Building For An Exit

Starting with the End in Mind

The founders of many startup organisations have the dream of selling their organisation one day, perhaps to a big company like Facebook, Google or Microsoft, particularly if they’re a technology based company. The recent sale of Instagram, a 2 year old company, to Facebook for a $1bn in cash and stock has perhaps raised awareness of this topic again.

Lots to Consider

Building a company isn’t easy, it takes vision, experience and patience. Part of the experience brings structures to controls that make the organisation stronger, more likely to succeed, and more attractive to buyers or investors alike. It is important that these structures enable your company to perform better but to be able to demonstrate the structures and the best practises that you have put in place, so that any investor or purchaser can see that your business is not only talking the talk, but walking the walk as well.

As a startup you may however be thinking that governance will hinder my company’s ability to be agile, to turn on a dime, and to be able to reinvent itself as and when it needs to. At Fifth Step we really don’t believe this is the case, our approach is to ensure that the level of change and attitude to risk is incorporated into the approach, ensuring that governance helps and doesn’t get in the way of your business.

When to Start?

As the saying goes, there’s no time like the present, that is definitely the case in respect to building your company for an exit. For Fifth Step, the beginning is all about assessing what your company is doing right today, and what the governance and other processes need to be put in place to help it get to where you want it to go. You wouldn’t consider running your company without keeping good accounting records, so why would you not be able to demonstrate the other good things that you do.

Your Next Steps

If you want to start building your company for exit, or in order to prove the value of your company for a funding round, then please feel free to ask a question of Fifth Step’s Governance Team who will ensure that you’re on the right path.