They call him the G. $300 million by 25..
September 5, 2008 by Fadzuli
Got this post from Saiful’s blog..Do read up about it www.asksaiful.com.
$40 Million at 18.
$300 Million at 25.
Name: Gurbaksh Chahal
Race: Indian
Living in the United States.
How he sold his BlueLithium company to Yahoo?
In its April 2008 issue, Entrepreneur caught theimmodest-to-a-fault Gurbaksh Chahal in a self-promoting mood — not hard to do — when it asked him how he sold ad-targeting startup BlueLithium to Yahoo for $300 million. “G” — as Chalal calls himself — responded with a tale from the life of Oprah:
A couple years ago, Oprah went to Montecito, saw a house and fell in love with it. It wasn’t for sale, so she ended up paying above market value for it—several times over the price—because it was something she really, really wanted. That’s an analogy for selling a company. You want to be the house that everybody wants that’s not for sale. I saw the market consolidating. I couldn’t put a “for sale” sign out there, so I had to do it unconventionally. The way I did it was to make sure people realized I wasn’t for sale. It made them realize that they needed me. They heard from different sources in different ways what BlueLithium was. That attracted them to my company rather than me going [to them]
The short version: Play hard to get. If only Chahal took his own advicewhen it came to pitching himself to the media.
Taken from: http://valleywag.com/381962/how-oprah-helped-a-startup-ceo-take-yahoo-for-300-million
[…] Gurbaksh Chahal who wants to be called by the initial G. … this whiz kid achieved his millionaire status at 18 years old when he got a $40 million deal. Then he pursued bigger challenges and he sold his recent venture for $300 million to Yahoo. Inspiring story right. Well I got this video via Fadzuli […]