Episode
He sold his boring business TWICE | Jason Hendren
- Podcast
- The Vince Perri Podcast
- Published
- Nov 20, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 3961
- Processing state
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Summary
This episode features an in-depth conversation with business advisor and author Jason Hendren about his extraordinary exit journey. Jason shares the raw, real-life experiences behind his book, detailing how he scaled his energy-efficient lighting company, ILP, from a small venture to a highly valuable asset. The discussion covers: The initial risk of buying out his original partners using personal assets in 2009. The power of partnering with private equity, which provided capital, operational expertise (continuous improvement), and mentorship that accelerated his company's growth far beyond what he could have achieved alone. The crucial difference between being an "add-on" versus a "platform" investment in the eyes of PE. The financial nuances of "taking multiple bites of the apple"—selling the company twice to different PE firms for increasing valuations. His biggest regrets and lessons learned, including wishing he had better utilized leverage (debt) to maximize his personal proceeds in the second sale. Timestamps 00:09,"Introduction: Host Vince Perri introduces Jason Hendren and his influential book, Things I Wish I Knew Before I Sold to Private Equity." 03:22,Company Origin: Jason details his background in manufacturing and starting the energy-efficient lighting business. 05:12,First Buyout (Recapitalization): Jason explains the decision and risk of buying out his original partners in 2008/2009 using personal assets. 09:03,Value of Mentorship: How his advisor helped structure the complex debt financing for the initial buyout. 19:58,First Big Lesson: Jason's regret about being too debt-averse and not using money to invest in growth earlier. 25:27,The Growth: Company grew from $7M in sales (2008) to almost triple that by 2012. 28:08,First PE Approach: The phone start…