It is sad that you must sell a start-up, and your team is moving on, but before you sell the start-up here are few things you need to know first.
There is huge (10x+ valuation difference) between you approaching someone and someone approaching you. This is a very time-consuming process and can take six months easily. Ideally, one Co-founder must pursue this full time. If you are looking to sell, the chances are business has stagnated or you have lost interest and want to move on. You will not get premium valuation if these are the reasons. Also, for SaaS start-ups, the industry standard is often 1.5x to 3x. It should be little more if the buyer sees more value, but it will always be something realistic. Having realistic expectations and understanding the market often saves time. As a founder, you will always feel like you deserve premium, considering the risk you took, the time and money you spent and how you lived with minimum salary. But unfortunately, this will not make any difference in what the buyer is willing to pay. I have seen people selling start-ups and businesses at a loss too, as most times, something is better than nothing. You can sell the whole product with all assets at one go but many buyers will ask you to continue working on it or provide minimum support for X months. There may be a few who want to pay X amount up front and the rest after Y months based on performance, and some just want to do partnerships. Make sure you understand the pros and cons for each option.
Make a list of all potential buyers. It is likely you want to contact companies who are in your vertical. It helped that I already had most such people already on my LinkedIn network. Make sure all P/L documents and finances are up to date. It is worth hiring someone who can take care of the legal work as you can save lot of time later in case something goes wrong and most of the time, it is not worth scrimping on the Rs 20,000 -30,000. At least, have someone read the draft if the buyer is the one taking care of legal work. Escrowing money will always be a problem if you are in India and the buyer in a different country. I am little unsure how it works for big transactions but if you are hiring a broker, they should take care of all this. For big transactions, you obviously want to meet the buyer face to face too.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath