Finance: Exit strategy
Showing 22 articles for Finance: Exit strategy.
Buying businesses as a faster path to wealth than building from scratch
Bill Gallagher
May 1, 2024
Exit strategy
9
Business models
7
Fundraising & VC
5
- $200k down on a $2M business can return $600k/year
- Flip businesses every five to seven years to compound wealth
- 50% of businesses listed for sale never find a buyer
Planning your business transition before you need to
Bill Gallagher
April 17, 2024
Exit strategy
9
Management
6
Identity & self-belief
5
- Owners who wait until forced have far fewer options and worse outcomes.
- Start with why, who, what, when — leave deal terms for last.
- A big liquidity event won't replace purpose; design what comes next.
Bootstrapping, selling, and acquiring SaaS: lessons from John Hainstock
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 1, 2023
Bootstrapping
9
Business models
8
Exit strategy
7
- Why founders lose their identity — not just income — after selling
- Selling before you're forced to beats grinding through the growth inflection
- Buying a $10k–$50k SaaS beats building for learning speed and bounded risk
How to sell your business for maximum value
Bill Gallagher
October 13, 2021
Exit strategy
10
Long-term planning
7
Processes & SOPs
6
- 80% of businesses never sell — most owners build a job, not an asset
- Strategists pay the highest multiples — buying synergies, not just revenue
- Proprietary assets (patents, contracts, databases) are the highest value driver
How to sell your business for maximum value
Bill Gallagher
January 20, 2021
Exit strategy
10
Pitching investors
7
Management
5
- Run a structured auction — multiple bidders are the single biggest price lever.
- Know your freedom point number before engaging any buyer.
- Proprietary single-buyer deals invite retrading and indefinite delay.
The Art of Selling Your Business: Negotiation Strategies for Founders
Startups For the Rest of Us
January 19, 2021
Exit strategy
9
Closing techniques
7
Fundraising & VC
5
- Hire an M&A broker to run a competitive bidding process—multiple offers create massive leverage.
- Retrading happens post-LOI when buyers manufacture reasons to lower offers; understand structural pitfalls.
- Most acquirers are 5–20x your company size; they're more likely than Google.
How Adobe's head of corp dev thinks about M&A: process, culture, and integration
Acquired
August 22, 2016
Exit strategy
9
Business models
6
Culture building
5
- Adobe walked away from $1B+ deals over culture fit alone
- 80% of acquisitions start as low-key relationship introductions, not sale processes
- Post-close integration sits inside the deal team — by design