Making Extraordinary Exits Possible
A successful entrepreneur in his twenties, Rob Follows sold his marketing and strategy business in 1992 for 27x EBITDA. He was thrilled with that — until he found out the buyer would have paid 300% more for it. That started his journey to create STS Capital Partners, a unique M&A advisor firm focused on making extraordinary exits possible.
As well as being CEO and Founder of STS Capital Partners, Rob is also the founding Chairman of Altruvest Charitable Services, a Canadian charity that provides training and tools to improve the performance of charitable organizations so they can give more to their causes. In 1998, Rob received the Top 40 Under 40 leadership award for the work he had done in creating 1,000 new jobs in Canada, as well as founding and growing Altruvest Charitable Services which has now contributed over $10 million since its establishment.
Shamil Hargovan is an entrepreneur, CEO, and brand leader who has built award-winning products and services, consumer devices, B2B platforms, and applications generating over $4B in direct revenues. As STS Managing Director, Shamil leads sell-side M&A deals, supporting business owners and founders on their journey to a strategic exit.
Prior to STS, Shamil co-founded Wiivv Wearables, and as CEO, grew the company 68x in three years to become the largest supplier of custom 3D printed footwear worldwide. He drove an award-winning e-commerce experience and led commercial partnerships with international governments and sports, athleisure, and wellness brands, including Dr. Scholl’s and Lululemon.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
How Rob Follows was oddly motivated by a strict father at age 17
Why Rob considers STS Capital to be more “sell-side advisors” than M&A
The difference between a Financial Buyer and a Strategic Buyer
Why the planning stages of an exit are so important
The potential for a “sense of significance” and development of a legacy through the business sale
The differences between cost-based pricing and value-based pricing
Why the ability to make an impact in the world is so important
What Shamil means when he says they are an “industry agnostic”
In this episode….
Rob Follows is Founder and Chairman of STS Capital. As a skilled young entrepreneur he sold his business for great profit in 1992 only to learn the buyer would have paid much more: Rob is now driven to help other entrepreneurs achieve full value for their business. Shamil Hargovan works at STS Capital as Managing Director, North America. Like Rob, Shamil is an entrepreneur who grew his business into great success and only recently exited, in 2020, to a private strategic capital group. He is inspired by Rob’s massively transformative purpose of creating billions of dollars of new philanthropic capital.
Rob and Shamil explain how STS Capital fills a need in the business world by employing entrepreneurs who have all sold businesses, who understand the entrepreneurial spirit and emotional needs of their clients and want to provide real valuable exit strategies for them. While Rob focuses a lot of energy on finding the best people for STS and developing those people, Shamil leads sell-side deals and works to ensure business owners are heard and advised soundly without focusing solely on the financial end of things.
In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, Martin Hunter talks with Rob Follows and Shamil Hargovan about the many things entrepreneurs should consider while on the journey towards selling their business. Rob explains how they are really “sell-side advisors” more than M&A, Shamil details how collaborative the process is between STS and both buyer and seller, and both have a desire for business owners to be able to trust the process with STS.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Contact email: info@urgeo.com
Suicide Help: Crisis Centre BC
’The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R. Covey
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