Selling in eighteen months: what to do today

Most founders arrive too late, with a P&L that doesn't yet tell the right story. Uneven growth, visible dependencies, loose governance. The buyer discovers all of it in due diligence and uses it. The price drops. Terms tighten. Sometimes the deal doesn't happen at all.

A buyer doesn't acquire your last fiscal year. They acquire a trajectory. And a trajectory is built, provided you start now.

The trajectory your buyer will read

A serious buyer reviews three years of accounts, not twelve months. They look for a throughline: visible growth, stable margins, explained inflections. If your curve tells a jagged or poorly documented story, they fill in the blanks themselves, rarely in your favor.

The problem is that you lived every inflection from the inside. You know why revenue dipped in 2022 — the loss of an atypical contract, replaced the following year by three stronger clients. But the buyer reads a table. They see a hole. If they can't find an explanation in your documents, they invent one, and that explanation is never in your favor. Well-documented growth is worth more than undocumented growth, even when the numbers are identical.

The work to do: normalize your financial data now. Document every inflection — a client loss, a structural hire, a model pivot. Not to justify them, but to contextualize them. Controlled transparency always beats unpleasant discovery.

The dependencies you've learned to ignore

A client representing more than 30% of revenue. A sole supplier. A key person with no identified successor. You've built your company around these realities. You know how to manage them. The buyer discovers them raw.

Each dependency is a mechanical discount factor. A client at 35% of revenue isn't seen as a solid partner: it's a binary risk. If that client leaves, the business is worth maybe half. The buyer can't afford to ignore it, and their valuation model doesn't either. Same for a CEO whose departure would empty the company of its commercial substance: buyers price that risk, often through an earn-out conditional on your staying, which reduces what you actually receive on day one.

The only way to take back control: map these dependencies now, honestly, then build a plan to reduce them. Not eliminate them — some are irreducible. But reduce them, document them, present them yourself rather than let them be discovered. A seller who names their weaknesses and explains what they've done to address them inspires trust. A seller whose weaknesses are uncovered in due diligence loses value.

Governance, the first signal of credibility

An up-to-date shareholders' agreement, clean accounts, well-documented rights. It sounds obvious. And yet, most due diligences reveal at least one gray zone — an unsigned contract, a forgotten change-of-control clause, a dormant dispute.

A chaotic due diligence slows closing and hands the buyer arguments to push the price down. Audit your own legal house before they do, and fix what can be fixed. What you don't settle now, you'll pay for at the negotiation table.

The thesis you must build before they do

Who will buy? Why does your business hold value for them? At what multiple? Without clear answers, you endure the process instead of steering it.

Identifying 3 to 5 credible buyer profiles isn't a theoretical exercise. It's what lets you anticipate their objections, understand their valuation logic, and enter negotiation with a point of view rather than a hope. A strategic buyer pays for synergies. A fund pays for an exit multiple. A competitor pays to eliminate or integrate. Each values differently. Think their logic before they do.

Timing, the variable no one masters alone

Valuation multiples fluctuate. Market liquidity — the number of active buyers with capital to deploy — varies too, sometimes significantly from one year to the next. On the same business, in different market conditions, the gap can reach 20 to 30% of value. It isn't an exaggeration: it's what we observe in practice when a sector consolidates, when rates rise, or when a strategic buyer shifts from acquisition mode to integration mode.

The problem is that founders often enter a process for reasons unrelated to the market: a tax deadline pushing for year-end, personal fatigue, an unsolicited opportunity. These triggers are real and legitimate. But they remove a decisive lever: choosing the moment.

Don't let the calendar decide for you. The right timing can be read, anticipated, and prepared for — notably by having a readable trajectory when the window opens.

Start now

If you're considering a sale in eighteen to thirty-six months, you're exactly at the right moment. Not to sell — to prepare.

The work that determines how much you receive, and under what conditions, happens now. Before the buyer shows up. Before fatigue takes over. Before the question gets asked under constraint.

Does your balance sheet tell the right story? It's often the first question we ask. And the answer outlines what remains to be done.