MARK ZIDES
MARK ZIDES
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A buyer does not pay for last year. They pay for how predictable next year looks without you in it. Exit planning is the work of closing that gap while there is still time for it to show in the numbers.
The discount
Business valuation services price what is in front of them. A buyer prices risk: how much of the revenue depends on you, on a handful of customers, or on a motion nobody has written down. Each of those is a discount, and each one takes months to remove.
The offer
A valuation gap closed while there is still time for it to show in the numbers. The gap analysed against what your likely buyer discounts, a prioritised fix list with owners and dates, and the revenue work done rather than recommended.
What a buyer of your type will discount, quantified against your own numbers rather than against a generic checklist.
Founder dependency, concentration and revenue quality worked as projects with owners and dates, not as advice.
A data room that reconciles, a management team that can answer without you, and an equity story that has been rehearsed.
The clock
Exit planning is worth most twenty-four months out and nearly worthless after a letter of intent is signed. What can still be changed shrinks month by month, and the work that moves valuation most is the work that takes longest to show in the numbers.
Everything is still on the table. Concentration, revenue mix and founder dependency can all be genuinely fixed rather than framed.
Structural workTwo or three fixes, chosen for what a buyer weighs most. Enough time for the numbers to show a trend rather than a promise.
Prioritised fixesDiligence readiness, data room, the management narrative, and the metrics that will be challenged.
PreparationStructural work is finished. What is left is holding price under scrutiny and answering well.
DefenceEarn-out performance, which is an operating problem again rather than a valuation one.
DeliveryThe work
Four files, worked in parallel rather than in sequence, because the fixes interact. Moving revenue to recurring reduces concentration risk; taking the founder out of deals improves forecast accuracy; both of them make diligence shorter. This is also exactly what fundraising readiness looks like, with an investor at the end instead of an acquirer.
The routes
Trade sale, private equity, management buyout or a minority recap. Each one prices the same company differently and rewards different preparation, so the route has to be chosen before the fixes are, or you optimise for a buyer who never turns up.
A strategic acquirer buying capability, customers or market access. Usually the highest headline number, and the most diligence on customer contracts and integration risk.
Rewards clean revenue and IPA sponsor buying a platform to grow. They underwrite management depth and repeatability above all else, and they price founder dependency brutally.
Rewards a team that runs itThe people already running it buy it, usually with debt. Lower headline number, far less diligence risk, and continuity for staff and customers.
Rewards a strong second lineSelling part of the equity to take money off the table while continuing to run it. Buys time and liquidity without ending the story.
Rewards predictable cashThe levers
Ranked by how much each one moves a multiple in an owner-operated business, not by how hard it is. The order rarely changes: buyers pay for predictability and for a company that runs without the person selling it. Everything else is a smaller adjustment on top of those two.
The cost of waiting
Exit planning is easy to postpone because nothing breaks when you do. The cost is invisible until a buyer prices it, and by then it is a number in their model rather than a project in yours.
Founder dependency and concentration are priced as risk. That discount is applied to every pound of profit, every year, and no negotiation recovers it.
When a buyer cannot underwrite the business without you, they structure the risk back onto you as deferred consideration you then have to earn twice.
An unprepared data room turns eight weeks of diligence into six months, and every extra month gives the buyer another reason to re-trade the price.
Without options you cannot compare, and a single interested party sets the price on their terms rather than yours.
The record
Most people advising on exits have never been on the selling side of one. Mark has been there three times, and the last one was a nine-figure deal on a firm he built from nothing, so the advice comes from the seat rather than from a framework.
A consulting firm built from zero and sold in a nine-figure deal.
An HR-tech platform scaled to 400+ Fortune 1000 clients and taken to an eight-figure exit.
An MIT-founded AI company, turned around, scaled, and driven to a transaction.
Of client revenue generated across 400+ Fortune 1000 clients in 35+ years.
Senior roles at Deloitte, PwC and EY, selling and delivering transformation to Fortune 500 executives.
FAQ ( Here to Help )
Business exit planning is the work of making a company worth more, and easier to buy, before a sale process starts. It covers revenue quality, customer concentration, founder dependency, recurring revenue and diligence readiness. It is not brokerage, and it happens well before the bankers arrive.
Twelve to twenty-four months before you want a process to run. Every structural fix, reducing customer concentration, moving revenue to recurring, removing yourself from the deals, takes at least a year to show up in the numbers a buyer will underwrite.
Neither. Mark makes the company worth more before the bankers arrive, which is a different job from running the process. He has been on the selling side of three exits, including a nine-figure deal, so he knows what the buyer will discount and why.
Predictable revenue, a sales motion that runs without the founder, low customer concentration, clean recurring revenue, and numbers that survive diligence. Multiple expansion comes from de-risking the business, not from a better deck.
Only at the margins. Once a letter of intent is signed the structural work is finished and what remains is presentation, which a buyer with a diligence team can see through. The honest answer at that point is to hold the line on price rather than start a project.
Yes. The work is nearly identical: an investor and an acquirer both underwrite predictability, concentration and founder dependency. Fundraising readiness is the same engagement with a different buyer at the end of it.
A valuation gap analysis, a prioritised fix list with owners and dates, a rebuilt revenue motion, a data room that holds up, and a management team that can answer the questions without you in the room.
The first call
Thirty minutes on where the valuation gap actually sits, and whether you have enough runway left to close it. If you are already in diligence, he will tell you that too.