Exit Readiness Masterclass
Would you buy
your own company?
A masterclass in exit readiness for founders and their teams.
Pete Gatt · Emanda
Exit Readiness Masterclass
A question for you.
"If a credible buyer walked in tomorrow...
what's the one thing I'd wish I'd fixed six months ago?"
Write your answer down now. We'll come back to it at the end.
Part One
Why now.
Even if the exit is years away... the prep isn't.
Part One · Why now
Start with the end in mind.
Your fund has a clock. Yours started a while ago.
Your investors have a fund clock.
Most VC funds run 10 years. Portfolio companies are expected to exit in years 5 to 8. If you're mid-fund... the clock has started. Even if no one's said it.
Thinking about exit now — even if it's 3, 5, 7 years away — forces you to:
- Get the structures right.
- Sharpen your focus.
- Actually learn your own business.
A business that's always ready to be sold is a healthy business. Whether you sell it or not.
Part One · Why now
The two questions I get every time.
Same two questions. Every room. Every roundtable. Here's what I tell them.
Yesterday. But really... the day you started. Start with the end in mind and you build a healthier business. Exit or no exit.
Not your revenue. Not your industry. How independent the business is from you, how predictable the cash flow is, and how few surprises are left in the numbers.
Part Two
What buyers
actually buy.
Most of what you've been told is out of date.
Part Two · What buyers buy
The 7× revenue era is over.
Cash flow wins now. The dream doesn't pay anymore.
Buy the dream.
- SaaS deals on revenue multiples... 5 to 10 times.
- Growth priced higher than profit.
- Narrative beat numbers.
- Cheap money forgave a lot of mess.
Buy the cash flow.
- Free cash flow and gross margin set the price.
- Rule of 40 beats pure growth.
- Quality of earnings goes line by line.
- Story still matters... but numbers gate the room.
Part Two · What buyers buy
Two Aussie deals. Two markets. Same lesson.
Quality of earnings beats narrative. Always.
Peers were trading at 2 to 4 times. The difference... sticky subscriptions, network effects, global footprint, ASX-audited numbers.
Premium price in a year SaaS multiples globally collapsed 30 to 50%. Proprietary aerial library. High retention. Diversified customers.
Part Two · What buyers buy
Three buyers. Three motivations. Three offers.
Know who's in the room. They're not all buying the same thing.
A competitor, supplier, or customer.
They pay for synergy. What your business unlocks in theirs. Often the highest multiple if the strategic fit is real. Expect cost cuts after the deal.
A platform consolidating a fragmented sector.
They pay for metrics that slot into their model. Sometimes for unique tech or an unfair customer angle. More formula. Less story.
Private equity or a holding company.
They pay for cash flow. Targeting ~17.5% returns p.a., 5+ year holds. They want healthy, boring, cash-generating businesses.
Part Two · What buyers buy
Every buyer is really buying one thing.
Upside. What they can do with your business that you can't... or won't.
"I'll pay you 5× profit... and pay it back in two."
How a buyer actually thinks. Said out loud.
Fold your marketing or ops into theirs. Costs gone.
Run your product through their 10× larger customer base.
Fix pricing, sales motion, GTM you've been tolerating.
Stopping a competitor from buying you. Sometimes worth more than the cash flow.
Part Three
The #1 driver
of your multiple.
Founder independence. Everything else is a rounding error.
Part Three · Founder independence
"What do you do all day?"
First question a serious buyer asks. They're watching your face for the answer.
"I work 12-hour days. I'm on everything."
What the buyer hears:
- The business depends on me.
- I haven't built systems.
- I haven't delegated.
- If they leave... the cash flow leaves.
"I'm an accelerator. I lean into one part of the business with a team. Then I lean back out. Three big initiatives at a time. The rest runs itself."
What the buyer hears:
- Systems run, not heroes.
- Management layer exists.
- The cash flow transfers.
Part Three · Founder independence
Pretend you're going to franchise your business.
Sharpest diagnostic I know. Every gap reveals itself.
Could someone else run this? Not a clone of you. A stranger. With a manual.
- Is there a repeatable lead engine... or do leads come through you?
- Is there a documented sales process... or do you close the deals?
- Is onboarding a playbook... or a series of your phone calls?
- Does the tech run without one key engineer?
- Do the numbers close monthly without your chase?
- Is the brand a system... or your personal reputation?
Part Four
The self-audit.
Answer one question honestly... most of the work reveals itself.
Part Four · The self-audit
If you walked in to buy your own company today...
What would you like about yourself as the owner? What would you not?
- Strong, defensible product or service.
- Loyal customers who stick around.
- A team that runs without heroics.
- Clean, timely numbers.
- A clear path to growth the buyer can accelerate.
- The business barely makes profit outside my salary.
- One customer is 60% of revenue.
- I'm still the main salesperson, engineer, account manager.
- My numbers are "mostly right"... not clean.
- Key people have no reason to stay after I leave.
Part Four · The self-audit
What founders actually find.
Two patterns show up in about 80% of self-audits.
Subtract a market wage for what you actually do. Now look at the P&L. The "profit" is you working for less than you're worth.
Fix: build a real ops layer, benchmark your role, rebuild the P&L as if you were replaced tomorrow.
One customer at 30%+. Three customers at 60%+. Buyers see risk instantly. You see "our biggest relationship".
Fix: you don't have to solve it before you sell. You have to be visibly working on it. Pipeline. Diversification. Multi-year contracts.
Part Four · The self-audit
Two things founders almost always forget.
Neither is optional. Both are cheap to fix early.
Buyers need your people to stay.
- Who's business-critical... and why?
- What's their reason to stay through and after the deal?
- Retention bonuses, equity, contracts... in place?
- SOPs documented for every critical role?
Know your numbers yourself.
- Read your P&L. Line by line. Without the accountant.
- Understand every item on your balance sheet.
- Know your add-backs, your revenue recognition, your debtors.
- Stop living off quarterly reports. Run the books monthly.
Part Five
The 24-hour challenge.
The drill an exit-ready founder can pass. Most can't.
Part Five · The 24-hour challenge
A credible buyer taps your shoulder. You have 24 hours.
Not one week. 24 hours. The tech exists. The expectation has moved.
- Latest balance sheet.
- Adjusted P&L. Revenue recognition clean. Add-backs documented.
- Debtors aged. Clarified.
- Employee list... salaries, roles, current market rate for each.
- Market analysis... size, segments, your share.
- Top customer concentration and retention data.
- Cap table and anything convertible.
The conversation's live.
You've bought yourself the right to negotiate. A second buyer can be invited before the first cools. That's where price tension comes from.
The conversation is dead.
Now... what's your answer?
Ask yourself this every Monday.
"If a credible buyer walked in tomorrow...
what's the one thing I'd wish I'd fixed six months ago?"
Same as before? Or has it changed?
Connect with Pete
Keep the conversation going.
Pete Gatt
Founder · Emanda
Questions
Q&A.
Bring your hardest one.