How might exit and equity for look for stakeholders?

If you're in Canada, there are two options: - Some insurance companies will offer employee benefits coverage to companies with as few as 2 employees. - You can join an association plan (there are many out there), where you're part of a larger pool of many small companies and the claims & premiums are spread across the entire pool.

Hire an independent valuator. In the case of US companies, a 409A valuation has to occur at every priced financing round, so if you've had one done, that would serve as guide. But you might not even have the right to sell your shares. Your shares should be subjected to vesting and your voluntary resignation would likely cancel all remaining unvested shares. Even should you have shares to sell, if you have Preferred shareholders, it's likely that there are terms that might make selling your shares to a 3rd party difficult. Happy to talk in more detail about the specifics of your situation.

Naturally 1001 variables play into this that I'm blind to but here are some assumption laced thinking points: You're profitable, upwards trending, business, in a very competitive vertical. Yes? You guaranteed have a Buyer, unless: 1. Your asking price is outrageous. Not likely as we've closed strategic sales that were 12x revenues. It doesn't get much more aggressive than that. 2. There aren't enough strategic or institutional buyers. Nope. The buyer market is wide with creative outreach. We've rarely tapped let's say 20% of our pool before successfully securing multiple qualified offers. (And we hold a 100% close rate). 3. You're so big ($1B+) that only a few have an opportunity to buy you AND they don't like you or your brand. Unlikely? More likely... 4. The outreach effort is nominal. Most brokers and M&A intermediaries boast a sub 40% closing ratio and far too many of them are "listing agents" -- whereby they list a property, announce it to a pool of buyers in their database and then "wait". We've seen deals that we normally turn around in 60-days with all-cash offers, take 18-months for "payment plan" deals closed by other firms. The results based on the experience and model employed is indeed apples to oranges. 5. How your business is presented (packaged) is not producing conversions. This too would then be a fault on your banker's side. We "spy on" the competition - it's business as usual on our end - and the typical prospectus and marketing collateral and followup materials are, well, embarassingly slim from, well, everybody. I've never encountered a problem with "the market" (the strategic buyers) and we've sold very niche and distressed properties. We have declined taking on deals where the asking price was a number picked out of la-la-land (in which case we offer complimentary guidance, feedback and let them pursue other avenues for closing the deal - which basically never happens at that asking price)... but that's a sensible discussion and likely one that was already had. If your exit is sub-$100M, your asking price is reasonable (even if aggressive), your business is indeed strong on its metrics, growth and brand value -- then any lack of offers sits with your banker. You're likely looking to play professional basketball but you brought in a kid from a high-school team. Skills mismatch. Upgrade your "player" and you'll move towards a win quite rapidly.

I can give you the standard answer, brand, audience, marketing and half a dozen other things. You can spend thousands on any or all of those three things but if you don't grind, get better all the time and learn. You've wasted your money and time. 1. Grinding. The reality is just grinding away every day. 14-15 hours a day 6-7 days a week, not for a month, a year, 2 years... whatever it takes. Never say die attitude. Whilst our competitors are on holidays or just slacking off. We're still working stealing their customers. If you don't keep grinding away you'll never succeed. Of course just grinding away isn't enough. 2. Continuous improvement Never settling, learning from mistakes, recovering from it and just keep grinding away. Just focus on just getting better all the time. What has made us successful, (4x) was just getting better. Better at knowing our customers, better at producing the product. Better at communicating with our audience. Better at customer service, better at everything that matters to our industry, our market. 3. Finally, it's self-education. Being open minded to new knowledge. Learning from others, learning from customers, learning from competitors. Learning from successful entrepreneurs in other industries. Constantly learning new skills and learning to be a better entrepreneur. If you really want to succeed. Grind, work on getting better and keep learning. Everything else may be helpful but if you don't do these three things you are relying on luck.

YES! You certainly can sell a services business; and, if it is positioned and prepared properly, for pretty great returns too. There are a number of different exit strategies available to you, not ALL of them acquisition. For instance; we have helped service business owners transition (exit) from their business without selling the business, but instead by retaining a minority interest and receiving large (7 figure) royalty checks for years after their departure. That said, IF acquisition is what you want each of the dozens of strategies available to you really begin with identifying prospective buyers, understanding their motivation for acquisition and pivoting your company into alignment with those motivations. I explain the process in more detail here: http://www.zerolimitsventures.com/cadredc Hope this helps! Good luck. Steve