Hosted by Simon Bedard, founder and CEO of Exit Advisory Group and author of Exit Like an Expert. Buy Grow Sell EP101. Published July 2026.
Jason Howard's exit is a clear example of selling a business to a strategic buyer. He spent about 30 years building StudyLink, never set out to sell it, then closed with NASDAQ-listed Flywire, a buyer he already worked with, in roughly six weeks. He built a genuinely good business and made himself operationally redundant, which created the options when the right buyer appeared, and he is candid about the personal toll that followed.
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About this episode
This is Jason's first-hand account. He founded StudyLink at university and ran it across three business models: a CD-ROM directory for international students, an internet advertising directory, and finally a B2B SaaS platform that handled university admissions and reached 75 to 80% of the Australian market. He never built towards an exit. His view is that building a genuinely good business, then a great one, is what creates the options when an opportunity arrives. Navitas invested in 2006. Flywire, a NASDAQ-listed payments company that had worked with StudyLink before, acquired the business in late 2023. Navitas, StudyLink's majority investor, publicly announced the sale at approximately A$60 million (about US$39 million).
What you will learn
Chapters
Frequently asked questions
Do you need an exit plan to sell your business well?
Not strictly, but planning gives you clarity and peace of mind, like a compass for when the moment comes. A good exit plan helps you know your number, reduce how much the business depends on you, and judge an offer calmly. Jason built StudyLink for about 30 years without a formal plan and still reached a strong outcome, largely because he made himself operationally redundant. He has since said he wishes he had drawn on Exit Like an Expert earlier, particularly to prepare for the life and role after the sale, the part he had not planned for. Much of that value comes from preparing the business, and yourself, well before any sale.
What does it mean to make yourself operationally redundant?
It means building a business that runs well without you in the day to day. For an owner, that lifts both your lifestyle now and your value at sale, because a buyer is paying for a business that works with or without you in the room. Jason did this deliberately in his final years at StudyLink. He is candid about the trade-off too: once the business clearly did not need him, his role after the sale ended sooner than he expected.
What is a strategic buyer?
A strategic buyer acquires your business for what it adds to their own plans, such as a new market, a customer base, technology or a capability, which often means they value it more highly than a purely financial buyer would. StudyLink's acquirer was a NASDAQ-listed payments company that had worked with the business and saw how the two fitted together. Finding and preparing for that buyer early is one of the most valuable parts of getting ready to sell.
How long does it take to sell a business?
It varies widely, and six weeks is rare. Jason's sale closed about six weeks from the first call, driven by the buyer's own reporting deadline. A typical sale runs over many months across preparation, marketing, due diligence and completion. The work you do early, reducing owner dependency and knowing your number, is what lets a process move quickly and calmly when a real buyer appears. Treat six weeks as the exception, not the expectation.
What is an earn-out?
An earn-out is part of the price paid after completion, usually tied to the business hitting agreed targets over a set period. Jason's ran two years, and he reached about 15 months before a restructure. An earn-out can bridge a gap on price, and it also carries real personal and financial considerations, including the timing of tax. Understanding the structure before you sign is part of getting good advice on the deal, not just the headline number.
What happens after you sell your business?
Two things happen at once. Practically, you often stay on through a handover or earn-out period, then your day-to-day role winds down and you step away from the business. The personal side is harder, and it is easy to underestimate. Jason is honest about the toll after StudyLink, the loss of role and the value he had quietly attached to his work, and how he had not planned for it. Building a life after the sale, what you will do and who you will be, deserves as much thought as the deal itself.
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srhbedard/
Website: https://buygrowsell.com/
Website: https://exitadvisory.com.au/
About the Show
Buy Grow Sell is hosted by Simon Bedard, founder and CEO of Exit Advisory Group, a boutique M&A advisory firm that helps Australian business owners prepare for and navigate a sale. These conversations draw on real deals and the patterns behind them.
