Selling fast-growing business for personal reasons. Keen to tell our exec team asap (w' equity) so aligned/we're transparent. Good idea?

I've been a consultant, both independently and through two of the "Big 5" consulting firms, for the majority of my career. I've recently discovered that I have a serious aversion to time-based billing, that's been buried deep down in my subconscious for a while. Because of this discovery, I've been trying hard to break the direct bond between hours worked and income generated. The concept of value-based billing can be very appealing in this regard. The co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, Mike McDerment, wrote a pretty interesting and entertaining eBook on the subject, called Breaking the Time Barrier - http://www.freshbooks.com/breaking-the-time-barrier It's worth a quick read, if for no other reason than to experience a different way of thinking when it comes to billing for services. Here are some of the stumbling blocks I've experienced, when trying to put value-based billing into practice - 1 - Finding the clients who are willing to take the time to hear you out on the approach 2 - Finding the clients who can appreciate the approach, however if you get through #1, #2 seems to be a bit easier, since their minds are already open enough to consider it 3 - Waiting out the time it takes to find and educate the "right" clients, as Mike describes them in the book, when you have bills to pay :) I do feel that value-based billing makes a lot of sense for both the client and the service provider. One thing that value-based billing does well is resolve the paradox between the client's goal of having a project delivered at a reasonable price and the service provider's goal of generating revenue, which, by nature, are somewhat at odds from the outset, since the client usually wants to pay for the fewest # of hours possible (whether they admit that or not, that's another story), while the service provider wants to put the time in it takes to get the job done right.

STOP. DO NOT DO THIS.... I would never want help from someone like you. Don't get me wrong -- you aren't evil (that I know about) but you don't seem have any value that I could pay for. What would you be "consulting" a CEO like me about? How do you expect to make my business better when you don't have a clue about your own business? THAT'S THE TRUTH... Fuck the truth. If you want to get clients then you hustle -- every waking moment. You try an angle and fail and then try a different angle. You can't outsmart your way to bigger results. 2 plus 2 does not equal 4 -- it equals you going bankrupt. If you want to be successful then you need to exert massive amounts of effort to get off the ground. So get your ass out there and start asking everyone you meet: "What is that one big accounting question that's been bothering you for some time now? If I can't help you i'll buy you a cup of coffee" Then just go be a badass...

Your question is very interesting and gives me a feeling you have a real commitment for success because it makes me feel you care for your team. If this question could be fully answered in a couple of lines, you can imagine all managers and executives would lead their teams successfully. The 2 key principles to remember are: 1. Everyone is different: you have to adapt to each individual. It is time consuming but pays off in the long run because everyone has their own learning styles, speed and attitude. Take the time to have 1:1 conversations about them as individuals: likes and dislikes, under what conditions they perform best, how they learn most easily and about their career goals. 2. Create a team spirit. This is the exact opposite of point 1: as much as you recognize everyone as individuals, you have to also build unity and cohesion. There has to be standardized rules of behavior, common values and a shared vision. You have to take time with your team as a whole. This will lead you to create: 1. A personal development plan for each individual in your team, which helps you develop a tailored approach for each person, create reward & recognition systems and monitor people's happiness and performance. This helps you understand your team from a micro-perspective. 2. An organizational development plan for your start-up to give you a more global vision of the talents you need to acquire, retain and grow. This helps you understand your team from a macro-perspective. Team building requires taking time for all the different aspects of bonding: forming, storming, norming, performing, mourning. It's always about balancing two extremes: On one hand you want to take time to work together and alone, to learn & grow, to brainstorm, to create, to plan, to prepare, to research and to measure performance. On the other hand you, you also want to take time away from the office to stop & think, take time to have fun, take time to get to know each other, take time to rest & relax. Do you need any guidance to build individual and organizational development plans that will support growth and team building for your start-up?

There is nothing more harmful to a good idea than other ideas. By that I mean, the inability to decide which idea is worth pursuing over others, causes each idea to suffer when trying to distribute resources in support of more than one concept at a time. Your question presumes that the most important aspect of launching an online business is to have a site built. That's only where the hardest work begins. In order to achieve any traction whatsoever, a daily focus is required to optimize a site's messaging and conversions, optimize customer acquisition tactics, and iterate based on customer feedback. The idea that a single founder can achieve by having to do what is a full day's work for one site multiplied across 3 different sites is fraught with problems. You may wish to check my recent answers as I answered a question earlier this week about how investors perceive multi-product companies and their founders. The bottom-line being the idea that this is going to produce a more attractive outcome to investors is also one that has proven time and again to result in failure. Happy to talk all this through in a call if you'd like to dive deeper.

Hi, Great question to post. I've been in your situation a number of times so understand where you are coming from. Both from startup's i've had through to working on Go To Market strategies in large businesses. The first place i would look to is defining geographically where i wish to cover e.g a local area or national or do i wish to span several countries? Next, look at the new business "birth" rate and "death" rate within that region. This will give you an idea of a high level gross add's and net businesses you could work with assuming you wish to be helping them in their "early life startup phase". Depending on how specific your new product is, you should look to segment further. However I am a big fan of looking at my customers or potential customers based on how they behave and "Buy" - too often we get focused on how to "sell" to new customers but not understand the former. Also, think about this. Are they motivated to participate in your coaching program, or are you looking for people that require motivation to make their business successful, in turn they are looking for coaching? Again this will then help you to further drill down into "who" the clients are and "Why" they buy. It will also define where you should be networking etc or finding new business. Happy to talk further over Skype or Google Hangouts if you wish to. I'm based in New Zealand, currently working for a global SaaS provider. NZ is +12 GMT. Cheers Guy