Three moments, and none of them give you a second go.
You spend the year running the business. Then a moment arrives that has nothing to do with running it: a new market, an offer, an investor conversation, a partner who wants out. You've had no practice at any of them, because nobody gets practice at them.
Find yourself below. Then read the part underneath it, which is the bit most owners don't get told until it's too late to use.
Grow
You've built something that works, and now it needs to work differently
Bigger scale, a new market, a different ownership model, or an acquisition. All of them get harder the more the business still depends on you.
That dependence is usually the last thing an owner gets to, and the first thing a buyer looks at. It's worth fixing whether or not you ever sell.
What this usually involves
Strategy and business modelling. Market entry and globalisation. Acquisitions and mergers. Franchise models. Employee share schemes. And AI and automation, applied to the work that needs doing and currently isn't, because there has never been anyone spare to do it.
What you might not be thinking about yet
Growth changes your structure whether you plan it or not. A new market usually means a new entity. An acquisition changes who owns what. An employee share scheme changes it permanently and is very hard to unwind. Each of those has a consequence years later, at the point someone is valuing the business, and by then it is a fact rather than a choice.
Raise
You need capital, and you've never had to ask for it like this
The instrument, the structure and the story all have to line up before you go near an investor. An investor is working out whether they believe you as much as whether they believe the numbers.
What this usually involves
Capital strategy. Which instrument fits, and what it costs you in control as well as in money. The financial model behind the ask. The story, built from the business rather than from a template. All of it aimed at being ready for the conversation, so you can have it as one rather than read from a set of slides.
What you might not be thinking about yet
An investor coming in changes your position, not just the company's. What you own afterwards, what you can and can't do without asking, what happens if you want out before they do, and what it does to money you thought was yours. Those terms are decided once, quickly, at the end of a long process, and they last for years.
Exit
You're working out what the next chapter looks like
Usually the biggest deal of an owner's life, and the one they've had least practice at. What a business earns and what a buyer will pay for it are two different numbers, and the gap between them was built years earlier, in decisions that didn't feel like exit decisions at the time.
What this usually involves
Exit strategy and timing. Succession planning. Valuations. Deal management through to close.
How this usually starts
A conversation with no decision attached to it. Someone wants to know whether the idea they keep coming back to is worth doing something about, and what that would involve. That's a good place to start, and nothing to commit to.
Questions owners ask us
What should I do first if I want to sell in three years?
Make the business able to run without you and get the structure right. Those two take the longest and they decide the most. Cleaning up the accounts and preparing an information memorandum matters, but that work takes months, and the two above take years.
How do I give my team a share of the business?
An employee share option scheme, and the design matters more than the decision to do one. How much, whether it is equity or options, what triggers it, what happens if someone leaves, and what it does to your own position and to a future sale. It is difficult to unwind, so it is worth getting right the first time.
What actually changes when an investor comes in?
Your position changes, not just the company's. What you own afterwards, what you can decide without asking, what happens if you want to exit before they do, and what it does to money you thought of as yours. Those terms are agreed once, near the end of a long process, and they last for years.
What's the difference between what my business earns and what someone will pay for it?
Usually a large one, and it is set by how the business is built rather than by last year's profit. How much depends on the owner, how contracted the revenue is, how the group is structured, and where the value has accumulated. That gap widens over years and it cannot be closed in the six months before a sale.