For companies in technology and other fields that have managed to grow a considerable amount of value, an exit is often considered an ideal resolution. Once the company is acquired, or founders sell their stake and put leadership into new hands, most outsiders see that as the end.
But is that where the story ends? Not at all, at least not for several Upstate founders.
The impact of founders and the organizations they’ve built can continue to reverberate through and shape the community. Besides, most founders are constitutionally unable to take their winnings and just relax. So they eventually start looking for new ways to make an impact, which may start with the need to first look back.
Spinoffs and legacies
Michael Elliott and Scott Millwood co-founded two software companies, Customer Effective and Yesflow, which were acquired by Hitachi Solutions in 2014 and 2022, respectively. The buyers at Hitachi were probably well aware that they were buying into the legacy of the so-called “Datastream mafia,” the collective nickname for the group of founders and leaders with ties to Datastream Systems, which sold to Infor in 2006. Serving on the leadership team during that critical time inspired Millwood and Elliott to start their own company immediately afterward.
“We exited (Datastream) in 2003 — public company, mad rush of IPO, secondary acquisitions, exit to Infor — and that was, for me, a cutting of the teeth. Learning the way,” Millwood said.
Another illustrative legacy is the direct line from the Iron Yard coding school in downtown Greenville, which closed after partially selling to Apollo in 2015, to organizations and startups functioning a decade later. Co-founder Peter Barth said he used the model built in that national coding school to help develop additional derivative code schools, including one that evolved into the nonprofit Build Carolina. Now, Build Carolina graduates include the likes of Purple Wren Digital founder Caleb McQuaid, who has employed other Build Carolina alumni.
Immeasurable and intangible
Still, some of the most significant impacts can’t be measured. For example, Frank Mobley could not have known when founding Immedion in 2007 — acquired by DartPoints in 2021 — that those efforts spurred literal groundbreaking that would enable data centers to move from an unfamiliar business to an economic development darling for South Carolina.
“Our pleading was with the utility companies and phone companies to get fiber into our data centers and to put out the capital necessary to build out the underlying infrastructure,” Mobley said. Data centers didn’t have much economic validation back then. We were a startup, so they hemmed and hawed … but we were able to get it to get it done.”
What’s more typical is how Mobley now mines his experience as a mentor and board member of founder-fostering organizations including the South Carolina Research Authority and Greenville-based NextGEN. Many entrepreneurs transition from being hands-on founders/CEOs to being primarily focused on supporting and growing the next generation of businesses and leaders.
In fact, you could make a fun bingo card out of the answers exited founders give to this question: What are you able to see with crystal clarity in other businesses as a result of growing your own? The answers are refreshingly different. One can instantly spot an inadequate sales program. Another can tell you why you’re recruiting the wrong people.
Atlas Organics co-founder Joseph McMillin has focused his mentoring activity with the Spartanburg Founders Network since selling the company to Generate Capital in 2022. Like Mobely, he can see how his company impacted a larger industry.
“I think the biggest thing that we accomplished at Atlas is we took a relatively stable (waste management) industry and created some disruption in it. … In a matter of eight years, we were probably one of the largest organics recycling companies in the nation, and we were definitely the most innovative,” McMillin said.
Repeat contenders
Many founders can’t quite quit the game after the first or second round. Their new ventures might look like the previous one, but they are just as likely to move into new territory.
Since the Hitachi buyouts, Millwood’s most recent venture is in a new arena. This time he’s created Deal Strategies and the Founderville Fund with follow serial entrepreneur Shaler Houser, who co-founded and sold multiple tech companies including Nuvox (2002), Green Cloud Technologies (2017) and youturn (2002).
Similarly, McMillin and co-founder Gary Nihart launched Ataraxia, a holding company, almost immediately upon exiting Altas Organics. It is focused on acquisition, but McMillin said the company’s name reflects a core emphasis on work-life balance and prioritizing founders’ mental and physical health — something they failed to create for themselves while growing Atlas.
Netalytics founder Mark Essex focused even more directly on community well-being after selling his company to Netsmart Technologies in 2023. He created the philanthropic Indigo Hope Foundation the following year to fund nonprofits focused on issues including addiction and homelessness. That said, he can’t help but see ways to bring his tech business-building expertise to this endeavor, too.
“I think there’s a huge amount of opportunity for nonprofits both in productivity and potentially in other areas with AI that can help them,” Essex said. “So I’ve been talking to a couple, giving them some ideas of what they could do,” while he considers building a formal, pro bono way to help them execute.
The pause
The one thing all founders eventually do after exit, whether immediately or sometime later, is pause to take stock of the experience. Nearly all of them look back and see — alongside the success — an era of intense physical, mental or personal challenges. Often, it’s all of the above. No matter how played out, they are fundamentally changed as individuals.
As a result, another increasingly important part of what happens after exits is connecting with each other in peer groups. John Moore, co-founder of Next Upstate — later renamed NextGEN — has recently begun convening groups in Greenville and Spartanburg to help such founders navigate issues including new wealth and lifestyle changes, identity questions and visions for the future. He noted it’s still a relatively rare experience in the Upstate.
“Every one of them are different human beings,” Moore said. “There’s never been one like them on earth, and their business is unique. It’s such a superpower, the entrepreneurs who can balance being confident and visionary but also self-aware, which is really what we’re talking about.”
