The Laurex Process: Exit Strategy Implementation
Guide to Exit Strategies
By Joyce Colson & Rob Quinn

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE IN FIVE YEARS?
There is no point in starting a business if you don't know where you are going to be in five years, if you are successful. This is true both for your business life and your personal life.

ACQUIRED; IPO; STAY THE COURSE
Where do you want to be when your idea takes off? You may have a strategy to be acquired, you may want to grow your company to go public, you may be happy to just own and manage a privately held company for the foreseeable future. However, you must think of these issues ahead of time.

KEEP YOUR COLLEAGUES INFORMED
The people you work with need to know where you are going to take this business. If you don't know where you are headed, they will sense this too. Your colleagues need to be on board on where you are taking your company, or they will bail out.

HAVE THE GUTS TO STICK TO YOUR PLAN
Once you know where you want to be in five years, stick to it. The economy and the stock market may go up and down over time, but your Plan should not change, if it is worth anything. Stick to it. Over time, people will say you have "vision". Or, at least they will say you are persistent.

YOUR PLAN SHOULD BE FLEXIBLE
This is not the opposite of the above. The tools to achieving your goals change all the time, especially with current technology innovations. This will continue. So be flexible enough to adapt to new technology without losing sight of your ultimate goals.

PLAN FOR BAD TIMES
It is hard to persuade people that there will be bad times for every business, including high-tech businesses. High-tech companies will go though bad times just like every other business, so you might as well plan for it. Are you ready to have six months negative cash flow, and are you prepared to restructure your loans? It is going to happen.

HAVE A BACKUP STRATEGY FOR YOUR PLAN
However you see your business ending up, you need to have a fallback strategy if you are faced with new and unusual circumstances. You may go in thinking you will go IPO but it may turn out that being acquired works out better. Who knows?

GIVE UP CONTROL ONLY WHEN ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY
You will have constant pressures to give up equity and you will be faced with hard decisions about giving up majority control for significant cash investments. You can usually only give up majority control once. Only do it if you are prepared to go off and do something else.

Article Provided by:

Joyce Colson & Rob Quinn
Colson, Quinn Attorneys at Law