How to effectively scale multiple businesses — Abhi Goel

Author: Lee Heisman

Every week Lee Heisman sits down to educate entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business leaders across the country on the importance of monetizing and scaling their businesses. On this episode of the ASBN all-exclusive Roadmap, host Lee Heisman sits down with tech startup advisor, investor, and entrepreneur Abhi Goel. This week, Goel highlights his journey of not only scaling two startups but purchasing a new enterprise in the process. 

The Journey

The business that prompted Goel to exit his first business was Cirracore. Which was a managed hosting company that emerged from the company Axelerant. While managing the business, he noticed the company was making several referrals to outside businesses for hosting. So, they naturally wanted to hang onto the recurring revenue streams. Therefore, they launched the managing hosting business Cirrocore, which transitioned as a data center from a conventional design to a virtualized service that finally joined the cloud infrastructure. 

According to Goel, what motivated him to sell his first business was “the business that was doing great, it was growing. However, there were a few things that altered my viewpoint.” To illustrate, the initial partners consisted of three people. But Goel and one of his other partners ran into a point of contention. As a result, the latter two partners acquired the third. Goel then contemplated if they should take their cloud software and compete with the more well-known brands or remove their chips from the table and continue on their journey. 

What’s next?

After making the decision to sell your business, it really depends on the current situation of the seller and the buyer. For Goel, he claims, “You have options. My partner wanted to stay for a month to ensure a smooth transition, but I had already made the decision to leave. For me, the transaction was stressful. But looking back on the conclusion, it was enjoyable and I wouldn’t change anything.” He continues, “Once I left, I wanted to go through the process again, but without the startup or incubation process.”

With that in mind, he went in search of another company, but he adopted a strategy that sped up the company’s startup process he learned from the first.  However, the owner of the second business was already at his ceiling, therefore Goel allowed him to keep a job while he helped him sell and expand it from there. 

Key takeaways:

• Your time has to be right in order to sell your business. 
• You have to be in growth mode to maximize your enterprise’s value. 
• Take each endeavor, learn from it, and utilize your teachings if an opportunity permits it.