Most entrepreneurs see the process of selling their company as a “black box”, and as a result are not ready for what will likely to be the most important business deal of their life. This can be disastrous rather than an opportunity. In Daniel Bernstein’s talk at Casual Connect USA, the focus is on de-mystifying the M&A process. As the vice president at Corum Group, Daniel demonstrates how important it is to be ready, “Get your projections ready. What does that mean: [have] three years historic and three years future . . . Really build out bottom up projections of what your business is going to look like when you actually fully execute on it”. Daniel broke down eight steps to follow in this process, whether you plan to sell or not in his session How to Sell Your Company.
Daniel Bernstein loves a challenge. It’s for this reason that, for over 20 years, he has immersed himself in as many different tech industries as he can work his way into. “I love the intellectual stimulation of going from one particular industry to another in rapid succession,” he says.
With a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in music composition, Daniel first became involved in games professionally in 1994 working at Kesmai as a programmer and sound designer. Since then he has tackled director level positions at companies such as Wild Tangent and Monolith.
Currently, Daniel serves as the vice president at Corum Group, where he sells companies, as well is an independent consultant for larger companies in areas such as product development, M&A opportunities, and strategic initiatives. However, Daniel didn’t necessarily plan to end up selling companies as part of his job or expect to end up where he did.
Sandlot Education
In 2002, Daniel decided to open and run his own studio, Sandlot Games. The studio had multiple successes in the gaming industry, with over 40 games under its belt and multiple awards, among them Yahoo! Games’ “Casual Game of the Year” for Cake Mania and “Most Successful Developer/Publisher” from Logler.com.
Then, in 2011, Daniel made the decision to sell his studio to Digital Chocolate. It was a good transaction, with an opportunity to grow and expand the studio, and an opportune moment to provide liquidity to shareholders. Unfortunately, Digital Chocolate had to close down the studio a year after due to seismic changes in the gaming industry. This was a painful process, especially considering all the time and effort that went into building things from the ground up, but he kept his chin up and focused on his team, being sure to keep things positive and ensure that they landed good jobs.
While the experience was an emotional one, it was also incredibly important for Daniel. “Running my own game studio and then selling it is the single most important piece of education that I could have gotten. No MBA can measure up to the experience of doing this,” he says.
In the end, selling the studio became one of the proudest moments of his career and gave him an idea for what he should do next; while the experience was emotional, Daniel found the process itself of selling a company fulfilling. “I really enjoyed the process of selling my own company and was excited to help out other companies as well.”
Sell, Sell, Sell
At Corum Group, Daniel now tackles new challenges every day as he helps others sell their companies. It’s a good fit for someone who is “easily bored with doing the same thing over and over again.” He also has the opportunity to talk to dozens of CEOs daily, one of his favorite aspects of the job since they tend to have the attributes Daniel seeks in team members: intelligence, curiosity, and they are unafraid of change or progress.
While Daniel doesn’t have any immediate plans to make more changes in his life at the moment, he does still hope to see some changes in the future, particularly in the mobile sector. “I really hope the mobile bubble bursts,” he says. “It will allow more independent developers to grow and explore their ideas.”
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