Andrew GazdeckiSerial Entrepreneur Driving Startup Acquisitions

This One Mistake Can Break Any Deal In a Startup Exit

11 Jan 2026 · 0 min

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0:29

Short advisory clip by Andrew Gazdecki about a common deal-killing mistake in startup exits: failing to provide clear historical financials. The speaker advises sharing Profit & Loss statements covering 36 months (or longer) to demonstrate trends, anticipate buyer questions about growth or dips, and surface/address issues early to avoid surprises that can derail deals.

How do I show my financials? It's going to be very important to show that you have historical financials. So if you have a P and l called the 36 months, the longer the better. And it can show just any trends of the business. And that's what buyers want to see. It's not problems that kill deals with surprises. If you can show historical data, they're going to ask, okay, what happened? Why was there growth during this time? Or why was there a dip in growth during this time? That's going to be something upfront that you want to address early because again, the more problems that you address up front, the better.