Kathleen King began selling her home-baked cookies as a child from her family’s farm stand. After growing her business over the next 20 years and developing a successful brand with a large following, Kathleen recognized the need for an exit strategy. Rather than engaging a professional service provider for advice, she accepted an offer for two business partners to buy into her business. Quickly after, she was squeezed out of the company she had built herself, and even lost the business’ name, Kathleen’s Bake Shop.
But don’t worry, Kathleen’s story has a happy ending. She successfully went on to build yet another cookie business from scratch, called Tate’s Bake Shop. Keeping her end goal in mind from the beginning, she developed a strategic exit plan with the help of professionals and exited her business on her terms after maximizing its value. Tate’s Bake Shop went on to be sold to Modelez International for $500 million. Listen to Kathleen’s story in the podcast How I Built This with Guy Raz here.
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To learn more about exit planning and how to increase the value of your business, contact Gina Miller by calling 770.396.2200.