Page 44 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

Entrepreneurs UNDER 30

Branch manager: Upstart
CEO Saperstein is shaking
up a traditional business
with technology.

Family Tree investing in the company, which had around
$30 million in revenue; instead he was trying to
grow it fast and cheap and then take it public.
Jonathan Saperstein began his efforts to When Jonathan proposed a long-term strategic
plan, David ignored it. When Jonathan offered to
professionalize and dominate the nursery industry
buy the company—if his father wouldn’t manage
with a hostile takeover of a grower—from his dad.
it right, he would—David responded with what
Jonathan calls “an outrageous number” and the
BY AMY FELDMAN
declaration that it was not for sale.
Walking away would have been the easy—
n the summer of 2014, Jonathan Saperstein, and, arguably, the smart—move. What rich kid in
then a 27-year-old executive at and minori- his right mind wants to get into a fight with his
ty shareholder in TreeTown USA, a decora- centimillionaire dad over control of a small com-
Itive tree grower, was worried. “We were up pany in a zero-glamour business? In this case,
against the clock because of the cash position,” he though, the rich kid, now an alumnus of Forbes’
says. The company’s founder—his father, David 30 Under 30, turned out to be every bit the auda-
Saperstein, who had vaulted onto The Forbes 400 cious, shrewd and determined entrepreneur his
after he sold his previous company, Metro Net- old man had been. And he decided to stand up JUSTIN CLEMONS FOR FORBES
works, for $900 million—seemed disengaged. to his dad.
David, who was often traveling overseas, wasn’t In October 2014, Jonathan, with the help of

42 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018