Browsing Tag
sell your business
24 posts
How Venture Capitalist Diane Yoo Chooses Her Startup Investments
With so many entrepreneurs and startup ventures seeking investment opportunities, it’s crucial that venture capitalists (VCs) create a list of criteria they want their potential investments to meet. Of course, every VC dreams of investing in a business that can grow into a billion-dollar unicorn company, but these instances are few and far between. As...
Scaling Your Bootstrapped Business: 3 Tips for Lean Entrepreneurs
Like most entrepreneurs, you have likely spent hundreds of hours developing skills to build your business. By the time you start turning a profit, you’re likely to spend thousands of hours and dollars trying out different business models and seeing what works for you. Many entrepreneurs who start turning a profit think that the hardest...
This Angel Investor Shares Why You Need an Exit Strategy from the Start
For founders and entrepreneurs building up their business, the initial startup stage typically focuses on the product, technology or service offering. You’re energized by your idea and engrossed in building the best business concepts possible. While all of this is vital to your business and essential to the success of your company, it’s also critical...
Setting These 3 Types of Goals is Essential to Your Startup’s Success
The following is excerpted from "Exit Rich: The 6 P Method to Sell Your Business for Huge Profit" (January 26, 2021; Fast Company Press) provided with permission by authors, Michelle Seiler-Tucker and Sharon Lechter. Let’s face it: Rarely does someone go into business with the end game in mind. Think back to when you started or bought your...
StartupNation Radio with Home Improvement Industry Guru Brian Elias
This episode of StartupNation Radio is brought to you by Pappas Financial and Dell Technologies Today, Jeff hosts StartupNation Radio with frequent co-host, Norm Pappas, president and CEO of Pappas Financial. Together, they interview entrepreneur, speaker and consultant, Brian Elias, who shares his success story, including how he successfully built and sold a company. First,...
6 Tips for E-Commerce Entrepreneurs Who (Eventually) Want to Cash Out
Almost three years after starting my journey into e-commerce, I was sitting at my kitchen table with two accountants from a larger retailer who were acquiring my business. They were scanning my inventory to audit my records, going over bank statements, sales data, inventory reports and more. A few weeks later, we finalized the deal....
An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Selling Your Company
After 10 years of running my company, Mtell, we sold it to a publicly traded company for $37 million. It started in 2006: we bootstrapped our way to profitability by offering consulting services until we found a product-market fit. Because we were already generating revenue, that meant we got to fundraise on our own terms....
How to Value an Online Startup: Tips for Buying or Selling a Business
Of all the potential outcomes for an entrepreneur seeking to exit his or her online business, a profitable sale is undoubtedly one of the most favorable. In order to achieve a successful sale, it is necessary to first understand how to value an online business’ worth and to set an appropriate asking price. But how...
Why It’s Key to Have an Exit Strategy Before Starting a Business
Some authors swear that writing the ending of a book first is imperative to the plot. Knowing where you want to end up can be invaluable, as it helps you plan out the beginning and middle of your story. If starting a business is part of your life story, it can be helpful to think...
What’s Your Website Worth and Where Can You Sell It?
As an internet entrepreneur, situations arise where you may need to sell your website and want to ensure you’re going to get the highest price possible. Before you list your website for sale, you’re going to want to understand what your website is worth, how to increase its value and how to make your website...
Tackling What’s Next: Are You Ready to Exit Your Business?
Exit strategy. A noun that could become a verb and conjures up both excitement and paralysis for entrepreneurs. Developing potential exit strategies can generate swells of pride if your business has achievements that allow you to craft a desirable list: impact, scale, leadership, growth, profitability, stability and value. The exercise also produces fear that you may never be able...
My Startup Isn’t Growing, What Should I Do?
The recipe for small business growth is an imprecise one. Mix one advertising campaign and two new salespeople and let rise? Or is it one social media marketing campaign and three new customer service reps? It’s tough to decipher and is based on your startup’s unique structure. If you’re thinking, “My business isn’t growing, what...
Value Builder Score: A Blood Pressure Test for Your Business
When was the last time you had your blood pressure tested? Taking your blood pressure is one of the first things most doctors do before treating you for just about anything. How much pressure your blood is under as it courses through your veins is a reliable indicator of your overall health; and it can...
Competition: Its Power in Business and When to Fold
On June 1, 2011, both Floyd’s Coffee Shops in Portland, Oregon were busier than usual. The regulars were elbowed out of the way by new customers visiting the store for the first time to redeem their coupon and get $10 worth of coffee for $3. This tempting offer was made because Floyd’s had been picked...
4 Traps To Avoid When Selling Your Company
Business owners have been known to refer to due diligence as "the entrepreneur's proctology exam." It's a crude analogy, but a good representation of what it feels like when a stranger pokes, prods and looks inside every inch of your business. Most professional acquirers will have a checklist of questions they need answered if they’re considering...
8 Ways to Know if You Have a Job or Own a Business
The ultimate test of your business can be found in a simple question: would someone want to buy your company? Whether you want to sell next year or a decade from now, you must be building an asset someone would buy – otherwise, you have a job, you do not own a business. Here are eight ways...
The Hidden Goal of the Smartest Business Owners
What are your business goals for the year? If you’re like most business owners, you have a profit goal you want to hit. You may also have a top line revenue number that’s important to you. While those goals are important, there is another objective that may have an even bigger payoff: building a sellable...
What You Need to Know to Close Your Business
You’ve invested a lot of effort, time, and money to start your small business and keep it running. So it’s understandably difficult to make the decision to close your business. But there are any number of valid reasons for making that tough call: You’ve failed to meet revenue projections for several years in a row...
Business Valuation: What is Your Business Worth?
Your business is likely your largest asset, so it's normal to want to know what it is worth. The problem is: business valuation is what one might call a "subjective science." The science part is what people go to school to learn: you can get an MBA or a degree in finance, or you can...
Exit Strategy: To Sell or not to Sell? A Guide to Exiting Gracefully
What's Your Exit Strategy? If you’re a startup founder, your business is your baby. You spend years investing in it, nurturing it, carefully selecting its caretakers, and working endlessly to make sure it thrives. But, at some point it grows up and needs independence in order to get to the next level. Of course, the...