Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth

Building a Legacy Without Losing Your Values with Kevon Saber

• Mike Maddock & John Tobin

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A desperate prayer under a desk. A supplier call about a giant dorm whiteboard. A flash of insight that the margins lived in the ad space, not the plastic. That’s the unlikely pivot that took Kayvon from a failing dot-com idea to a product on 200 campuses—and it’s just the start of a bigger story about building companies where purpose isn’t a post-exit rebrand, it’s the operating system.

For decision-makers dealing with high-stakes pivots and founder pressure, Kayvon’s story is a reminder that the best strategy often starts as a question-driven moment: What’s the real business here? What are we actually selling? And what are we willing to compromise to survive? That early shift became a form of peer-powered disruption—rethinking the model, the value, and the customer in a way competitors never saw coming.

We dig into the early sparks: an immigrant dad who turned “we love you, we can’t afford it” into grit and gross-margin math at Price Club, and a mom who modeled service in shelters. Those twin forces shaped a founder who later walked away from a growing venture because a cofounder’s values didn’t align—and who now stress-tests partners through time, references, family circles, and pressure moments. Along the way, Kayvon flips a leadership myth: tactics matter, but character and nervous-system regulation win in real crises. He also admits his hardest delayed decision—firing a brilliant executive who was toxic to the culture—and what it taught him about non-negotiables.

For any leader who’s ever felt alone in tough calls, this episode hits home: the hardest moves aren’t strategic—they’re personal. Sometimes the clearest leadership moment is deciding what’s not your problem anymore, and protecting the culture even when the numbers look good.

The conversation gets especially candid on selling a business without selling out. Most mid-market founders don’t realize their M&A advisors often serve buyers first. We break down the incentives and the fix: run a true market with 20–40 qualified buyers, surface the non-obvious acquirers whose strategy demands your company, and put the seller back in control. Then we widen the lens beyond price. We map offers across two axes—financial terms and employee care—so founders can choose the best total outcome.

We also tackle the silent risk of liquidity: family fractures. With upfront alignment on mission, roles, and expectations—and smart timing for donor-advised giving—a sale can strengthen relationships and fuel multi-generational generosity. For anyone ready to challenge their comfort zone around exits, wealth, and legacy, Kayvon offers a grounded way to run toward the roar instead of avoiding the hard conversations.

If you care about legacy that includes your people, your family, and your impact—without leaving money on the table—this conversation delivers. Real leaders. Real stories. Real action. Subscribe, share this with a founder who’s thinking about an exit, and leave a review with your top non-negotiable when selling a company.

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A Crucible And A Prayer

Kevon Saber

This was actually a real like crucible for me because I deeply wanted to get our investors in ROI, but we had no clear objective path with our current business. And this is before pivoting and moving to plan B was in the vernacular, right? For American entrepreneurs. This is going to sound crazy, but I didn't do it for any kind of showmanship or to affect anyone's impression. We had about 20 employees at this point. I was just desperate and I didn't know what to do. I got underneath my desk and just put my face on the floor and said, God, I need direction.

Framing Kayvon’s Venn: Faith, Family, Legacy

Mike Maddock

Welcome to the Your Seat at the Table podcast with your hosts, Idea Monkey Mike Matdock, and ringleader John Tobin. We're two founders, a serial entrepreneur and a billion-dollar operator, to talk to leaders about how, when, and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. Join us as we share wisdom, mistakes, and a few laughs learning from the brightest minds in business today. Okay, welcome to your seat at the table podcast. Uh lucky me, it's just me today, Stans John Tobin. But I get to speak to my friend Kayvon uh Saberk. Uh so here's the thing. I was thinking, Kayvon, uh, this morning about how I would describe you or introduce you. And I come from a background in consulting, so I love Venn diagrams. So I was coming, I was thinking about you with a Venn diagram. This is what I came up with. Uh if there were three circles in your Venn diagram, one would be faith, the next would be family, and then the final one would be legacy, and right in the middle would be entrepreneurship. Most leaders talk about purpose after they've made it. I want to throw up every time I hear a leader who sold a company and then wants to be purpose-driven. You've led with it. It seems to me that you started with purpose and wound up being an entrepreneur. And now that you've sold a company or two, you're taking it even further. So welcome. Um, I'm I want to hear about your background and I and I'd love to uh I'd love at the end of this conversation for people to be thinking about purpose and business differently. So hi bar, welcome to the podcast.

Kevon Saber

Hey, Mike. Really appreciate that kind introduction. Um so glad to be back with you.

Mike Maddock

So it's so what tell us about your journey. How did you wind up owning businesses and uh leading with purpose?

Kevon Saber

So, Mike, I grew up in Silicon Valley. My dad was and is an immigrant. Uh, he moved over from Iran right before the revolution because he wanted freedom and he wanted to pursue his dreams. Uh, and of course, he's watching the current protests in Iran, right, really closely. My mom was a social worker by training, and so she wanted to make the world better for others, and especially the poor. Uh, she grew up in a pretty depressed part of San Jose, California. A lot of Mexican and today a lot of Vietnamese immigrants there, and just said, gosh, if I can make a difference in these people's lives, that'll be so fulfilling. So I heard from my dad growing up about the merits of business and capitalism and entrepreneurship. He became a small business owner.

Mike Maddock

Was he an engineer, Kevin?

Kevon Saber

He bought he studied industrial engineering in college, and then he a few years after getting some training working for other people, he took out an SBA loan and bought a small printing company. It's probably doing $200,000 back in 1980. Awesome. And uh just kind of grew it 1%, 2% a year for 40 years, but compound growth is powerful, right? Um, and so you know, it was only doing a few million, but that's still, you know, more than 10.

Mike Maddock

It's the American dream though. Everybody came here, took out a loan, and did it.

Kevon Saber

Yeah. So my mom at the same time as I was growing up was taking me to volunteer at soup kitchens or homeless shelters and talking about the you know, the merits of volunteering. And so they obviously had a baby and and a total of four of us. Um, and so it's no big surprise, right, that I'm passionate about serving people through business, um, you know, using business as as a force for good in a variety of ways. Um happy to talk about how I think about that.

Mike Maddock

If you're where are you, Kayvon, in the family in the birth order? I'm a birth order guy.

Kevon Saber

Yeah, I'm the first of four. Um, three of us were born in six years. Sorry, three of us were born in nine years, each three years apart. And then um, and then my youngest brother was born 19 years after me. So in a in a way, he was the only child because he was no surprise at all. Las Vegas um anniversary trip, right? How that happened.

Mike Maddock

Family legend. What's it what is your brother's name? Yeah.

Kevon Saber

Um, so all of us, all the all the boys have a have a slight variation on a you know, English or American name. So obviously Kavon is a little different than Kevin. Ryan is a little different than Ryan.

Mike Maddock

That's so funny. The surprise. Anyway, so okay, so you're most likely to be to become a president, by the way, because you're the oldest in the family, but I digress. So, okay, so you've got heart, you've got your mom with this giant heart, you've got your dad who's laser focused on providing and growing and being an entrepreneur. So you've got head and heart as parents. Um, what was your first business? How did you start or where'd you go to school and what did you study?

Birth Order, Family Culture, And Drive

Kevon Saber

Yeah, so I started the first business long before I went to college. So we'll start there. Yeah, I was eight years old and I wanted to go to tennis camp. Now, when people hear tennis camp, they might be thinking, you know, Nick Boloteri in Florida. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the municipal tennis courts about 15 minutes from our house, where they had a camp from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And it might have been, you know, $15 back in the mid-80s, right? Uh so I was born in in uh the last 10 days of 1979, and it's probably 19, you know, 87 at this point. So my dad said, I said, hey dad, I'm gonna go to tennis camp. And and could they have you know scrounged up the money to pay $15, whatever it was then? Probably. But I want to be clear, at that point, things are pretty hard for my family financially. Like we were struggling to make rent, um, struggling to put food on the table. Never missed a meal, but you know, saw my mom crying herself to sleep, thinking, I don't know how we're gonna pay rent next week, right?

Mike Maddock

Yeah.

Kevon Saber

So so I my dad though says immediately, how are you gonna pay for that? Which was not my expected response from him. I thought it would be yes or no, right? Um, so he says, How are you gonna pay for that? And I said, Well, I don't know. Um and we started a conversation, which was his hope, right? Uh he said, Well, last season, um you played soccer and your coach told us at the pizza party at the end of this at the end of the fundraiser that you sold you were among the top sellers in the country of the candy bars that were raising money for this the team's jerseys and you know, warm-up outfits and cones and balls and nets and everything. Um you know, you you you sold vast way more than anybody else on the team, everybody else on the team combined. Uh you were third in the third in California, and I don't know what the number was in the country, it was 10 or 12 or something. So why don't you sell candy bars to pay for your tennis camp? I said, Yeah, that sounds good. So we got in the car, we went over to Price Club, what has now become Costco, and we bought two or three bars.

Mike Maddock

A pallet of candy bars because you you can only buy pallets at Costco.

The Tennis Camp Side Hustle

Kevon Saber

Yeah. And he says, he says, you know, we're standing, I'm I'm stuck, I can put myself back at eight years old, standing in Costco under the bright lights, right? He's saying, How much are you gonna sell them for? And I said, a dollar. He said, Well, how much do they cost? And I look at look at the price, and it's like $10 for 30 bars. They're about 30 cents. He says, Okay, so what's your gross margin? And I'm like, what is gross margin? He says, the difference between what you charge and what you what you what it costs you for your materials. And I said, Okay, well, that's about 70 cents. He says, All right, so how many bars you need to sell for tennis camp? Um, so I'm getting my division practice, right? Real time. Um, and so yeah, I was off on the streets, and of course I paid for tennis camp in hours. And then I was telling people I want to go to tennis camp, but I was thinking, oh, I'm gonna buy that MC Hammer cassette and I'm gonna buy a Walkman, I'm gonna buy the new Air Jordans, right? So I've starts. That's how everything that I wanted as a kid, um, initially through selling candy bars starting at eight, um, which gosh gave me so much confidence, Mike. So no surprise, you know, fast forward, I'm um doing my undergrad at Santa Clara University, and the dot-com boom is raging. I'm looking at the Wall Street Journal every day and I'm seeing people my age were becoming multimillionaires. We thought they were becoming multimillionaires, right?

Mike Maddock

Uh yeah.

Kevon Saber

But we didn't know that then, right? It was all paper money. We didn't know it was all gonna blow up six months later. Um, but I, you know, couldn't help but think, well, why not me? Right. Um, now that was around the same time that I came into faith in Christ. And so two things were happening. I mean, a few things were happening on the inside of me, right? One was I want to be successful, I want to achieve, I want to show the world that I have what it takes. Um, you know, some of that was driven out of fear, some of that was driven out of insecurity. But at the same time, I was thinking, if I can be really successful as an entrepreneur, that's the most efficient path to having the resources, money, connections, and skills to help the poorest people in the world, right? Christ calls us to care for the least of these, right?

Mike Maddock

Okay. So I I I I don't mean to, this is really important, but I you blew by something and I just want to put a pin in it because as a parent and an entrepreneur and uh someone who's watching our young people being dopamine to death by uh, you know uh videos online or video games or whatever. Dopamine to death. That is a dopamine, and you can get like you don't have to leave your bedroom now to get almost everything that got me out of my bedroom in high school. Um there's there's a there I I heard this and forgive me for not remembering who said it. Um but the ability to connect dopamine to the future, it it that's those are the keys to the castle. So if you think about uh the the story that Kavan just told was he's like, oh my gosh, if I do this, I'll get that dopamine rush. If I get this, I can get the MC hammer tape, dopamine rush. If I get this, I can get a car, dopamine rush. Now he's thinking, if I I see all these tech mirror, so he's thinking about the future and he's getting a rush based on the vision of what's going to happen. What I'm seeing happening with younger people today is they're getting, they're they're focusing on the past and things that can go wrong, and that's how they're getting their or video games worse, dopamine. So the brilliance of what your father, the gift your father gave you, was aligning dopamine to the future. It's pulling you forward. So I just wanted to make that point. And I I'm sorry, because you were talking about you had just uh you had just had your faith conversion, and now you're thinking about business. So please take it from there.

Dot-Com Dreams Meet Faith And Purpose

Kevon Saber

Yeah, I I will, and I'll just say briefly you're making me feel very smart for a decision that my wife and I made years ago, which is we don't have any screens that are accessible to the kids. Yeah, we have no TV up in our house. We have uh no iPads that they can reach for. We do have, to be clear, we do have an iPad um that we have to unlock if if our 14-year-old is gonna do a FaceTime with her friend or text her friends, but because we have to unlock it, it's minimal time per day.

Mike Maddock

Like this from a tech now a tech entrepreneur who grew up in Silicon Valley, folks. You know, I I wish that uh I had that insight early in life. Um, because I see the difference it it's made with my own kids, one of whom missed it, the other of whom was right in the middle of it. Like the the the their relationship with technology is different and their relationship with other things is different because of it.

Kevon Saber

Yeah. I I have to be careful myself. It's so easy, right? Just to enjoy the dopamine from all the different content on on X or or other platforms. All of us, yeah. So it's insidious. It's a daily battle. And it's you're right to call it death. Dopamine death, or I don't know how you phrase that. Death by dopamine, is that what you said? That's what you said, but I like it. Okay. Okay. Well, I was I was I was ripping off.

Mike Maddock

That was brilliant, K Von.

Kevon Saber

That was amazing.

Mike Maddock

I saw what you just did there. It's it's intelligence judo. You're you're really brilliant. What did you say?

Kevon Saber

I thought I was kidding you. Um, so we'll have to go back at the recording to say who said it first. And I'm worried about the money, it was you. So I was in, yeah, I was in college and I was thinking, okay, I want to start this company. But before I started that company, um, I remember shortly after coming to faith, uh, kind of taking a leadership role in the Christian fellowship at the university, and kind of thinking, oh, if I'm serious about my faith and I'm gonna follow this person and teachings, right? Um, Christ and his teachings, then I probably I should probably go to Africa and plant churches. Um that's kind of the idea that was in my head, which was kind of in the the the milieu, right, of American kind of Christianity. But I remember hearing about this guy who was from Africa in the States for a few weeks, who had supposedly planted hundreds of churches and seen angels and raised people from the dead, and I thought, I don't know if this guy's real or not, but I want to meet him. And I took him to Chile's for lunch as a as a freshman in college. Maybe I was a sophomore, hadn't yet started the company and I said, Hey, um you know, kind of showing my level of sincerity in my about my faith. Hey, what do you think about me dropping out of school and going to Africa and planning churches? Didn't even put his fork down, just said, that's a terrible idea. He said, You he said, the church has never had trouble reaching the poor. The church has always had trouble reaching the financially wealthy. Go and get it as educated and successful as you can and be God's minister in the marketplace.

Mike Maddock

Yeah, it reminds me of a story, the the celestial tea or celestial seasonings, or he had this tea company, decided to hang it up, went to uh Africa, uh India, I'm sorry, and uh became a missionary, and then he met Mother Teresa and told her his story, and uh she's like, Grow where you're planted, son. And he came back, he came back and made a billion-dollar tea company because he was he thought he was on mission, but he wasn't.

Kevon Saber

I love that story. I I remember hearing that a few years ago and forgetting it. So thanks for reminding me.

Mike Maddock

Yeah.

Dopamine, Discipline, And Raising Kids

Kevon Saber

But I I decided shortly after that I'm gonna start a company, and I had the confidence to approach investors to contact as at you know, 19, 20 years old, to contact investors and ask them for money, to contact suppliers and ask them to put their faith in us, to recruit and hire 25, 35, 45, 55-year-old professionals as a sophomore in college, right? Because my dad put me on the street at eight years old and had me talk to strangers and had me talk to adults and asked them if they want to support my tennis camp by buying a candy bar, right? Um a quick side note at the when I was selling those candy bars, some of the very, you know, generous people walking down the the streets of Palo Alto would say, Hey, I don't I'm not really into chocolate or I'm not really into candy, but can I just give you a dollar to support your tennis camp and then you can eat the candy bar? And I said, Absolutely. Of course, I never ate one of those candy bars because to your deferred gratification point, I knew, well, if I could sell that candy bar twice, right, then now I now I get a 170% gross margin, right? Um and so, you know, I was thinking about, you know, either the tennis camp or the Air Jordans I was gonna buy or the you know music I wanted to to buy. Um, because my parents weren't gonna spend a dollar on those things for me, right? Um that's I heard seven words a lot growing up. The first three were we love you. The next four were we can't afford it.

Mike Maddock

Yeah.

Kevon Saber

So go buy it, go figure it out if you want to buy it.

Mike Maddock

I think it's um it's amazing. And I I you know the parenting paradox is we want to keep our kids from suffering, but suffering is what makes them um extraordinary. And I I remind myself of that all the time. Uh it's so hard as a parent to deny your children stuff that you wanted as a kid, you know. So it takes such discipline to be able to say, and I I will tell you that I have lacked that discipline a lot of times in my life where I'm just like, sure, you should that would be great. You should have that. And on the look back, it is the discipline of saying, well, if you want it and go out and get it that creates entrepreneurs, you know. Yes.

Kevon Saber

Um, I totally agree. You're you're you're firing me up. I I think I think that uh I'm thinking of Dennis Prager, who talks about the power of vitamin N. Now, when he's talking about vitamin N, he's talking about a three-year-old or a five-year-old where you just say no, right? Yeah. Um, but you're but there's you're talking about a different vitamin N, which is I'm not going to do it for you. You can do it yourself.

Mike Maddock

Right. Uh what was your first business in college that you're raising money for?

Kevon Saber

Um, so this was it's called all dorm.com, A-L-L-D-O-R-M. We started it with the premise that it was just frustrating, painful, time consuming for us as college students to go to 20 different stores to buy everything for our dorm room. That was the initial idea. Very quickly, we realized wow, the margins on e-commerce back in 2000, with these different suppliers around the country drop shipping for us and us competing with Walmart and Amazon and everybody else was just not the right business to be in. And so um, after at that point, we had raised probably $400,000. That's you know, almost double that money now, right? If you just think about inflation. Um, so a meaningful amount for 20-year-olds. And I was just deathly scared of not delivering those investors an ROI. Um so we raised the capital, we formed the supplier relationships, we've created the website, we started marketing it, we realized, wow, like we do not see a clear path to margins that would deliver a great ROI for those investors. The dot-com bust happens. So now no investors are not investing in storied eyed, you know, 20-somethings, right? Um, it went from being a great idea to a terrible idea if you're an investor. The the joke at the time was you only invest in people who have gray or white hair, right? Which we didn't. So um this was actually a real like crucible for me because I deeply wanted to get our investors in ROI, but we had no clear objective path with our current business. And this is before pivoting and moving to plan B was in the vernacular, right, for American entrepreneurs. Um, this is gonna sound crazy, but I didn't do it for any kind of showmanship or to affect anyone's impression. Uh we had about 20 employees at this point. I was just desperate and I didn't know what to do. I got underneath my desk and just put my face on the floor and said, God, I need direction, I need help. You need to show me what we're gonna what we're gonna do. And I had an idea while I was on the floor. Um, it was to sell a very tall, I think multi-foot, like like at least three feet tall dry erase board. And it would be at least a foot or two feet wide. And it was nonsensical in one respect because I didn't see how that was gonna solve our financial problems.

Mike Maddock

But I was like, I had this really clear like image, maybe it was an answer to my prayer.

Calling, Marketplace Ministry, And Confidence

Kevon Saber

About 24 hours later, I'm sitting at my desk, and you know, I I have a full class schedule, right? So you can imagine it's like classes from 8 a.m. to to 11 30 a.m. Grab a quick lunch, head to the office, work till eight, go home, do my homework, get to bed at 10, and the grind just starts all over again, right? Like there was no room for parties or clubs or anything. It was it was deliver great grades and you know deliver startup growth. Um, so anyway, I I was back at my desk twenty four hours after I was on my knees and I had This picture sort of arrives in my brain. And this lady calls. She calls in and she says, Hi. She called, you know, the supplier. She hit the supplier extension on the customer service tree. And so I answered it. And she said, Hey, I have a two and a half foot wide by three and a half foot wide, a tall, three, two and a half foot wide, three and a half foot tall dry erase board. I like to sell it to your the students that buy products on your website. And I'm thinking, I've seen a dry erase board with those dimensions in my life, right? They're usually like a foot tall and nine inches wide, right? Yeah. You said it it clings to the student's door with static electricity. So I'm just I just kind of sit there and process I I went through the typical, you know, supplier onboarding process with her. And then I I just kind of sat thought about it and thought about it. So how do we make money off of this? Selling this thing for 20 bucks, you know, with whatever $10 gross profit is not going to move the needle with our bigger financial problem, right? And I just think, huh, we could make a lot more money selling advertising on the top four inches and bottom four inches of this three and a half foot tall dry erase board. This board was unique. It wasn't actually a board, it was a sheet that adhered to the student's door with static electricity. Now, let me put this in perspective. There was no Facebook, there was no Instagram, there was no textbook.

Mike Maddock

But there were pizza places and there were that everybody that w that that college kids needed to know about at two in the morning.

AllDorm: Early Startup, Bust, And A Pivot

Kevon Saber

So you're talking about the business value proposition, right? So I would go over, I went over to the local regional um roundtable pizza office, and I said, You want students to order at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. And I grabbed the sheet and I threw it dramatically like a showman against the door of his office. And it for the first time that I had ever done this, because I had practiced it, it didn't stick to his door. Something about something about the door and the paint like didn't have enough static. Wow. So it so it fell. And I said, sir, that's the first time that's ever happened. It sticks to it sticks to doors. And this is the first service I've ever seen it not stick to. I think I went and put it up on his wall and it sticked. And he said, something like, son, I want every university that you're ready to give me, right? Yeah, that's awesome. Um, and so I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Like a win, a financial win. And so sure enough, we went over to Volkswagen and they bought a bunch of the inventory. Went to the cell phone, um, local cell phone steward. We started this at one university and had them take the rest of the inventory at that one school, which is Santa Clara University, the school I did undergrad at.

Mike Maddock

And so fast forward, fast forward. Like, so you you you it's it's awesome. I think that I like to tell people God is never subtle with me. I always get hit in the in the head with a frying pan when it's time to listen. Um, and it feels like that's what happened to you under the desk. Did you how how many universities, how big, how to go to the end of this story and tell me what happened?

Kevon Saber

Yeah. So a year later, we were distributing 200,000 of those across about 200 of the largest college campuses in the U.S., um, including, and they were mostly uh on the West Coast where we started. And then, sorry, about a third of them were on the e were on the West Coast, about about two-thirds were on the East Coast, because right after graduation, I got in a Eurovan wrapped with our company's logo and visited, you know, 70 schools between um upstate New York and the Boston area, and basically sold them on the dream of a of a new dry erase product that would allow their students to communicate with each other um by writing messages on the doors without the end-of-year headache of parents calling, calling saying, Why'd you charge me charge me $50? Because your student put a dry erase board that damaged the door. Well, this one didn't.

Mike Maddock

Yeah, that's that's the uh like the fourth benefit, probably on the list, but the primary benefit for sure is the the marketing play for the you know, B to C. Right. So it's it's wonderful. So did you wind up exiting that company? What happened?

Kevon Saber

Uh sadly, no. Four years in, I realized that there were four of us co-founders. I realized that three of us had aligned values and one of them had misaligned values with the rest of us. Um, I was the president, he was the CEO, massive titles for 22-year-olds at this point, right? Um, we had at that point about 25 employees, maybe maybe 28 employees. And uh I just didn't think we had a foundation to build on, meaning he would talk to employees and deceive them and tell them about benefits or promises that we actually were not prepared to deliver, right? Or talk to investors and exaggerate the number of universities we were partnered with or the advertising revenue. And so I just found my job as one of a janitor, just cleaning up his messes, right? And increasingly worried about the liability that might form from the deception, the for the, you know, the fraudulent statements he was making. So I left that company and co-founded a mobile video game company. And again, part of it was well, software has better margins than e-commerce or advertising products. But part of it was this other co-founder who made it really clear to me that he wanted to really make a difference in the lives of the employees and uh he wanted to fund uh care for orphans through the profits of the business.

The Door Whiteboard And Ad Model

Mike Maddock

So so uh it seems like you had a warning sign from so that's a lesson, right? You you it's not what you do, it's who you do it with oftentimes. And you you had a moment where values are misaligned and you you so you had to walk away. What how do you stress test purpose now? Like when's the when the pressure's on, how do you stress test against cash, growth, investors, or reputation? Or like reputation, uh small, small letters, values largely all caps. How do you do that?

Kevon Saber

I hear you asking two questions. I want to clarify which one. Are you saying how do you determine whether partners are sufficiently aligned before you get into a partnership? Or are you saying when you're in a crucible situation, how do you prioritize the values in ways that are really practical?

Mike Maddock

I think that those are both really good questions, but I think it starts first with the people. So, like, how do you find partners where you know you're aligned? And then once you're aligned, when you have those really difficult questions, how do you make that how do you come up with the answers?

Kevon Saber

Yeah. I mean, so I I hear you talking about partners as a different level of mutual commitment and integration and interdependence than an employee, right? And so obviously, in this case, in the case of a partnership, there's no substitute for time for collaborating in small ways before we collaborate in a big way to talk to people that you both know that you trust who can vouch for that person's character, right? I don't jump into partnerships with people in at I'm 46 now. I don't jump into partnerships with people today like I did when I was 20, right? I really get to know them, their spouse, their um, their circle. I see how they behave over time before I partner with them. And that certainly means I I go slower on partnerships now, but gosh, I'd rather go slow so I can actually go with confidence and eventually go fast and not have the repeat, you know, repeated experience of wow, now we're in really deep and we have obligations to investors and employees and customers and suppliers, only to realize our values are not aligned.

Mike Maddock

So okay, so here's a a more complicated follow-up to that. So my experience, you know, I I have a uh CEO advisory board company, Flourish Advisory Boards, where I test I test uh CEOs or presidents to to see which of six seats they sit in. There's the operator, the strategist, the raymaker, the visionary, the tech futurist, and the orchestrator. And uh the the challenge is that if you get along with everybody on your executive team, you've got the wrong executive team because you want people that see problems differently. So A number one, you want to share values. Like you want, and that often means I like these people. I know their family, I know their kids, these these are my people. How do you find partners that share your values but see problems differently? How do you do that?

Scaling To 200 Campuses

Kevon Saber

Yeah, that's a great question. Um I think it starts with time, right? But it it also means intentionally evaluating how complementary are our ways of thinking. Not identical, but but again, they shouldn't be identical. They should be complementary. I started a business um right after Stanford Business School. Let me take a step back. While I was at Stanford, the first week we had had kind of a boot camp on teamwork. And one of the powerful lessons from that was looking at all the research on teamwork and and diversity of teams and in teams. And what the big takeaway from that research is that every kind of diversity, ethnically, socioeconomically, educationally, experiences, adds, ways of thinking, add to team output except for one. And that's a diversity of values, right? And so now I look at, okay, how complementary are our skills, how relevant are those skills for the problems we're trying to solve, the market that we're in? Um, how do we not only bring different skills to the party, but different ways of thinking, which is what I hear you saying when you talk about those six different seats, right? Um, are our experiences different? I I have my wife actually uh involved as a formal advisor with legacy outcomes, my current Soulside MA firm, for a lot of reasons, but one of them is she thinks so differently than me. Um it's not just her femininity, right? It's the fact that she was born in a different country, was raised in a different culture, um, has a just different level of experiences than I do and a totally different set of skills. And gosh, it's it's just amazing to see the synergy, whether it's we're talking about with her or the different folks on my team. So I try to find people on my team who for my for my teams now that have the same values, but who are complementary in every other way.

Misaligned Values And Walking Away

Mike Maddock

Yeah, I did a TED talk for YPO uh four years ago, and the tapes got burned. We did this whole day and none of it exists. But the TED talk I did like the they look, they didn't the recordings didn't uh stick. Uh, but the the the topic was um it was like a two by two for picking partners. And in business, you wanted uh partners that that were opposites, Roy Disney and Walt Disney, you know, the yin for your yang. And in marriage, you wanted partners that were weren't opposites. And I had data that supported like but the the one thing that was constant between the business partners and your life partner was that you had to share the same values or you're gonna be in trouble. So that's that's fascinating. I uh so you you jumped ahead and you said that your current business, and I I kind of know the answer to this, but I want other other people, you you're currently helping companies sell their businesses in a way that preserves their legacy. Now that I murdered that, but I'd like I'd like you to chat a little bit about how you know some of the your the story we've heard about you uh has uh form formed your thinking around or it informed your thinking around MA. Talk about that for a sec.

Kevon Saber

Yeah, Mike, um what I learned the hard way in trying to sell or actually selling my first few companies, and um, to be clear, not all of them were purchased, but we did sell that mobile software video game company to a public company in right before I turned 30. And then in my 40s, we I sold another mobile software company uh to private equity. And in every case, whether we sold or we didn't, I learned that there's not fit, there's not the kind of representation or intermediaries, advisors, so many phrases that I actually needed. What is that about? Well, it just I've learned it's two things. One, typically the most skilled people move up market to sell multi-billion dollar companies because that's where the money is, right?

Mike Maddock

Yeah.

Choosing Partners And Stress-Testing Purpose

Kevon Saber

And then so that that's there's a massive talent vacuum for the middle market companies. And then secondly, those who are there are almost always conflicted, meaning there's an integrity gap. They're not always obvious. It's not always obvious to them because it's what everybody does. So you have about 97% of brokers, MA firms, and investment banks who are not in a position to protect the legacies of those business owners or to maximize the outcomes for those owners when they sell because they're conflicted. They are more beholden or they are loyal to the buyers, not the seller, because the buyer pays them three or four times as much per transaction, and the buyer is a repeat customer. All the economics tilt the market in the buyer's favor, but no one realizes this as an entrepreneur because this is one of the many kind of secrets that enable these bankers, MA firms, and brokers to, you know, laugh all the way to the bank based on their undisclosed relationships. I was talking to a business owner a few days ago. He said, Kevin, I'm thinking about working with your firm, legacy outcomes, and another firm that's uh in my market. And I said, Hey, I I've never worked with that firm, um, but let me do some research for you. So I called uh a friend of mine in YPO, which is how you and I met, Mike, and I said, Hey, this firm is in your backyard. Um, what can you tell me about them? He said, Well, they're like every other firm. They're massively conflicted. They are loyal to the buyers, and they will um ultimately sell the company, but for far less than your firm would or mine. He was this this firm's 30 years old that uh my friend Peter runs. They were one of the first sell side MA firms that exclusively works with sellers. Um and so anyway, he's become a friend and a mentor. And so I looked at this other firm's website, and they have sold more companies to the same handful of buyers than they have to all the other buyers combined, right? Yeah, they advertise that they represent buyers and they represent sellers. Well, those are the those are kind of the tail signs that lets you know there's a 99% with those signs or 99.9% likelihood, even if even if you don't have my friend to call who knows that firm, that they're conflicted and you're gonna be inventory. You're not actually the client, right? Your company is the inventory, the buyer is the client. Um, and so when I learned this through my own experiences, I realized someone has to create a firm back to kind of the future-related dopamine that becomes the standard for the industry that every entrepreneur knows as they are gonna look out for me. They operate according to different values. And since nobody had created that firm on a national scale, um, we decided to create it. And so we we basically spinned off one of the leading MA firms in the US, focused on the middle market, but said we're gonna operate according to different values. We're called legacy outcomes because there's four outcomes that we are achieving for our clients, with our clients. So the first one is selling for the most money, right? We don't want them to leave any money on the table.

Mike Maddock

And the way we think how do you do that? Is that like obviously stalking horse? So, so you know, meaning that you have two or three different buyers in the game.

Kevon Saber

No, no, not no, not no, not two or three. Okay, how many? That's that's so we we sold a medical device company last month. Um we had 24 offers for that company. And with 24 offers, the buyer doesn't have the leverage.

Mike Maddock

The seller has the yeah, yeah, and just to make your point, uh, because I this is I'm trying to keep up, but I I I thought your analogy of inventory, you become the inventory, is really interesting because if you're beholden to one purchaser that you've done 200 deals with, um, they're not gonna be real happy with you if you're pitting them against 20 other buyers. So the system isn't designed uh in your favor, if I understand it correctly.

Kevon Saber

So that's a fantastic that's a fantastic ad. I'm glad you said that.

Mike Maddock

Yeah. So flipping the model, you're you're if you're on the other side of the table, you're like, okay, we're gonna bring 20 in. Yeah. Now there's a much uh more likely uh chance that you're gonna have buyers competing for that purchase, which elevates the price.

Complementary Minds, Shared Values

Kevon Saber

That's right. Now, depending on, I want to say a couple things about that. Depending on the enterprise value of the company, we'll see between 20 and 40 typically. And if it's a lower enterprise value, it'll be culture to 20, and if it's higher enterprise value, they'll be around 40. And that's because there's just more buyers for those larger businesses.

Mike Maddock

We how would you respond to, sorry to interrupt you, but how would you respond to the argument that, well, maybe, except that companies that focus on specific industries have better connections, they know more people. Uh you know, because that would be the counterargument. Like, no, we know all the people who are actually real buyers.

Founding Legacy Outcomes: Fixing MA Conflicts

Kevon Saber

There's there's uh a couple points to just a couple points there, right? One, uh, if you're close with those buyers, you're typically beholden to those buyers, right? Number one, um, back to your point about goodwill, they do not want to lose those goodwill, the goodwill of those buyers they keep selling, right? Number two, um, the the core suitors for any business are obvious with a little bit of research, right? We have a team of Stanford and Ivy League MBAs who have access to all the databases in the world. Before AI, the the core suitors are obvious. Even with even with AI, it's even it's even faster to identify those buyers. The way you get the peak sales price is not by selling to the core suitors, it's by selling to the buyers who have to buy this business for their strategy. And they are not obvious, they are not core suitors because they're not already in the market the way the typical buyers are, right? So let me give you let me give you an example. Ten years ago, um, there was a company that um was in the industrial services um in an industrial services business in the Midwest, and they talked to three investment banks, including the firm we were an offshoot of, and said, Hey, um, you know, do you think that ours is a good business to sell at this time? How much do you think you can sell it for? And they were creating a bake-off, which is a reasonable approach. Well, in the second meeting, they said, Listen, we want to level with you. The other two investment banks we talked to actually don't want to take us on as a client because of our customer concentration. We have one customer, it's a hundred percent of our revenue. And um, this gets to your point about specialization in industry. We are not industry specialists, we are entrepreneurs who get creative and find solutions, right? And that's ultimately how you get more money for your business. And so we said, all right, customer concentration, it's a bad thing, no doubt about it. But there's a workaround. We're gonna find a buyer who has been trying to get into your single customer for 10 years unsuccessfully, and therefore is desperate to get into your your one customer because they will 10x that business if they can sell that customer their other your other their other service lines, right? Right. Um that makes sense. So, you know, we did the research to identify those non-obvious buyers. Um, and we we sold that business for a multiple that was you know that created general generational wealth for that family.

Mike Maddock

Um, and so you can imagine if you said there were you said there were four things that you did differently. I just want to make sure we get to them before I ask you.

Kevon Saber

The first is max proceeds or not leaving money on the table, right? Um, there's a handful of firms in the US that that do that. We're the only firm who does the next three. The fur the second one is doing diligence on the buyers to understand how well they're gonna care for your employees. Part of your legacy as an entrepreneur is the care and well being of those employees. And so what we see with our clients is they routinely are gonna pick the second best offer or the fourth best offer because they have confidence that those employees. are going to flourish, right? One of our floor.

Mike Maddock

And that is from my experience. That is from my experience what uh keeps the best leaders up at night. Like, what am I going to do to my employees here? I can't, I don't want to hang them out to dry. So how do I ensure that? And it's really hard to do.

Creating Competition: 24 Offers, Not Two

Kevon Saber

This is the number two regret of business owners after they sell. And so we have taken that risk off the table. When we deliver the 30 offers or 40 offers to a client, we create a grid. And that grid shows every financial component of every offer side by side so that the seller can evaluate the financial dimensions. But then we have almost as many dimensions on employee well-being and employee care, right? So that the business owner can look at those in parallel and say, gosh, it seems like these three are the best given my priorities. We know what those priorities are. We build that grid based on our upfront conversation where we have a business owner force rank their priorities. And so we have 17 priorities, we lay them out with a deck of cards on the table and we say which ones are the must-haves, which ones are the nice to have, which ones are not important to you, right? Your values will determine every step of our playbook because how we position the company, which buyers we contact, how we build the forecasts, the guidance we give buyers before they make their offers and after are and how we negotiate are all based on those objectives we establish up front. So the first the first outcome is max proceeds. The second one is employee care. The third is family cohesion and direction. In the first um you know eight years of our firm of our of our history we saw more families fractured with their newfound liquidity than strengthened through the liquidity. And it takes every form brothers who used to run a business together who no longer talk. A couple that are no longer married because of an indiscretion you know that happened. Multiple generations that don't talk to each other because they don't they didn't have expectations that were agreed upon before the liquidity and then therefore everyone had their expectations um and they weren't the same. And so we we uh we are not family counselors we're not therapists we're not family facilitators we have uh four different of the country's best experts um in this area of family cohesion and direction what are your mission your your what what is your mission your vision your values as a family um and they will work with our clients separately but in parallel and in coordination with what we're doing so that when the business is sold, not only are they all aligned but they're closer than they were before they started selling the business right got it. What is it worth Mike if you've got 80 million in the bank but your kids don't talk to you I'm getting goosebumps.

Mike Maddock

Nobody wants that right yeah and and it's uh it's a story as old as dirt actually which is unfortunate right it's so sad.

Kevon Saber

And we you know we both know story after story after story. So we just say listen that is a massive risk we're going to take that risk off the table or take it close to zero. The fourth outcome is the charitable piece. What we see is that if a business owner can think either two three years out, two years out even one you know one year out about what do they want to do charitably it changes everything because they've put their money where their heart is that might look like giving you know 10% of the company to a DAF three years out and 10% two years out and 10% six months out before the LOI assigned is important from an IRS standpoint. And then of course when they sell they have 30% less taxable proceeds and then they've got a giving fund now that they can rally around with the generations after them like the David Green family of Hobby Lobby has done to make a big difference in the lives of others, which gosh just changes the whole dynamic.

Mike Maddock

And there's there's how you have wrapped your uh the how we started the Venn diagram into a business model. So thank you for that. Let me ask you some I I I'm watching the time and I know that uh we're coming to the end. So I just want to ask you a couple of rapid questions to say what the first thing that comes to your mind um and then we'll we'll call it a day. So are you ready? I'm ready.

Industry Specialists Vs Creative Buyers

Kevon Saber

You're ready okay um hardest decision you've delayed too long firing an executive who was unbelievably skilled and had executives at Apple and other global companies eating eating out of her hand because of her brilliance but was toxic for our culture. Yeah that is the number one there's a whole I wrote an article in Forbes on this it's a two by two but anyway that's the most dangerous employee um I think that's the headline in the article okay um belief about leadership that you've completely reversed oh gosh that's a great question give me just a second belief about leadership I've completely reversed I used to think one way and now I think a different way um you know I think I I started out in my you know about 20 knowing nothing about leadership and thinking that it was all about behaviors and performance and tactics and and skills that people observe and all of that matters. But at 46 I realized that my own character and the management of my nervous system and in other words what's happening on the inside actually matters intensely more because in the moment of of of a of a hard decision or an an adversity and if you're trying to do something big you're gonna have a lot of both right um it's the elephant on the inside that is going to take the that writer right that mind um wherever it wants to go in a way that's unconscious to me if I haven't you know built myself up on the inside.

Mike Maddock

Yeah and so that that uh great book The Ant and the Elephant um what's his name? Uh oh my goodness show lemon's husband I'm blanking on it. Anyway the whole it's a whole story about an ant who can't get anywhere and halfway through the book realizes he's walking on the bat on the top of an elephant who's going the opposite direction and it's basically his subconscious is running everything he doesn't know it. It's a great metaphor. Okay last um last question one question every CEO should ask once a year but doesn't I think I think the question that first comes to mind is how do I feel about my relationship with myself and how do I feel about the three most important relationships in my life across both professional and personal domains. Awesome. Kayvon that was amazing uh you're amazing you're doing good work uh your legacy is secure and I'm uh grateful that we become friends. Thank you for spending some time with uh me and the rest of the your seat at the table audience. I'm grateful.

Kevon Saber

Hey Mike it's so uh life giving to be with you a kindred spirit and especially given your vast experiences that um you're so kind uh to share with not only people in your generation but generate the one and a half generation or sorry the half generations after like me and and even the the the full and and two generations after you so thank you so much for your your generosity. An honor and a pleasure thank you Kiva

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Mike Maddock

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