Posts Categorized: Business Owner

How To Recover, and Thrive, After Splitting From Your Co-Founder

Four years ago Nexalogy CEO Claude Théoret was counting the employees he had to lay off. His company had burned through their $600,000 seed round of investment and he was running out of cash. An ugly split with a former co-founder had divided his team, and Théoret had to turn to his wife for a $40,000 loan. Jump… Read more »

One Tweak That Can (Instantly) Add Millions To The Value Of Your Business

  If you’re trying to figure out what your business might be worth, it’s helpful to consider what acquirers are paying for companies like yours these days. A little internet research will probably reveal that a business like yours trades for a multiple of your pre-tax profit, which is Sellers Discretionary Earnings (SDE) for a… Read more »

Why VEEV Vodka Went for More Than 7 Times Revenue

Courtney Reum left Goldman Sachs in 2007 to start a Vodka business. He built VEEV up to more than $10 million in annual sales before he sold the company for more than seven times revenue. Reum has gone on to start and invest in a number of businesses through his M13 venture firm, and in this episode you will… Read more »

Defining Goodwill

You may hear the word “goodwill” thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? When it comes to selling a business, the term refers to all the effort that the seller put into a business over the year. Goodwill can be thought of as the difference between the various tangible assets that a… Read more »

A Deeper Look at Seller Financing

Buying a business requires a good deal of capital or lender resources. The bottom line is that a large percentage of buyers don’t have the necessary capital or lender resources to pay cash and that is where seller financing comes into play. The fact is that seller financing is quite common. In this article, we… Read more »

Strong Selling Points: Let Your Strengths Work for You

“Independent business owner” is a phrase with two meanings. Of course, it means being the owner of an independent business. But another way to look at “independent business owner” is to let this phrase define the very personality of the person at the helm. Independent. Confident. Self-assured. Strong-willed. These are vital entrepreneurial attributes, but, ironically,… Read more »

What Are Your Company’s Weaknesses?

Every company has weaknesses; the trick is to fix them. There is a saying that the test of a good company president or CEO is what happens to the company when he or she leaves. Some companies–on paper–may look the same, but one company may be much more valuable due to weaknesses in the other… Read more »