Brian Dean has been called an SEO genius for his search engine optimization courses, so it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise when Semrush, a publicly traded SEO software company, came knocking. What was surprising was that Semrush paid $5 million for Brian’s one-employee company.

This week we’re featuring an interview with John Rood, who built Next Step, a test prep business that helped students prepare for the medical school admissions test (MCAT). John Rood built Next Step to almost $10 million in revenue, with EBITDA margins ranging from 20–40% before selling to New...