50 Buyers, 3 Years and One Exit: What It Really Takes to Sell a Business
Most entrepreneurs spend years thinking about how to build a business. Far fewer think seriously about what it takes to leave one. Chris Slocumb built her agency over more than two decades before beginning a three-year exit journey that included roughly 50 buyer meetings, multiple letters of intent, several rounds of due diligence, and eventually a successful sale. In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Chris and Josh talk about the parts of selling a company founders rarely hear about. They dig into valuation, recurring versus project revenue, founder dependency, paying yourself properly, choosing the right buyer, negotiating earnouts, and why a great financial outcome can still create a major personal identity shift. Chris also shares lessons from her book, Mastering the Exit Gauntlet, and the three questions founders should answer before deciding to sell: Why do you want to sell? When do you want to sell? What number do you need? If an exit might be somewhere in your future, start thinking about it long before you actually want out.