Reinventing the Entrepreneur: Turning Your Dream Business into a Reality

Chapter 22

Positioning for the Sale: Your Big Payday

How can you position your inbox magazine for sale? Right now this might seem crazy, especially if you’re just starting your inbox magazine. How can you even imagine selling it one day?

Owning a business is much like owning a boat. The joke is that the best two days of a boat owner’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it. Whether that’s your goal or not, whether you think this might be your eventual goal, it’s still important to know. The tasks you need to position your inbox magazine for sale are the same tasks you need to create for a successful inbox magazine so you can enjoy your life and freedom.

There are really two types of buyers of any business. First are investors, which include venture capital firms, mergers and acquisition firms, private equity groups, and high-net-worth individual investors. These are the types of people who will buy your company even if they don’t know much about it. That’s because they want to flip it to somebody else for more money, or they just want it for passive income.

The second type of buyer is a strategic buyer, who might be a direct or indirect competitor. He may be somebody in a similar market but he really wants to get into yours. He may already be doing something similar and want to expand or grow by acquiring other businesses.

You might be thinking that the best deal will be to sell your business to others who are in business with you, but in reality, the bigger money ...