$180M Exit Founder on How to Build a Business - Frank Greeff #98

Frank Greeff walked away from a $180 million sale with $25 million of it, having owned no assets at all up to that point. He is now going after a billion dollar business in five years, and he does the arithmetic out loud: a billion of enterprise value means roughly $100 million of revenue at a ten times multiple.

Frank Greeff co-founded Realbase, a technology business whose customers were Australian real estate agencies, and which sold to Domain. He now advises seven companies and is building the next one with his brother Jacques.

What you will learn:

- The arithmetic he works backwards from, and why cracking the US is the first gap he has to close

- The talent bench idea he was given by another founder: the person you actually want to hire is never the one applying for the job

- Why he killed a construction business idea after one phone call about builder's warranty and a 9 percent margin

- What agents taught him about dollar cost productivity, and why four people writing $1 million beats one person writing $2 million

- The three days without sleep that his wife, a clinical psychologist, diagnosed in a sentence

Chapters

00:23 What you actually do with $25 million

04:22 Working backwards from a billion, and why five years

09:46 Why he says a global podcast business cannot be built from Australia

14:18 Build the trust first, monetise it as late as you can

19:12 The construction business he killed after one phone call

23:11 Dollar cost productivity, which he says agents taught him

27:20 The Sales Academy, and coaching by question instead of instruction

31:21 Rapport without small talk, and nearly losing their biggest client

35:20 The brother who put a gym in the garage and never missed a day

39:17 His one real regret: treating "I don't have Instagram" as a badge of honour

43:16 Three days without sleep, and what his wife spotted

47:50 Six hours on a plane doing absolutely nothing

53:21 One big goal instead of twelve small ones

57:23 The cookbook, and raising a million for children's cancer

01:01:37 Why offering to buy someone a coffee prices your hour at $5.30

01:05:51 Flying economy, and stretching your own money before you raise anyone else's

01:09:53 Why the guest experience matters more than the thumbnail

01:14:04 The relationships worth doing completely unscalable things for

01:18:16 No mentors, three books, and two brothers

01:23:05 Stay the course

Frank Greeff builds businesses that are worth something without him. Property should work the same way.

Most properties only make money if the market does. The ones that pay for themselves from the day you settle are bought differently, and it comes down to four points.

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General information only. Not financial, tax, legal or credit advice. Bothsides is not a mortgage broker or credit provider.