Alexis Sikorsky on Entrepreneurship, Private Equity Exits, and Getting Unstuck at Scale

In this Resilience Unravelled episode, Alexis Sikorsky, a Swiss entrepreneur based in London, recounts building an internet café/ISP in Senegal, fleeing the country with only a suitcase, then returning to Geneva to grow a banking software and internet development business to about $10–11M revenue before the 2008 financial crisis cut 75% of revenue in a day.

After years of survival, he rebuilt to breakeven and sold to private equity on an 11x EBITDA deal with 85% cash and 15% earnout, emphasising that PE deals involve uneven information and founders should do diligence on acquirers by speaking to prior CEOs.

He discusses why most people shouldn’t be entrepreneurs, differentiates “having a job” from owning a company, advises seeking free mentors who’ve done what you’re doing, warns about conflicts with PE-paid advisors and small-company investment banks, explains when to avoid investment unless necessary, and describes his book Cashing Out and his initiative Night Scale to help firms stuck at $5–50M revenue using mission-based, part-time C-level expertise.

00:00 Welcome

00:43 From Geneva to Dakkar

02:03 Building and Losing It All

03:20 Private Equity Exit Playbook

06:24 Chairman Life and Retirement

09:23 Who Should Be Entrepreneur

11:57 Mentors and Real Advice

16:14 Due Diligence on Buyers

21:30 Investment vs Exit Decisions

24:00 Why I Wrote Cashing Out

26:05 Night Scale and Growth Plateaus

27:49 Social Media Reality Check

28:47 Final Thoughts and Goodbye

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