Early Exits Your Golden Opportunity

Early Exits – Your Golden Opportunity – Presented at ORIC in Kelowna June 18, 2009

ORIC the Okanagan Research & Innovation Centre invited me to Kelowna to talk about early exits.

PowerPoint PDF here

Highlights of Early Exits – Your Golden Opportunity – Part 1:

• Entrepreneurs have complex motivations – why are you doing this?
• The truth about investors.
• The big news today is the large number of small exits.
• Most exits are under $20 million.
• Examples of great companies that sold for under $30 million.
• Why this is happening now. How early can you sell your company?

Highlights of Early Exits – Your Golden Opportunity – Part 2:

• Why you might not need investors. Your financing options.
• Bootstrap if you possibly can. New definitions for venture capital.
• Traditional Venture Capital is broken – but don’t worry.
• There is lots of capital available.
• The differences between angels and venture capital funds – it’s about exits.
• Why angel investors and entrepreneurs are better aligned.
• Entrepreneurs should chose angels or traditional VCs, but not both.
• Should your company should be financed by angel investors or VC funds?

Highlights of Early Exits – Your Golden Opportunity – Part 3:

• There is lots of venture capital available today.
• Why entrepreneurs need an exit strategy before they contact the first investors.
• Check the compatibility of the DNA before you add investors to your company.
• What needs to be in your exit strategy?
• The importance of building alignment on the exit strategy.
• Target an exit under $30 million.
• Summary of why early exits are today’s golden opportunity.

Many of these lessons are described in my new book on selling businesses for entrepreneurs and angel investors – www.Early-Exits.com.

If you enjoyed this video, you might also like Don’t Blow the Biggest Deal of Your Life, , or or this series on Maximizing Exit Value.