Questions Founders Have About Selling Companies

What do you wish you knew about selling your company? You probably won’t know until it is too late.

The most common feeling that founders share post exit is that they wished they had known more about the ins and outs of selling a company before they entered a process. 

At BoS, we’ve been talking with a lot of founders, both post-exit and those that are considering an exit, to understand what they would like to know about the process of selling a company. We’re going to be running a mastermind group for founders who want to achieve the best possible exit for themselves, their customers and their teams.

Questions Founders Have About Selling Companies

In conversation after conversation, there are some very common questions that founders want to know about selling their business.

Finance

• Valuations – how are valuations driven?
• Is growing revenue the most important thing?
• Understanding how the process of selling a business works.
• What are the pitfalls? What are the risks?
• What happens in Due Diligence and how can I be best prepared?

Strategic Options

• When should I start thinking about an exit strategy?
• What other options are there for liquidity or a change of situation for a founder  – selling, rbf, strategic sale, pe,changing role, bringing in management team…? 
• Valuations at Exit vs Growing Value of Business – how does thinking about selling and the metrics that matter for that build value for the business if you don’t sell?
• How do I choose the right advisors – both corporate and personal?
• What happens if I decide not to sell?

Marketing Your Company

• Positioning for sale – understanding your place in the market landscape, intentionality.
• How do you understand your market?
• How do you get noticed by the right people?
• How do you think about potential acquirers and what they will value in your org?

Selling Your Company

• How do you know if a buyer is serious? 
• What points of leverage should you really care about?
• How should you negotiate the various elements of a sale?
• When and how should you use advisors vs managing the process yourself? 
• How can you come to agreement on what’s in and what’s out with the acquirer?

Founder Specific

• What comes next for me?
• What do other entrepreneurs wish they had known?
• How do I prepare myself for an exit?
• How do I look after my team and my company culture post exit? 
• How will your identity change post exit? Your company has been a huge part of your life.

Other Questions

• What have we missed?
• We would love to know if you have other questions that we are not covering here?

The BoS Exit Mastermind Group

We want to help you think about your exit in enough time that you exit from a position of power and don’t make all the mistakes that founders, particularly first time founders, tend to make.

(Mistake number one, thinking about it too late).

Over a series of private and confidential group discussions with a small group of non-competing entrepreneurs and founders, we’ll dig into the important questions that entrepreneurs have when they are considering selling their company. It is a huge event for you and deserves to be considered carefully. 

The sessions will include conversations with other founders who have exited their businesses and learned a lot along the way, insights from experts in their fields who can explain how you can understand what your business might be worth and what you can do to optimise it at the point where you decide to sell.

The overall intent for the group will be to bring a group of founders together who expect to exit their companies within a 6 month to 3 year time frame. (The earlier you start thinking about exits, the better the outcome). We want to help you exit your business from a position of power.

We want to be absolutely sure that we have the right people in the conversation so if you are interested, let’s understand a little bit about you and what we have in store. No obligation, completely in confidence.

If you think this might be for you, or would like to know more, get in touch.

To find out more, get in touch.