Most founders spend years building their business. Very few spend time making it sellable.
A practical guide for founders planning an exit in the next 2–3 years. What buyers actually look at, what erodes value, and what to fix now, before buyers are involved.
Covers people readiness, financial readiness, legal and governance, commercial operations and a 7 question self assessment
What buyers are really buying, and where most founders get it wrong
Most M&A advisers won’t lead with this. Buyers aren’t buying your last three years of profit. They’re buying their confidence in the next three years. That confidence lives in your team, not your accounts.
Where most valuations are made or lost. Buyers want confidence that revenue, delivery and culture will survive a transition, without the founder holding it together.
Clean accounts, normalised earnings, a forecast model that can be defended. The businesses that move through diligence fastest built the reporting muscle long before going to market.
Legal issues rarely increase price. They reduce it, or delay closing. Contracts, IP, shareholder agreements, compliance: all of it needs to be clean before a buyer’s lawyers start asking questions.
A buyer pays more for a business that looks scalable and easy to understand. Documented processes, pipeline discipline, and a team that doesn’t depend on individual heroics.
Buyers are not buying your last three years of profit. They are buying their confidence in the next three years. That confidence lives in your team, not your accounts.
A clear picture of where you are and where to start
Where are you in the sequence?
Build leadership depth, clean up the financial story, fix legal or governance gaps, and reduce founder dependency across every part of the business. This is the highest-leverage window.
Corporate finance, legal, tax. Prepare valuation materials and assemble a buyer-ready information set. Enter the market with a coherent story and fewer surprises in diligence.
NDAs, information memoranda, management meetings, indicative offers, heads of terms, due diligence, legal negotiation and completion. The most management-intensive period of the whole journey.
7 questions to ask yourself now
If you are thinking about selling in the next 2–3 years, test the business as if you were a buyer. Honest answers will tell you exactly where to start.
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