks before you actually completed it. Yeah, they were questioning the deferred income, and they were trying to just get the agreed price of the business that was in the letter of intent. And I wasn’t happy with that. So the principal from earlier came in and met me to eyeball me, to see if he felt I was serious. And at that meeting he realised I was serious, and we came to an agreement on a new figure, not a discounted figure. And the process kept going. But you need to be strong. And I tell any your listeners out there, tell me that if you’ve agreed a price, and it’s price you’re happy with. If you feel you’re right, you need to be resilient, and you need to just stick your feet in the mud. And if it’s not right, it’s not right. And you also always need to be in a position where you want to sell, not that you need to sell, because in that case, if I needed to sell, I would have just said, okay, yeah, look fine. Let’s just get this over the line. And I was in that position, thankfully. Yeah, it’s interesting to say that, and you know, fair play to you for doing that and sticking to your guns in doing deals. Yeah. I mean, as brokers, we very often have to bring people back from the brink, and when people pull the deal, that’s kind of a disaster, because everything can be negotiated, as you just proved it could be negotiated. But yeah, I’m sure you got good support and good advice from your advisors around that time. They mightn’t have wanted to tip the deal, but I’m sure they respected it at the same time and facilitated how you might get it back on track. No, they subsequently said that that was a very squeaky moment for them. Yes, they obviously, because I own 90% of the business, they were leaving the decisions up to me, but they’re a bit nervous that I was actually serious. I was serious, Tommy, by the way, yes, yes. Luckily, you know Melia, were great companies we work with. And yes, once Johnny came out to see me, and we sat down and we just agreed things. We knew the direction moving forward. And there was a win for him. It was a win for me. We both, at that stage, just wanted to get the deal done. One of the things that I noted, and again, I don’t know anything about the financials, nor do I want to know Mark, there was no earn out in the deal, which, again, is not unusual, but it’s very usual to have it. So was that an absolute red line for you, that under no circumstances was there going to be an earn out, and did that have an impact on the actual price you did get, I imagine it was, and were you prepared to sacrifice that because you just wanted out? Yeah. So Stuart originally came to me with an offer of 70% up front, 20% after two years, and 10% after year three, funded by dunport, a six week due diligence process, because dunport had lent us two and a half million before they knew the company was going to be really quick due diligence. And I said, No, I turned it down. I said, No, I’m not interested. I want the figure I want, I want paid 100% up front, and I don’t want to work in the business. And I stuck my heels in the ground until I got that so I didn’t cut back on the price I wanted in order to get the deal I wanted in answer to your question, so yes, yeah, no, I didn’t discount to get the money up front. You are right. It’s very unusual to get paid 100% upfront and not to be asked to work in the business and have no earnest but that’s what I negotiated. I think that’s a testament to the strength of the business, the underlying strength of the business, and also to your good negotiating skills and your resolve to stick to your guns. Because, as you said, you didn’t have to sell the business. You were choosing to sell the business. And so when you’re in that position, it’s much easier to well, much stronger negotiating position, because you can, and did threaten to walk away, and could do that at all times, and they knew you were serious. So that’s really, really good. It’s still not easy. Tommy, I can tell you doing it. You know, you’re playing this game of poker, and you have a poker face on. It’s still not easy, but it’s the right thing to do. You did really well. I have to commend you on that. The night the deal was closed, what did your wife say to you? She couldn’t believe it. Like honestly, you know, it’s a defining moment in your life, Tommy, when you’ve built a business for 33 years and you end up getting the price and the structures you want, and when you’ve been let down on more than one occasion before, it’s kind of a surreal situation that you actually, you know, you’re pinching yourself. This has actually happened, and even the next day and the week after that, it was like, this is just unbelievable. It’s an incredible feeling. And yeah, she was very proud of me, yeah, yeah, as she should be, and you should be of yourself, fair play, you know, a business, and the business that you ran very successfully and sold very successfully. A lot of us can be defined by what we do and the businesses that we run. Were you afraid at any point that post deal that you know, it was Marco dwarf, the Big Red Cloud. It was now just Marco dwarf. And where did that leave you? Or how did you navigate that?
Or did you consider it before it or how have you managed to be within yourself since the sale? I had no pre conceptions lined up in my brain or my emotions because we had been let down before Tommy. So really, when the fourth of April came and I woke up on the fifth of April and I was unemployed, it was a whole new world, and I embraced it with open arms. It was a positive thing, because it was me who was driving. It wasn’t that, as I said, I had to sell and so I planned five holidays. I’ve had plenty time with my family. I had just been made a granddad in January, we did the deal in April, my second daughter got engaged in February. I went on five holidays. Two of them were the family, which was fantastic, and I just embraced the free time. And was training for half Ironman. So that gave me time for doing that. Got back into the paddle, played golf. So I just do things that I hadn’t had time for, really to do during the day. Heretofore, I’d been doing them in the evenings or early mornings, so I was able to fill my days with holidays and sport. What has surprised you, I suppose, about how this newfound wealth has changed your relationships, that’s interesting. Well, the fact that it never have to work again and never have to worry about money is fantastic. Not that I ever did, as I mentioned earlier on in this podcast, I do sleep sounder, the more pressure I’m wondering. At any point in time when I had the SAP Business, we were owed two and a half million, and I’d be snoring my head off, no problem. So it’s a kind of an unusual feeling, where you don’t have to have worry about money. I have four daughters. I’m now in a position to be able to help them get on the property ladder, which is, it’s a very proud thing for me to be able to do. So I don’t know. I guess people kind of look at you in a different way. I feel I’m I’m the same. I mean, only the other day, my youngest daughter, who’s a graduate in CRH, had to change four tires on her car, and she was quoted 115
I said, Georgia, you get them cheaper, like it’s just easier thin with the garage. I said, No. I said, you know, even if you got 15 euros per tire cheaper, that’s 60 euros in your pocket. And she goes, Oh, Really, Dad. I said, Yeah, I end up getting them for 80 euros each, so save for 140 euros. And I said, there you go. And then I rented one of those go car vans the other day to move stuff out of my old office. And I put 10 euros into it inadvertently, because actually there’s a petrol car in the van, and that you can claim it back. So I was, she came into the kitchen the other day, and I was taking a photograph to receive you got to her seat. You got to do another I came back to 10 years of putting the van, for God’s sake, Dad, you can afford that. I said, That’s not the point. Money didn’t come easy. I had to work really hard for it, and you need to learn the value of money. So I like, I haven’t changed. I haven’t got a lavish lifestyle or anything. You haven’t bought new cars, everything, nothing like that. Yeah. But did you treat yourself to anything, though? Did you go on a, I know you went on holidays. Did you fly first class? Did you, you know you Garmin, watch Tommy? Very good, excellent. I think it was about, yeah, 1100 euros. That was it. I treated the girls. Okay? I got the girls nice jewellery, all five women in my life, four daughters and my wife, yeah, we got on a family holiday. But that was more. That was my girls giving myself my wife a present for our 60th birthday. We went back to New York, or where we used to own a place, and that was really nice. But I went to Japan, I went to France twice, and I went to Spain, so I’ve had some nice holidays. So I did that, but I didn’t buy anything really physical, apart from the watch the previous one I had for seven years. And this is basically, I use it every day for sport. Well, well, very good. If you could go back and talk to yourself the day before the sale, what would you say?
That’s a great question. Have a celebration pre arranged? Okay? Because we didn’t really, it was kind of went out with a damp squib. We had a bottle of champagne in their legal team’s offices, and that was really it. Myself and poor just went to Home, and that was kind of it. So I think maybe some kind of celebration with the staff and family members might have been a nice thing to do. Yeah, very good, but I guess I had scars from the time the deals didn’t go ahead. So yes, of course, that tempered your enthusiasm or your correct yes, yeah, exactly. So I suppose this is kind of a double edged question, like, in terms of what could or should or would you have done differently, but really, I’m really asking you, what advice would you give people who are listening to this and they’re considering selling like, what are the couple of big do’s, you would say, and maybe what are a couple of the big don’ts? Oh, the do’s are, have all your legal, tax and financial information up to date on a regular basis. You never know when somebody might come and knock on your door looking for your business. And the more prepared you are, the better the chance you are are getting the price that you want. That’s the do the don’ts are, don’t waver from the figure that you want.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate strongly and be determined to get the outcome that you’re looking for.
And never be afraid to walk away if the deal is not right in doing some research before.
Before you came on, I was interested that you had mentioned that you used the Jack Black Mindstorm method to visualise your ideal exit. What is it that all about? Mark? I’m not familiar with that. What is that? So, Jack Black has a programme called Mind store, where you build your ideal house in your head, and you enter the house. Before you enter the house, you meet all your loved ones there, there to greet you. Go into the house, and within the house, then you have two rooms. Initially. The first room is like a boardroom, where at that board table you put people that you have admired in your life. So it could be Nelson Mandela, could be Richard Branson, you know, it could be anybody like that. And whatever you’re been taught about at the time, you start asking them what they would do in the given situation. So that’s the first room. So really it’s a little bit mad. You see Nelson maddener talking back to you as to what he’d do in the given circumstance. And the other room is a cinema room, Tommy. And in that cinema room you have three massive, big screens and one seat you go and sit in the seat you have the issue or the challenge that you’re faced at the moment that’s in the middle screen on the left hand side is how it built up to that challenge, and on the right hand side, you have the solution to the problem. Wow. So I’ll give you real life work, an example of how that worked for me. I poached a girl from another company before, and I knew she was, at that point in her life where she was she got engaged, she was buying a house, she was saving for a mortgage, and I brought her from a different industry into a software sales industry, and after a number of months, she just wasn’t working out. So when she’s not working out, she’s not earning a commission. If she’s not earning a commission, she’s not going to get the mortgage she wants. And I really needed to let her go, but I had to poached her, and I felt responsible for doing that. So I went into the room my house in the Jack Black scenario, I envisaged her coming and offering her notice to me, and the next day, I got a phone call from her, and she rang. She said, Mark, can we meet for coffee outside the office? I don’t want to go to the office. I said, No problem. Whatever else went. Met her for the cup of coffee. And she goes, Look, I hate to do this to you, but I want to have my notice in. And I said, Okay, no problem. That’s fine. And I was going to go, yeah, yeah, it actually works. And I’ve done it on a number of other occasions. And I visualised the price I wanted my business, and I visualised the exit and the structure I wanted, and I ended up getting it. Now, that is unusual, Tommy, and you said it before, it is unusual. I am very lucky. I don’t take that for granted, so I don’t people think that he’s really cocky. You know, it’s not the case. I got lucky. And sometimes the business need look and on my exit, I got luck. You know, after 33 years of your phone ringing and, you know, checking your email like, What’s the longest you’ve gone without looking at your phone since you left that business? Yeah, it’s unusual. You’re right. You come from a high of all that busyness, all the emails, all the phone calls to
like it peters out completely. So it is unusual, but you just have to embrace other things and understand that that was your decision. If it wasn’t my decision to be different, but because it was my decision, it’s a much easier situation to handle so but I make myself busy. I put a post up on LinkedIn about it, and thankfully, it had 114,000
views. I’ve had people reach out to me every week, I guess since for different things, I’m advising a few people, advising few startups. I’m advising a startup private equity firm. I’m starting up a new business at the end of May, I’m looking at getting involved in a web design digital marketing agency so I could make my phone busy again. Tell me if I want it Yes, yes, yes. I want to make it busy to a certain extent. If that makes sense. I don’t really want to go back to where it was. And I suppose in summary, then the journey that you’ve been on for the 33 years, the highs, the lows, and then the eventual glorious exit. What difference has it made to your life? I know you’ve kind of indicated, but what would you say in summary, it has made to your life now? So I was very focused Tommy throughout my business career that I didn’t want business to get in the way of my family. So I was always home for dinner every evening with my family. I always went to my girls hockey matches. I always went to their dance classes or whatever shows they had on. I always made sure I brought them school at least once a week and collect them from school. So I was always very involved, and I never wanted my business to take from that. And luckily, I was able to have a very good, balanced lifestyle, plenty of business, plenty of support, and lots and lots and lots of family, which is really important to me. So what that journey has ultimately led me to is that I have no regrets from the effort and the work I put into my family, and I’ve built and sold a very successful business, and I now am in a position where I’m able to help my family, which I didn’t have when I was growing up, my parents weren’t particularly wealthy, so everything I grew I grew myself, but I’m now able to help my girls in a time when, as you know, Tommy and every all your listeners know, it’s very difficult for young people to get onto the property ladder and settle down and stay in Dublin. And luckily, I have all four daughters based in Ireland, one in Blackrock County Louth..
And the other three here in Dublin, and that is look and it’s also, I guess, a result that they want to be close to us because of the effort myself and my wife have put into them over the years, which is what I really had hoped for, a very close knit family and not let business muck that up on me.
Tommy Boyle 35:18
Excellent, excellent Marc. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you once again, many, many thanks for taking the time to speak with us here today. You have a great story to tell. You’ve told it very well, and I hope that your story will positively influence others as they plan to exit their business as well. So thank you very much, Marc,
Marc O’Dwyer 35:36
thanks, Tommy. Thanks very much for having me.
DustPod 35:39
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