28A – Your Exit Strategy
1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children?
I think it's hard to estimate an exit strategy right now. My business could blow up, get super popular, and be worth millions, or it could never gain any traction. As hard as I try, it may not be what the market really needs right now. This being said, if I did succeed, I would stick with it as long as I wanted to. Maybe when I established it and maintained it for a good amount of time, and I trusted it to live without me, I would sell the company to someone I trusted. By that I mean a buyer who I know will maintain the values and integrity of the company. If the costs of the company end up outweighing the benefits, I might pause where I'm at, wait a few years, and start it back up again. This gives me a chance to fail and learn from my mistakes until the company sticks.
2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?
I have chosen these possible strategies because I want to be prepared for whatever happens with my company to the best of my ability. I don't want to be completely unprepared (both mentally and emotionally) when the time comes to make an exit decision in the future. This is why I have given myself a few options, depending on which way the company goes. Of course, I don't consider these to be all-encompassing, but they give me a general idea of how I can handle my company's future.
3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?
I think my exit strategies reflect the way I think about my business. While I am optimistic, I don't expect to make it big immediately, and even if I do, I want to take advantage of the success early-on so I don't lose it. At the same time, it would just be nice to know I helped a few people out with this service, even if my company never really "made it". However, it would be pretty stupid in the long term to pour a bunch of money into a company where the fixed costs are outweighing the revenue. I don't think the exit strategy really influenced how I identifies this opportunity, I just thought about what customers like me might need and built it from there. Overall, I would approach my venture with confidence and consideration.
I really admire how you chose to avoid answering the first question directly, instead offering a neutral position and reason. For my post, I answered the question just for the sake of answering the question, yet your answer was so much more well thought out. Your consideration of how your business may never “gain any traction” is a testament to your level of understanding and maturity, which has been mirrored in all of your posts throughout the course of this class. I will say, though, as important as it is to be mindful of all outcomes, commitment is expressed by aiming confidently and taking a shot, even if you miss the target. Great job on this.
ReplyDeleteHey Haven, I think your approach to exiting is reasonable. I agree that with a business like yours it can highly depend on the ability to make your service appeal to potential customers and how much word-of-mouth advertising happens. I don't think anyone can really know how well their startup will do until they have already started to experience successes and failures. Even if you were to fail, though, it should be used as an opportunity to learn where you went wrong and to be more successful in the future.
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