January 13, 2025
In 2022, I sold BestSelf Co. to a private equity firm.
Fourteen months later, I bought it back for pennies on the dollar—a surprising plot twist in my entrepreneurial journey.
Here’s the full story.
The Sale (2022)
I had just had a baby, and like many founder-moms, I was trying to do it all – I even found myself filming PayPal commercials just 5 days after an emergency C-section because that’s what running a business looks like sometimes.
When potential buyers started approaching, I wasn’t actively looking to sell, but the thought of taking a break and having some time with my new baby was incredibly appealing.
Through a random connection in a Slack group (isn’t it funny how the biggest deals often come from the most casual places?), I found myself in talks with a PE firm that seemed to get our vision.
At the time, BestSelf was doing $45M in sales, with about 60% coming from direct-to-consumer channels and 40% from Amazon, plus we had a solid team running day-to-day operations.
What The PE Firm Did
They actually made some smart moves at first – they closed down our money-losing UK warehouse (something I’d been avoiding), implemented better tracking systems, and trimmed the team, which was painful but necessary given where the market was heading.
But then things started going in a direction that made me cringe: they shifted 75% of our sales to Amazon, replaced our internal team with agencies, let counterfeit products run wild on our listings, and missed crucial inventory ordering windows that impacted our biggest sales seasons.
The Buyback (2024)
When the PE firm called me in December 2023, I wasn’t expecting them to tell me they were shutting down and asking if I wanted to buy BestSelf back.
My first thought was honestly “hell no” – I mean, who wants to go backwards, right? But then I started thinking about how this could actually be an opportunity to rebuild things the way I always wished I had.
The Deal
The negotiation was fascinating because I had all the leverage – they needed to close fast, the team was already gone, Q4 numbers were tanking, and nobody wanted to deal with the transition process.
I came in with a lowball offer, they countered, and I barely budged because I knew they needed this done more than I needed to buy it back.
Building It Better
This time around, I’m doing things differently – running super lean, using AI to handle tasks that used to require multiple people, adding QR codes to products so we can build direct relationships with customers even through Amazon sales, and actually fighting back against counterfeiters systematically.
The biggest difference? I’m not building myself into a prison of overhead and payroll this time around. When you have a huge team depending on you for their livelihoods, it becomes really hard to pivot or make necessary changes.
What’s Next (2025)
I’m taking an interesting approach this time – building the company to be sellable while also making it enjoyable to run.
This gives me the perfect position: I can walk away from any offer that isn’t absolutely perfect because I’m actually having fun running things.
You know what the best part about buying your company back is?
You already know exactly what not to do – and this time around, I’m excited to do things differently.