About this episode
When Sharon Gillenwater built Boardroom Insiders, she was doing something nobody else wanted to do: manually researching the personal work styles, business initiatives, and habits of Fortune 500 executives so that enterprise sales teams could finally get a meeting with the C-suite. It was hard, painstaking work — and that was exactly the point. After more than a decade of bootstrapping, consulting on the side to fund payroll, and raising just $275,000 from three people she knew personally, Sharon sold Boardroom Insiders to London-based public company EuroMoney for $25 million — all cash at close, no earn-out. In this episode, you discover how to build and sell a business where customers love you so much they follow you from company to company. You'll learn: Why a cold call from a PE firm offering $48 million was actually the worst thing that could have happened to Sharon — and what she did instead The one overheard side conversation that changed her negotiation posture entirely and helped her push from a $17–20M offer to $25M Why Sharon insisted on all cash at close — and why her angel investor told her a lower number in cash beats a higher number with strings attached
