Once you have made the momentous decision to sell your company, or to open it up to outside capital, whether to cash in on years of effort, finance a growth or international expansion project, or for any other reason, starting the process can be somewhat confusing if you don't know the steps to follow.
1. Define why we want to sell our company
The first thing to do is define, more specifically, what we aim to achieve with the transaction: our basic parameters. That means being clear about, among other things, the following:
- What we are willing to offer and how we want to structure the deal, both in terms of price and the percentage of equity offered (also known as the sale range).
- The objectives of the deal: what we expect at closing and what success would look like for us.
- An estimate of the value of the company, so we have a realistic expectation of what we can ask for and expect from an investor in exchange for a percentage of our company's share capital.
- What kind of partner we are looking for: to make any deal a success, it is essential to define our ideal counterparty; whether we want a company from our industry (a strategic buyer) to carry our operations forward by integrating them into a larger group and generating synergies, whether we are looking for a financial buyer to provide the resources and support needed to professionalize our company in a new stage of its journey, or whether we have no preference.
- Set a time horizon: how long we intend to take to complete the process, bearing in mind the obstacles and delays we may run into along the way, which Deale aims to solve by drastically reducing deal execution times through technological innovation, making life easier for both business owners and investors.
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2. Documentation and teaser
Once we are clear on the main foundations from which we can start reaching out to investors and begin initial negotiations, it's time to summarize the information relevant to investors in a systematic and standardized way, and present it clearly, effectively, and attractively in order to capture their interest, which is crucial; this is the role of the teaser (which can be generated automatically on the Deale platform in under 30 minutes).
3. Reach out to investors
So, after defining our basic approach and having a financial document that sums up for potential investors what we are offering and why it is an investment opportunity with potential, we can start reaching out to investors and begin initial negotiations.
With all this, we can present all the documentation gathered in the teaser as a new opportunity to enter into negotiations to sell our company.
At Deale, our value proposition, meaning what we improve at this very early stage by combining technology with personalized advice from a highly experienced team, is based on:
- Access: on our platform, where registration is completely free for companies, you will have access to a pool of 3,000+ investors, we will put you in touch with them, and you will be visible to them as they constantly look for new investment opportunities.
- Speed and efficiency: we cut time and costs (for example, in preparing the teaser, which we generate in a matter of hours, while other advisors take 2–8 weeks on average; and at a much lower cost). Our mission is to revolutionize the business sale process through technology, so we aim to simplify every step and formality, making the process as direct and automated as possible.
- Support throughout the process: while we try to automate every process we can and meet client needs through the platform, we understand that personalized advice is necessary, which is why we monitor every deal individually, so that business owners never feel alone at any point, as unfortunately happens all too often in deals involving small and medium-sized enterprises.
