10 Jan What to Expect When Selling Your Tech Company
If you are an entrepreneur in the tech sector, you may be faced with the possibility of selling your company much sooner than you might expect. But like any business or enterprise, the sale of that entity is going to be subject to a whole litany of factors that will have no small impact on how quickly you sell and for how much.
You may find yourself in a position where you are the one initiating a sale for the company or you might be approached by a large conglomerate or well-heeled investor with designs on buying what you have built from the ground up. In any case, there are going to be some things you will need to anticipate doing and satisfying before any money changes hands and ownership is transferred.
So if you have a business for sale phoenix, read on for some of the most important things you should keep in mind before you embark upon this exciting journey.
Finding the Right Buyer
It all starts here, obviously. You want to find a potential buyer for your company and if you don’t have suitors coming to you, solicited or otherwise, then the onus is on you to find that right acquirer. But doing that can be much tougher than it sounds.
The best place to begin is by networking with colleagues and associates within your field or industry. There you can locate and better identify the people who are in line with your ideals and cultivate relationships that can build over time. All you need is one of them to show an interest in your enterprise, if you find more than one, then all the better.
It’s also possible that you end up receiving unsolicited inquiries from competitors, venture capital or private equity firms. If and when that occurs, you might be facing an interesting crossroads in your journey.
Initiating Contact
Once you’ve identified one or more possible buyers, you will then begin the process of discussing a potential purchase of your business. Keep things broad and basic at first, see if you both get along and find that your business goals and beliefs are in line with each other. Should you feel comfortable moving forward to take your discussions a little further, you should take some simple precautions first.
Protect Yourself
As the discussions progress, you will need to start protecting yourself and your intellectual property. If you believe your conversation is getting to the next level, it may be time to talk to a lawyer, one who has experience working with business ownership transactions. For the benefit of you and the other party with whom you are discussing a sale, it’s a very good idea to sign a confidentiality agreement. That way you can talk about the intimate details of your business, which is information your potential buyer will want you to disclose, without fear of losing your valuable assets or property.
The buyer may also wish to provide you with some business plan strategies that he or she will wish to keep closely guarded. But with a confidentiality agreement in place, you can both speak freely.