5 Things Founders Often Misunderstand about Exiting Their Business

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Some bootstrapped entrepreneurs are fortunate enough to exit their businesses for life-changing money, but that’s not always the case. Today Dan talks to Einar Vollset, about the key mistakes founders often make when exiting their business.

Einar is the Founder and Managing Partner of Discretion Capital, a Partner at TinySeed, and YCombinator alumni. In his experience, he says that many bootstrapped and startup founders alike often have blindspots that prevent them from having the best exit possible.

“In some cases, bootstrappers end up with basically a stagnating business and one of the main mistakes you can do in terms of m&a is to wait and just let your business stagnate because it really hurts the value of the asset that you have.”

Stick around til the end when Einar shares the 5 things founders often get wrong when exiting their business.

LISTEN AND LEARN:

  • 0:13:46 Why you should focus on growth if you someday want to exit

  • 0:23:41 Investment valuations and exit valuations are not the same thing!

  • 0:25:06 An inbound offer is never the best offer

  • 0:28:15 Having a super lean team is bad

  • 0:30:39 You should sell when there’s still some juice left to squeeze

  • 0:35:29 You might get wealthier selling for a lower multiple

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Mentioned in the episode:

Before the Exit – Our New Book
Partner With Us
The Dynamite Circle
Dynamite Jobs
Post a Remote Job
Tropical MBA on YouTube
Dynamite Jobs – Remote Recruiting Sales Page. Discretion Capital TinySeed MicroConf
YCombinator

Enjoyed this podcast? Check out these:

TMBA 696: The Current Landscape for Bootstrapped Businesses with Rob Walling
TMBA 665: Reaching a $4M Run Rate in Less Than a Year
TMBA 648: What Can Entrepreneurs Learn From PE Businesses, and Vice Versa?

This week’s sponsors:

Don’t Get Held Up While You’re Trying to Scale Up. Experience the ease of remote hiring with dedicated experts by your side. Book a call at https://www.remotefirstrecruiting.com/

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Thanks for listening to our show! We’ll be back next Thursday morning 8AM EST.

Cheers,

Dan & Ian

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Deceptively simple ways to have a better business

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6 things we’ve learnt about having good (and bad) business ideas