The End is Near !

When you start a business you should start identifying and targeting companies likely to want to buy you out a year from now.

The reason for considering exit options at this early stage is that if you know which direction you will be taking with regard to your exit strategy, this will help you tailor your business more closely to reach the outcome you want. You should be building your systems, team and products, and getting your business organised from day one to be able to operate without you. You will have many goals but this is your major goal - a business that will eventually run without you. If your business cannot work without you in the medium to long term, you are either building it wrong or are in the wrong business.

There are five basic exit strategies:
• selling to a strategic buyer
• selling to a financial buyer
• going public
To go public you must usually have three years of audited financial accounts, whereas no audits are required for a private sale. If you intend to go public you can offer employees share options, which are worthless if you remain private.
• selling to your employees
• liquidating your assets.

If you do not design this into your business right now - if you make the mistake of building your business around you - you are making a fatal error that has cost those before you millions of dollars.

So, from day one you need to have this firmly in mind and build systems into your business for everything:

• marketing systems,
• sales systems,
• production systems,
• customer service systems,
• telephone answering systems,
• hiring and firing systems,
• induction systems,
• administration systems,
• reporting systems,
• reward and recognition systems,
• systems for handling complaints and so on.

In addition, make sure you are in a business that only makes your products once and leave it to the system to make it over and over again.