Us Australians are inherently entrepreneurial. For whatever reason, it seems like some factor like evolution tugs on us to create something from scratch – to give birth to some idea, nurture it until it’s a game-changer, and reap the rewards of what we’ve sewn. But we often neglect what stares down at us from the very end of the process. Not to get all Nelly Furtado on your ass, but like:
This is exactly what Sam McIntosh, STAB Magazine‘s founder, is in the throes of experiencing. The organisation he’s poured his entire life into was just recently acquired by SurfStich, and he’ll be taking his hands off the wheel for the first time since it was created.
But hey, there’s obviously a silver lining to palming off your biz to someone/something else, and it rhymes with rash. Anyway, we had a big ol’ chinwag with him about exactly that, as well as what it takes to make it big. Watch the below video, read what else he has to say, and take notes, crew.
How do you develop a decent company culture?
It comes down to whatever that leader is like. You know when you go to a party and the host is in great form? The party ends up being good. It’s exactly the same thing. If the host isn’t into it, or is stressed out, the party isn’t good. You can’t sell a culture different to how you are. Culture is set from how you operate.
How do good ideas come about for you?
For the biggest most successful things we’ve done, we’ve gone to brands and said ‘we want to do this’. You never get a yes. You get a squirmish no. No, they don’t get it, and the fact they don’t get it is the best part – it means they haven’t thought about it. If they say, ‘yes, let’s go do it,’ it probably means it’s too easy and too obvious.
So the thing we did the other day with the dock, we pitched that once and they said ‘no’. And we pitched it again and said, ‘Hey it’s a really big idea – you don’t have to pay anything until the end of your contract if this doesn’t get a million views in a week’. I said, ‘we have to do this, this is definitely going to work’. They were like, ‘you can’t be serious?’ and I was like, ‘I’m deadly serious.’
It had a million views in the first six hours.
What is it like to have someone try and buy your business?
I’ve been hit up a lot by big talkers. Like, ‘hey, let’s get together and talk about a partnership and an acquisition’. I’ve heard it so many times and I kind of got a little bit jaded to it. But anyone that broke into it was like, ‘STAB is really niche and it’s really surf, so it’s not that scalable’. Justin Cameron from SurfStich [contacted me] at that point. I was on holiday in Byron and I was like, ‘oh, just another acquisition thing’. And he was like, ‘give me a call’ and I just never called him. Later, he was like, ‘why didn’t you call me?’ and I was like, I’ve had my tyres kicked so many times. He said ‘I’m serious, come and have lunch with me’. So we went up to this fancy restaurant. They came out and they both had their names on their chopsticks… And I thought this is set up. Bespoke custom chopsticks? And then the more we got talking, I realised he was serious and you’re only ever a target when you’re not looking to be a target.
We’ve been doing the same thing, so we thought ‘why not have a shot at this?’. So we said ‘ok, let’s have a go’.
What advice do you have for someone wanting to start their own biz?
Don’t try to be acquired, because if you’re looking to be acquired, you never will be.
If you create a good business that you’re really proud of, that’s when you will be acquired.
Another one would be, be careful with your equity. When you start something, it’s meaningless and has no value. So, you give up a chunk of it and then you’re the one who is going to make it work, not this person with this little chunk. So get it to the highest point you can before you bring other people in.
