There are a myriad things to consider when you start a business. Just the details of getting the business off the ground can be daunting, but you also need a vision and a plan for how you're going to grow. So why on earth would you even think about an exit strategy when you're launching a business? Marty Zwillig provided some important insights in a recent post Every Startup Needs a Positive Exit Strategy. Key word here is "positive".
Zwillig reminds us that if you have investors they will want, in due time, to see a return on their investment. So there is one exit point to keep in mind. Another is that it is somewhat less fun for many entrepreneurs to run a company after it gets past a certain size (he suggests 50 employees), and entrepreneurs start dreaming up new businesses to start. OK, so you're nowhere near that, but it will make your business decisions smarter as you grow, if you have some idea whether you will eventually:
- Merge or be acquired
- Go public
- Sell to an individual
- Hire someone to run your profitable business and move on to something else
- Close the doors
It's not a bad thing to have a plan to simply liquidate and close in the event of some dire unplanned circumstance. Of course you'd rather that never happen, but as Zwillig points out, people didn't plan for 9/11 or a collapsed real estate market either. The main thing is, simply have all these possibilities in mind, and plan how you'll do it when things go your way.
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