Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Dan Cohen—neurologist, medical doctor and serial entrepreneur best known for bringing Breathe Right nasal strips to market—believes his latest product will be a big hit for a sleep-deprived world.
He’s launching the Soltec Sleep Management System, a $1249, 13-by-8-inch personal generator that emits low-frequency magnetic pulsation to help people achieve and maintain deep or “delta” sleep. It comes with a wearable device and an app that sends the correct signals rather than merely monitoring the sleeper’s patterns, as a whole slew of other products do.
“I end up equating it to the smartphone market. Why shouldn’t everyone have one?” Cohen muses, showing off his trademark optimism.
It’s been a long time coming. Twenty-four years ago, when he began researching how to improve people’s sleep, he thought, “I’m going to end up going around and around and around before I get it right, and unfortunately that proved to be the case.” But don’t cry for Cohen, who relishes the journey.
“Some people kind of know what they’re here for. I’m one of those people,” said Cohen, who turned 69 in June. “This isn’t my last project.”
Cohen’s tale began in 1992 when Bruce Johnson arrived at his office when CNS was a small medical equipment company. “In walks the guy with a Curad bandage with a piece of plastic glued on top of it,” Cohen recalls. Johnson’s homemade cure for snoring, inspired when he walked under an archway at the Minnesota State Fair.
“I go, ‘I get it!’ I said, ‘it’s brilliant!’ I said, ‘I’ll license it!’” Cohen recalled, but he knew his board wouldn’t agree to such a radical shift into consumer-packaged goods. “You know what the answer would be: NFW.”
So he licensed it anyway without telling the board, for $8.5 million, and then told one buyer he planned to sell $23 million of the strips in the first year. “You’re full of shit,” the buyer said. “I said, probably,” but they sold $60 million worth the first year and, in 2006, sold CNS to GlaxoSmithKline for $566 million.
How did he get the chutzpah? “Must be my days in a pool hall, the Cue & Cushion in north Philly,” he said with a laugh, when he’d skip high school because it was too easy.
Then he turns philosophical, about how he views the world after decades of trial and error, success and failure, a perfect mantra for any entrepreneur.
“If you have something and you know it’s right for the world, the world accommodates you,” he said. “All you have to do is play your part.”
