Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game

CHAPTER 5

STEP 1: GATHER

The best way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones.

—Linus Pauling¹

While some insights about your exit strategy could suddenly appear while you are on a run or seated in deep meditation, you will need to put in the sweat equity to get to an actionable strategy. Just as it is with your overall business strategy, or even marketing or product strategy, your exit strategy should be the output of extensive real-time deliberations with your leadership team. At a minimum, you need one productive meeting with them to kick off the process, get all the ideas on the table, and make sure you and your team are aligned on the path forward. I call this meeting your “strategy offsite” for reasons that ...