About half of founders face an exit they didn't choose, due to illness, divorce, or business decline. Seventy percent of businesses that try to sell fail to get a good outcome. The speaker argues founders should prepare for exit continuously, even when they're not planning to sell.
And I heard this startling statistic the other day that, you know, 50% of entrepreneurs will be confronted with an exit not on their own terms, either through disease, divorce, decline of the business, as your grandfather experienced. Like, some reason will cause them. And if they haven't prepared for it, then they're unlikely to get, you know, an optimal outcome because something like 70% of businesses that try to sell don't. So just imagine how much risk there is, you know, when they haven't done any of that preparation. So what are some of those things that, you know, businesses should be thinking about and doing just as an ongoing? So if they're— even if they're not like, I'm exiting in 5 years and I've already picked out my spot on the golf course, but instead it's, I want to run this for a while and I think that I don't see any of those unforeseen circumstances on the horizon. So I have reason to think I'm going to run it for a while.
How Can You Maximize Your Business Value Before Selling? with Randy Katz Video
