017 How to retire from your own business – Part 2, with Barry Van Danzig
In the first part of my interview with Barry Van Danzig we heard how Barry attempted to sell his business to venture capitalists, but ended up buying the business back after they turned a £2 million EBITDA* into a loss in two years.
Barry found himself back in the driving seat of his company. The highly successful company he had spent years building and nurturing. He still needed to find a way to retire, without compromising the business’s success.
In this second part of our interview, Barry stresses the importance of self-awareness and accepting you’re probably no longer the best person to run your firm. You need to make yourself redundant.
He explains how the biggest barrier for him to overcome was the psychological barrier of accepting the only real purpose of the business was to make money. That the business was an investment. He had to become hard-nosed about it.
Barry shares his reasons for rejecting the option of ‘just carrying on’ and why he decided to keep his business as an investment as he headed into retirement. He explains exactly how he achieved this, the pitfalls to avoid and how’s since managed to create a new vision for his future.
Whilst leaving a legacy.
EBITDA = earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation – a measure of a company’s operating performance