Building a Sellable Company

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever read about selling your company:

Run your company like you’re going to own it forever. Otherwise, you might just have to.

Ironically, the best time to sell your company is when you weren’t planning on it and don’t need to.

Companies are bought, not sold. So that means not focusing on selling you company, and building a large, self-sustaining business is also the best way of selling your company.

However, there are some tactical things you can do to make a sale more likely:

• The quality of your investors greatly affects the likelihood of your company being sold. Strong VC’s have a lot of cards in their deck to turn an OK outcome into a decent outcome.
• Have good relationships with some of the strategic companies in your space without investing a ton of time. It helps a lot to do a deal when the acquirer has known you for years.
• Clean books! Once you get to a few million in revenue, you ideally want to have audited financials to make a sale likely.

The M&A Process

Navigating the process of selling your company can be a minefield — here are a few tips to make it easier:

1. You maximize the price of your acquisition by not wanting to sell - at all.