CRT Client: Hire A Helper
Where to Find Them: www.hireahelper.com
What They Do: HireAHelper markets itself as the authority on Hybrid™ Moving and the most affordable and reliable way to move. They provide an ingenious combination of DIY moving (where you rent yourself a truck or container), and a Full-Service move (where professionals come and move your stuff). “We see ourselves as Angie’s List for the moving community,” they say.
Objectives: HireAHelper came to Chairmen’s RoundTable for advice in 2015. They were starting to think seriously about an exit strategy but were unsure of the best options to pursue. With an overwhelming amount of legal and compliance work required and offers on the table, the two partners felt they needed the types of guidance only available from executives who had “been there and done that.”
Challenges: “We needed help finding the right path,” reports co-founder Pete Johnson, noting “There’s a lot of due diligence, and we’d already had one buyer fall through. We knew we needed to bring in the big guns to help us make the most of this opportunity.”
CRT Recommendations: CRT mentors Frank Creede and Hus Tigli stepped into an existing negotiation with a potential buyer who had extended the conversation for 12 months without making a final commitment. Rather than continue the interminable discussions, CRT helped find competing buyers, which led to a sale to the second party and a partnership with the first one.
Pete reports; “Frank and Hus acted as a sounding board, helping us decide whether to pursue particular opportunities or decide they were a distraction. We already knew that you second-guess everything when you’re an entrepreneur. It was very helpful to have people in our corner who had already been through the process, could provide lots of value, give us confidence, and demonstrate how most of the time our instincts were right.”
Results: The resulting sale was for a significantly higher price than was originally being discussed, and with a much better culture match. The buyers retained the entire team of HireAHelper employees while motivating the two co-founders to stay with lucrative employment/buy-out contracts. This comprehensive acquisition led to the development of a series of new services, including interstate and international offerings, television mounting, and handyman services.
CEO MIKE GLANZ SAYS: “When you have a solid product or service, it carries you through recessions and tough times. We’ve succeeded in taking all the headaches of moving off the table while establishing a platform that entire businesses are run through.
It’s pretty cool that CRT does so much for free. Here are dozens of world-class executives willingly giving of their time on a regular basis with some amazingly helpful advice. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the individuals involved with this organization because they’re of a significantly higher level than you’d typically expect from people volunteering and giving away their time.
It’s also interesting to see a group with such a large and varied set of resources so effectively solving such a diversity of business challenges. There aren’t too many places where you get so much knowledge about so many issues. And they’re not out to profit off their efforts, either…CRT is just here to give back and make sure everyone is successful.”