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CNBC
01-08-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Couple sold their company for $745 million, but felt numb after: 'We just couldn't process it'
From the outside, it seemed like Mike and Kass Lazerow had made it. It was 2012, and the couple from New York had sold the social media marketing platform they co-founded, Buddy Media, to Salesforce for $745 million. To celebrate, they had a lavish party for their employees where Mike walked out on stage to a 20-minute standing ovation, Kass says. They were supposed to feel euphoric, yet they didn't. Instead, they felt a "numbness," Kass, now 54, tells CNBC Make It. "We get into the Uber to go home … and [Mike] looks at me and goes, 'OK, so which doctors' appointments do we have tomorrow for the kids?'" Kass says. Since 2007, the entrepreneurial couple who started during the dot-com bubble had been working relentlessly on their new company. Kass gave birth to their third child just before her husband Mike, now 51, came up with the business idea for Buddy Media. She even nursed her newborn while building desks for an office. After three pivots, they finally landed on a business model that worked, and once they did, the momentum was "incredible," says Kass. By the time they sold the company, it was generating at least $50 million in annual recurring revenue, Kass says. Kass, who left her job as chief operating officer of the company after the sale to become a stay-at-home mom, says it took her a full year of small revelations — and therapy — to fully recognize what they had accomplished. "I don't want to compare it to real trauma, but it was like a version of PTSD, because we just couldn't process it all at once," Kass says. Outside of work, "you're the same old schmuck you were before you sold the business," says Mike. They lost their sense of purpose as entrepreneurs, Mike says. "We wanted freedom; that we weren't tied to one business. We didn't want to sit behind a desk." Mike, who was CEO of Buddy Media, transitioned to leading marketing and strategy initiatives at Salesforce. But after four years, Mike says his health started to take a toll from his demanding travel schedule and he missed spending time with his kids. Kass joined several charity boards, but realized that while the work was meaningful, it didn't give her the sense of purpose and excitement she was seeking. "The joy in creating themes and building businesses and winning customers and hiring people, all that stuff that is really exciting," Mike says. Kass and Mike aren't the only entrepreneurs to feel a sense of aimlessness after selling their company. Jyoti Bansal said selling his company, AppDynamics, to Cisco for $3.7 billion was the "saddest day" because he felt he hadn't solved the problem that drove him to build the company in the first place, he told CNBC Make It last year. Jake Kassan lost his drive and identity after selling his watch business for $100 million in 2018, relating the feeling to the movie "Groundhog Day," where the main character wakes up to the same day over and over again, he said in January. To get out of their ruts, Bansal, Kassan as well as Kass and Mike all shifted to careers that got them excited again. Kassan said he's building out his YouTube channel, and Bansal is working on a new startup called Harness, he said. As for Kass and Mike, Kass says they're back in the entrepreneurial game in their own way — supporting founders through personal equity investments and sharing insights in their new book, "Shoveling S---." "I don't think I could do another standalone company again," Kass says. "Those two companies and leading the people part of it — which I take very, very seriously — took just about everything out of me."
Forbes
01-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
NYC Tech Week Offers Lessons For Creating Successful Startup Partnerships
It's Tech Week 2025 in New York City and is the place for startups, companies and venture capitalists to network during hundreds of privately hosted events across the city. New York Stock Exchange's Celebration of Entrepreneurs event with Stifel on June 2nd will be a hot ticket. The event is honoring New York-based entrepreneurs and investors Kass and Mike Lazerow. The Lazerows are the husband-and-wife duo behind the successful startups Buddy Media and as well as investing in more than 100 startups like Liquid Death. The Lazerows spent the last year capturing their secrets of success in their book Shoveling $h!t: A Love Story About the Entrepreneur's Messy Path to Success. I had the opportunity to interview the couple prior to the event. It's no surprise that one of their secret weapons is building strong partnerships. The duo is not the first married couple to have a successful partnership in business and in life. The comparison between business and relationship partners is an apt one. Both require partners to get along with each other, learn how to manage stress and tough times, and hope for a successful and fruitful future. And both can get messy sometimes, as the Lazerows humorously and candidly detail in their upcoming book. Below are the lessons they shared on a critical question: how to choose the right business partner. Whether you are an entrepreneur or an established company seeking a strategic business partner to grow your business, the advice below will help you find partners that can guide you to new heights. There are several important elements of a successful business collaboration, including the concept, business plan, and cash flow. For Mike, one element stands out as the most important factor. 'The most important decision that a founder makes after they decide to start a company is who they start it with,' he shared in the interview. The Lazerows are passionate about this answer based on multiple experiences. Mike shared an interesting perspective: you often don't understand the importance of this lesson until you make the mistake of not getting it right. Mike recalled teaming with visionary artist Jonathan Cramer. Mike and Cramer were friends outside of business and Mike was excited to support his friend's business venture. Jonathan and Mike teamed up to bring Jonathan's concept, known as Shape Matrix, to market. But despite the momentum and investors, the commercial applications they'd developed never took off. Mike believes that the relationship between the co-founders—and their different visions for the partnership—was the main reason the startup never flourished. Mike is a serial entrepreneur, and Jonathan is a gifted artist. 'Let's just say we were not the most compatible co-founders, and the company suffered because of it,' he said. They approached the partnership from different perspectives, and as Mike now recognizes, they should have talked more deeply to ensure that they were both on the same page. The good news is they recognized this and were able to part ways amicably – something that does not always happen. Starting a business as the sole founder is an excellent approach for many entrepreneurs. In fact, companies with solo founders often survive longer and generate more revenue than businesses launched with multiple founders. But not all entrepreneurs have the skills needed to go it alone. While solopreneurs have more freedom, they're also left to do more by themselves, and risk and responsibility are entirely on their shoulders. It can be helpful to share the entrepreneurial burden—especially if you make a wise choice for your business partner. It's no surprise, then, that some of the world's leading companies have multiple founding partners. Microsoft and Apple, for example. Or Cisco and Clif Bar. But before taking the leap to starting a company with another co-founder, the Lazerows stress the importance of asking a series of questions: By asking the right questions, partners can make sure they're truly aligned and avoid potential issues. That's not to say that co-founders should be carbon copies of each other. While co-founders should have things in common with each other, such as values and respect, they should also possess complementary skills, perspectives, and strengths too, as Kass says, to 'fill in your gaps. Simply put, business partners should understand their strengths—and play to them—while allowing their collaborators' talents to shine. Kass compares partners leading a company to guiding a boat. One partner is at the front looking for land, while the other is trying to get everybody to paddle at the same speed and in the right direction. Kass stressed that successful companies have teams that don't worry about each other's work. 'There's this implicit trust, which I think is massive, and the leaders of the company specifically know what they don't know,' she said. She continued, adding that successful entrepreneurs 'recognize they know what they don't know and are not intimidated by working closely with partners that know more than they do.' This helps avoid micromanagement which is often a cause of tension and frustration. For Mike and Kass, ensuring alignment of vision and values is essential to help business founders create a successful partnership. They stress spending lots of time asking questions like 'What do you want to accomplish together?' and 'What are the principles that you hold dear?' Culture—a team's shared beliefs, customs and behaviors—is another must-have, noting you can't spell culture without 'cult.' 'When you're running a company, how you create and disseminate the values and morals of the company, not just the mission, but who we are as people and who we're going to hire, that cult. I always say you're building a cult in the culture,' shared Kass. Building a successful culture is a sign of accountability, a shared work ethic, and similar values and has been linked to success. Starting a company can be messy. But as Kass and Mike Lazerow know very well, picking the right co-founder can make the journey much easier.
