In this episode of Getting to the Deal, host Krystyn Harrison sits down with Peter Hwang, a serial founder who has built and exited four companies across five industries, including the $263 million sale of Newstrike to Hexo and the private equity exit of Global Faces—two deals that closed within just 12 months of each other. But Peter's most defining moment wasn't an exit at all—it was the 2008 collapse of a company with 15,000 customers, a $15 million run rate, and a signed term sheet to go public that vanished overnight when the housing market crashed, leaving the business $3 million in debt and personally with a double-mortgaged house and his wife six months pregnant. Peter shares how growing up in a first-generation immigrant family where his parents worked 365 days a year in retail shaped his relentless work ethic, but also reveals why being "the hardest working person in the room" made him "the dumbest person in terms of execution" early in his career—a realization that forced him to shift from building lifestyle businesses through sheer effort to building for optionality and scale. He walks through his framework of always building companies to exit rather than scale forever, explaining why optionality means creating something someone will want to buy, and how he rebuilt after bankruptcy by focusing on strategic partnerships and surrounding himself with people smarter than him. Peter opens up about the arrival fallacy—the shocking emptiness he felt after achieving the success he'd chased for decades, checking his phone at 2 AM only to realize nobody needed him anymore, and how his wife asked if he could ever just turn off his brain. He shares the hard-won lesson that founders must let go of the illusion of control, stop holding on too tight, and accept that things won't go perfectly because the reality is they just won't—a mindset shift that's "crazy important for founders" who are constantly stressed and second-guessing themselves. Peter reveals how having a co-founder 20 years younger with the "calm and patience and maturity" to settle his anxious founder brain has been transformational, emphasizing that your success is only as good as the partners who can help you see things differently when you're convincing yourself of things on the ledge. If you're a founder who's grinding harder than everyone else but not seeing the scale you want, or if you've already exited and felt unexpectedly empty afterward, this conversation will challenge how you think about control, partnership, and what success actually feels like when you finally reach it.

Show Notes:

00:00 The Journey Begins: Peter Wang's Early Life

02:44 Lessons from Hard Work: The Immigrant Experience

06:06 The Scarcity Mindset: Shaping Entrepreneurial Spirit

08:51 The Hustle: Early Sales Training and Identity

12:03 Resilience and Hard Work: Keys to Success

17:53 The Collapse: 2008 Financial Crisis and Its Impact

26:21 Resilience in Adversity

31:40 Learning from Failure

34:43 The Quiet Phase: Consulting and Reflection

38:11 Market Timing and Business Growth

43:36 Keys to Successful Exits

46:07 Building for Optionality

57:33 Advice for Founders in Challenging Markets

01:07:30 The Three-Year Gestation Period

–

This episode is brought to you by Exit Horizon. Our mission is to help strategic founders build systematically toward fulfilling exits using proven methodology from entrepreneurs and advisors who've actually navigated successful deals. We compress the learning curve so you can build with the end in mind from day one, not piece together exit strategies when it's too late. Apply now to join our next cohort or book a quick call to learn more about what might be the right place to start for your business. Visit exithorizon.com.