07 Aug Built to Sell: She broke every negotiation rule (and won anyway)
In 2016, Janessa White and her business partner started Simply Eloped, a marketplace that planned elopements and small weddings for couples in 35 cities across the United States. They also decided, before they had a single customer, which company they wanted to sell it to. The Knot Worldwide, the largest wedding platform in the world.
Over the next seven years, White told The Knot exactly that, met with their corporate development team every quarter for four years, and shared her revenue and margins with them along the way. When she finally emailed to say she was ready, the letter of intent arrived within a week.
On this week’s episode of Built to Sell Radio, you’ll learn how to:
– Pick your acquirer years before you are ready to sell, then build the business backwards from there
– Open your books to a potential buyer without handing them a reason to compete with you
– Set a revenue target based on what gets a strategic buyer’s attention rather than your own ambition
– Tell your employees you intend to sell, and get more from them because of it
– Build a data story that survives an interrogation by every specialist in the acquiring company
– Justify the unglamorous cleanup work most owners defer
– Negotiate the one term White says she would change if she could do it again
