Building and Selling Your Business with Mihir Shah

Hello Blink Show

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
In this episode of the Hello Blink Show, Harris and Shawn interview electrical engineer, Mihir Shah. Mihir shares his insights into the success of his latest startup and his acquisition by another firm. Listeners will hear his advice as he shares his experience with selling inspectAR to Cadence Design Systems.

One Powerful Quotation

• 9:16: Mihir - “Fundamentally, your business has to make money…And if you don’t understand that this is going to make money, then don’t even bother going to an investor…Investors inherently are not bad people; there’re not sharks; their job is to buy into companies and in many ways help them get to a successful exit so they can get a return.”

Key Topics

• 1:03: Shawn opens the show by asking Mihir to describe inspectAR and how he envisioned the design to debug hardware.
• 3:43: Shawn inquires with Mihir about the inspiration to form inspectAR as a need for the market.
• 9:16: Harris advocates for Mihir to make the case for capital investment.
• 13:55: Mihir tells the story of what he pitched investors inspectAR as a lens for how all interactions and electronics will be done.
• 19:30: Shawn inquires with Mihir about his acquisition and how that changes the process of growing and building a business if it’s your exit strategy.
• 24:27: Shawn follows up with Mihir about VC funding and how it met the needs of his business.
• 27:49: Mihir explains the how and why of his structured acquisition plan.
• 29:00: Mihir delves into the promenade process and his internal champion at Cadence that made his exit strategy successful.
• 35:09: Mihir shares his background and why his work experience was so invaluable to his professional development.
• 46:49: Shawn wraps up the show and encourages Mihir to impart his final advice to listeners.

List of Resources
Website - InspectAR
Website - Cadence Design Systems
Website - Royal Circuits
Website - Y Combinator
Website - Autodesk
Website - Transistor FM
LinkedIn - Justin Jackson
Website - Paul Graham - Don’t Talk To Corp Dev
Website - Axon
LinkedIn - Luke Larson
Website - LaBarge Weinstein
LinkedIn - Colin Wrynn
LinkedIn - Alicia Grant

Guest Information
An EE who grew up in a PCB Fab. The rest is history! Previously designed hardware at Tesla and Taser. Joined family businesses to help grow and get schooled in how to build an ultra profitable business that scales. Took those teachings to a couple failed startups, and ultimately inspectAR, which I helped co-found and operate as CEO. inspectAR was successfully acquired this month by Cadence Design Systems, just 18 months after being founded.

Twitter
LinkedIn

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Mihir Shah.