Business Exit Strategy
An exit strategy isn't written the year before a sale. It's built in how the company sells, every day, for years before that moment.
“No buyer buys revenue. They buy the certainty that revenue repeats without the person who built it.”
Otto GTM ObservatoryWhy GTM decides valuation more than the product
In commercial due diligence, whoever values the company looks at customer concentration, funnel repeatability, dependence on individual key people, and the solidity of NDR and churn. An excellent product with a fragile GTM receives lower multiples than a decent product with a documented, transferable acquisition and retention engine.
Building an exit strategy therefore means, 2-3 years in advance, making the go-to-market an asset independent of the founder: documented processes, predictable pipeline, a sales team that sells with a playbook rather than untransferable personal relationships.
Anti-patterns
Common mistake: artificially accelerating revenue growth in the 12 months before a sale with aggressive discounts or off-ICP customers, a trick experienced buyers spot immediately in due diligence and which often leads to a penalizing earn-out.
Second mistake: concentrating the commercial relationship with the most important customers in the hands of the founder or a single senior rep, creating a key-person dependency risk that directly reduces the multiple offered.
Practical Application
A B2B SaaS company with €4,200,000 ARR and 94% NDR receives an acquisition offer at 4.1x ARR. After 18 months of work documenting commercial processes, diversifying the customer base (no account above 6% of ARR), and raising NDR to 112%, the same company with €5,600,000 ARR receives an offer at 6.8x ARR: the higher multiple matters more than the revenue growth itself.