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Episode Summary
You sold the company. The wire hit. The lifestyle is locked in. And six months later you’re sitting in your kitchen wondering why the win doesn’t feel like the win. That’s the conversation I wanted to have with Paul Spiegelman, because almost nobody talks about the second act honestly. Paul built Beryl Health to roughly $40M in revenue and 400 employees over 28 years without outside capital, walked away from a private equity deal weeks before closing because he didn’t trust the culture would survive, and then sold to Stericycle in 2012 at a multiple far higher than he expected. After that he founded the Small Giants Community, built it for fifteen years alongside Bo Burlingham, and just handed the torch to Gino Moncrieff so he could pour himself into Kintsugi Village, a Detroit nonprofit transforming a vacant Catholic school into a community hub for early childhood education, art, and culinary work. We got into how he ran a commoditized call-center business at a 25-30% premium price, why his CFO’s “circle of growth” became the operating thesis, the day a banker put him in special assets and he learned what a distribution was at year 19, and the question Rob Dube asked him on stage that I think every owner-operator needs to sit with: why are you still doing this?
Top 10 Takeaways
- If your income disappears the moment you stop working, you don’t own a business. You own a job.
- Run a commoditized business at a premium price by selling who you are, not what you do.
- Culture is a discipline and a process, not a feeling. Institutionalize it like any other process.
- Your CFO might be the one who tells you what a distribution is. Don’t wait until year 19 to find out.
- Build personal wealth outside the company so the roof caving in doesn’t end your life.
- When buyers approach you, take the meeting. Their valuation gaps are the cheapest education you’ll get.
- You ran the business to build something great, not to sell. The exit is a moment, not the mission.
- Walking away from a private equity offer because the culture won’t survive is a real ownership decision.
- After the exit, you need something to do. Not golf. Something that drives you toward impact.
- Your successor will run it differently. Drop the ego or you’ll poison the handoff before it starts.
Sound Bites
“I’m chasing purpose. I’m always chasing purpose.” (@TBD) — Paul Spiegelman
“We’ve got to stop selling what we do and start selling who we are.” (@TBD) — Paul Spiegelman
“We didn’t know what a distribution was. My CFO said, hey Paul, you guys are generating a lot of cash. You can take distributions from the business. I said, what’s a distribution?” (@TBD) — Paul Spiegelman
“If we focus first and foremost on our employees and gain their loyalty with the environment we create for them, that’s going to drive customer loyalty. If our customers are loyal, that’s going to drive profitability. Then we can take that profit and reinvest it back in our people.” (@TBD) — Paul Spiegelman
“We don’t say we’re like-minded. We say we’re like-hearted.” (@TBD) — Paul Spiegelman
About This Episode
Paul Spiegelman is the founder of Beryl Health, which he built with his two brothers starting in 1985 into a 400-employee outsourced healthcare call-center business before selling to Stericycle in 2012. After the sale he served as Stericycle’s Chief Culture Officer for five years. He co-founded the Small Giants Community with Bo Burlingham in 2010 and led it for fifteen years until handing succession to Gino Moncrieff. He’s a multi-book author, longtime speaker on culture and purpose-driven business, and is now building Kintsugi Village, a Detroit-based nonprofit focused on early childhood education, art, and community. Paul is one of the original voices in the purpose-driven business movement and a personal friend, which is why this conversation goes places most exit-story interviews don’t.
Resources Mentioned
- Small Giants Community — The community Paul co-founded with Bo Burlingham. — smallgiants.org
- Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham — The book that started the whole thing for Paul in 2007.
- Finish Big by Bo Burlingham — Bo’s book on exits, including Paul’s story.
- Beryl Health — Paul’s original company, sold to Stericycle in 2012.
- Stericycle — The public-company acquirer where Paul served as Chief Culture Officer post-sale.
- Kintsugi Village — Paul’s current nonprofit project in Detroit.
- Reggio Emilia — The Italian early childhood education curriculum Kintsugi Village is built around.
- Tugboat Institute — Referenced as a fellow purpose-driven business community.
- Conscious Capitalism — Referenced as a parallel movement to Small Giants.
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — Why you’re doing it, what you want the asset to produce, what comes after
- Module 7 — Leadership Team — The succession decision Paul just made with Gino and the Small Giants community
Milestones:
- Milestone 1 — Time & Role Goals — The “what’s next” question Paul has been answering for twelve years post-exit
- Milestone 21 — Leadership Development — The next-gen leader focus that became the Small Giants Leadership Academy
- Milestone 26 — Recruit Successor — Handing the torch to Gino as a live case study in founder succession
Concepts referenced:
- Independence by Design™ — Designing the life and impact you want, not just the exit
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — The trap of conflating the asset with the job
- Distributable Cash — The lesson Paul learned in year 19 when his CFO told him what a distribution was
- Capital Allocator — The owner seat Paul stepped into after the sale, deploying capital into community and culture
- Noble Aim — Purpose as the driver of decisions, not the byproduct