{"id":45901,"date":"2023-10-20T15:47:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/its-always-tough-founder-matt-barrie-breaks-vow-and-sells-freelancer-shares-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:47:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:47:07","slug":"its-always-tough-founder-matt-barrie-breaks-vow-and-sells-freelancer-shares-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/its-always-tough-founder-matt-barrie-breaks-vow-and-sells-freelancer-shares-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s always tough\u201d: Founder Matt Barrie breaks vow and sells Freelancer shares – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

After refusing to sell a single share in Freelancer\u2019s IPO Matt Barrie has finally sold some of his prized equity in the company he founded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The online freelance marketplace yesterday announced the completion of a $45 million placement and secondary sale of ordinary shares.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This included the sale of 4% of Barrie\u2019s own shares in his company and 10% of the shares of Freelancer\u2019s original venture capital investor, Simon Clausen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The shares were issued at $1.40 and hit $1.51 in trading yesterday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie told SmartCompany<\/em> this morning he has been conscious of the need for more liquidity in Freelancer since the initial public offering in November 2013.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He says the IPO was \u201cvery tight\u201d with only 7.5% of Freelancer\u2019s shares listed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last couple of years, the universal feedback from investors is they want to buy $10 million or $20 million worth of stock but there was no stock to buy,\u201d Barrie says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bankers have been begging us for some time to release some shares.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie says Clausen is \u201cvery bullish\u201d in Freelancer but did eventually agree to sell some shares.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the demand came in we were three times over subscribed so I threw in a few as well,\u201d Barrie says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been very well received by the market,\u201d Barrie says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Proceeds of the capital raised will be invested back into the business to take advantage of near term growth opportunities including potential bolt\u00adon acquisitions and acceleration of organic growth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie retains 42% of the issued capital in Freelancer with Clausen holding 34%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, Barrie says as an entrepreneur it\u2019s hard giving up equity in your own business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always tough,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The share sale represents a change in tack from Barrie, who at the time of IPO promised \u201cI\u2019m not selling a single share\u201d because  \u201cI love this company\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie says a lot of first-time entrepreneurs make mistakes about equity when they start their business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes early in in terms of how they think about equity,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGet it right at the beginning in terms of allocation and how you structure it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie says entrepreneurs can look online for advice on structuring the equity in their businesses with the internet having \u201ca huge amount of information\u201d on the topic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He also recommends seeking out mentors who have been there and done that who you can go and have a chat to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrie says it\u2019s shaping up to be a \u201cpretty busy year\u201d for Freelancer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe business is accelerating and we\u2019ve got a lot of great product shipping,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe three focuses for the rest of the year is mobile, mobile, mobile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After refusing to sell a single share in Freelancer\u2019s IPO Matt Barrie has finally sold some of his prized equity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}