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Episode Summary
Every offer that lands on your desk asks the same question: what’s your number? Saud Juman couldn’t answer it. His brain and heart weren’t wired to think in dollar figures. So an investment banker friend asked him a better question: what if the number wasn’t a dollar, what if the number was a date? Saud picked August 1, 2018, wrote his three non-negotiables on a piece of paper, put it in his wallet, and spent the next three years getting PolicyMedical ready. Audited statements. Real monthly board meetings. OKRs. Rebuilding the product on AWS. Migrating every customer to a subscription model so the recurring revenue actually showed up in the valuation. And the harder shift no one prepares you for: crossing the bridge from entrepreneur to CEO. In Part 2, Saud and I get into how he pulled the company out of complacency by visiting 200 customers with a Moleskine, how he turned clients into fans, why he separated his ownership exit from his role exit, and how those three non-negotiables on a wallet-sized piece of paper got him a 30-day, all-cash exit with his Brazilian engineering team kept intact.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- Pick a date for your exit, not a dollar figure. The date forces every other decision around it.
- Write your three non-negotiables on paper and carry it. Pull it out when the deal room tells you “that’s not how it’s done.”
- Your role exit and your equity exit are two different transactions on two different timelines. Don’t bundle them.
- Customer complacency kills your product faster than any competitor does. Visit 200 customers if that’s what it takes.
- The shift from entrepreneur to CEO is real: free-wheel and gut-feel versus measured, data-driven, and tested.
- Your clients aren’t fans yet. Build the daily discipline that turns them into advocates who sell for you.
- Recurring revenue beats one-time sales when the multiple gets applied. Migrate your pricing model before you go to market.
- Find two mentors: one industry-specific, one operating two levels above you. They get asked far less than you think.
- Your spouse sees your blind spots before any high-priced consultant does. Listen to her years earlier than I did.
- Build content your customers want to co-create. Their voice on your stage is worth more than yours.
Sound Bites
“I would say I was ready, if I’m honest, I was ready to sell the company about three years before I actually did.” (@TBD) — Saud Juman
“What if the number wasn’t a dollar figure? What if the number was a date?” (@TBD) — Saud Juman
“We had clients, we didn’t have fans.” (@TBD) — Saud Juman
“I’m just a kid from Scarborough. I know you’re telling me this is not the norm. This is never done in the industry. But I’m not doing a deal unless I get these three things.” (@TBD) — Saud Juman
“You can exit your role, which is your management, all the duties that you have separately and in different timelines than your ownership and your equity. They’re completely different. Most people always bucket them into one, but you can do them differently.” (@TBD) — Ryan Tansom
About This Episode
Saud Juman is the founder and former CEO of PolicyMedical, a healthcare software company he scaled to serve over 3,000 healthcare organizations across North America before selling to private equity. After a 10-month stretch of solitude reset his sense of purpose around health and impact, Saud spent 15 years building PolicyMedical from his mom’s basement in Scarborough into a multinational SaaS business. This is Part 2 of the conversation. Part 1 covered his “why” and the personal arc that led to the business. This episode is the operating, value-building, and exit playbook that came after.
Resources Mentioned
- Saud Juman — Saud’s site, where he writes and mentors tech founders. — saudjuman.io
- Saud Juman on LinkedIn — Connect with Saud directly.
- Jobs To Be Done — Clayton Christensen — Referenced for how Saud intuitively listened to customers to define the product.
- Bob Moesta — Referenced for Jobs To Be Done; prior guest on the show.
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill — Referenced for the affirmation discipline Saud used to find mentors.
- Arcona Intentional Growth Course — The course Ryan and Pat Hobby built on growing value with an end in mind. — arcona.io
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 9 — Operator Transition — Saud’s three-year ramp from operator to seller is exactly the arc this module sits on.
- Module 5 — Predictable Revenue — Subscription migration and content engine as the revenue architecture that lifted the multiple.
Milestones:
- Milestone 25 — Operator Transition Plan — Plan A (sell) and Plan B (hire a CEO, move to chair) as parallel transition paths.
- Milestone 26 — Recruit Successor — The CEO replacement path Saud held as his fallback.
- Milestone 5 — Market Value — Why Saud focused on revenue multiple and avoided professional services revenue.
- Milestone 15 — Revenue Systems & Forecasting — The “daily five” customer touch system and content flywheel that turned clients into advocates.
Concepts referenced:
- Independence by Design™ — The whole arc of owning your exit on your terms.
- The One Thing — Saud’s singular focus on health as the filter for every product and customer decision.
- Owner’s Roadmap™ — Picking a date, writing the non-negotiables, reverse-engineering the next three years.
- Value Growth Plan™ — The audited statements, OKRs, board cadence, and product rebuild he sequenced before going to market.
- The Multiple & WACC — Why recurring revenue commanded a different multiple than the old perpetual license model.