Richard A. Kranitz (Wisconsin), The Value Builder System, Why Startups Stall

Why Startups Stall

Have you ever wondered why startup companies stop growing? Sometimes they run out of potential customers to sell to or their product starts losing market share to a competitor, but there is often a more fundamental reason: the founder(s) lose the stomach for it. 

When you start a business, the assets you have outside of your business likely exceed those you have in it, because in the early days, your business is worthless. As your company grows, it starts to have value and becomes a more significant part of your wealth—especially if you’re pouring your profits back into funding your growth.

For most business owners, their company is their largest asset.

Eventually, your business may become such a large proportion of your wealth that you realize you are taking a giant risk every day that you decide to hold on to it just a little bit longer.

95% Of His Wealth In One Business

In 2000, Etienne Borgeat and Olivier Letard co-founded PCO innovation, an IT consulting firm. The company took off and, by 2016, PCO had 600 full-time employees and offices around the world.

As the business grew, Borgeat and Letard started to become uneasy about how much of their wealth was tied up in their business. By 2015, the shares Borgeat held in PCO represented 95% of his wealth.

That’s about the point that aerospace giant Boeing came calling. Boeing wanted PCO to take on a very large project and Borgeat and Letard turned down the opportunity reasoning that the project was so large it could risk their entire company if it went wrong. In the early days, the partners would never have turned down a chance to work with Boeing, but the partners had changed. 

That’s when Borgeat and Letard realized the time had come to sell. They agreed to an acquisition offer from Accenture of over one times revenue. 

The success of your startup is probably driven by your willingness to put all your eggs in one basket. You’re all in. However, at some point, you may find yourself starting to play it safe, which is about the time your business may be better off in someone else’s hands. 

*** Richard Kranitz (Wisconsin) is an experienced attorney and business consultant in the areas of corporate, securities and tax planning for corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability companies, multi-unit enterprises, and a variety of different non-profit entities. In addition, he has counseled their owners and executives in compensation planning, estate plans, and asset protection. Attorney profile at: https://solomonlawguild.com/richard-a-kranitz-esq

Richard A. Kranitz (Wisconsin), The Value Builder System, Why Now Is The Riskiest Time To Own Your Business

Why Now Is The Riskiest Time To Own Your Business

Most people think of starting a business as risky, but unless you invest a significant amount of start-up cash in your venture, you’re not really risking much other than your time.

That changes if you’re lucky enough to get your business off the ground. As your company grows, you start to risk more and more of your wealth because the business you’ve built is actually worth something. The longer you hang on to it, the more you have to lose.

This phenomenon makes owners become more risk averse as their business grows, potentially squeezing off growth to avoid risking what they’ve created. This can mean the owner goes from a company’s great asset to its biggest liability.

Cigar City Brewing

For an example of how growth can impact an owner’s appetite for risk, let’s look at the case of Joey Redner, the founder of Florida-based Cigar City Brewing. Redner’s craft beer operation started off in 2009 with the relatively modest goal of selling 5,000 barrels of beer per year.

Cigar City proved popular with the locals and Redner was able to sell 1,000 barrels of beer in his first year of business.

Cigar City Brewing continued to grow but was thirsty for cash, eventually forcing Redner to take on an SBA loan. Redner quickly surpassed his 5,000-barrel goal, and by 2015, had scaled all the way up to 55,000 barrels per year, at which point he ran out of capacity in his brewing facility.

To get to the next level, Redner would have had to find another $20 million for a major expansion, but he was tired of the feeling of being “all in” at the poker table. He had built something successful and wanted to enjoy financial security rather than having to roll his winnings into even more debt that he would have to personally guarantee with the bank.

Redner decided to sell even though his business was still growing and he had built a brand Floridians loved.

And therein lies one of the hidden reasons owners decide to sell. They are tired of shouldering all of the risk. Most of us have a limited appetite for risk, and, as the Bob Dylan song goes, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Start-ups aren’t risking much, but when you build something successful, every day that you decide to keep it is another day you have all (or most) of your chips on the table, and, no matter how strong your hand, eventually we all decide to cash in.

*** Richard Kranitz (Wisconsin) is an experienced attorney and business consultant in the areas of corporate, securities and tax planning for corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability companies, multi-unit enterprises, and a variety of different non-profit entities. In addition, he has counseled their owners and executives in compensation planning, estate plans, and asset protection. Attorney profile at: https://solomonlawguild.com/richard-a-kranitz-esq

Richard A. Kranitz (Wisconsin), The Value Builder System, Which Is Better, a Financial Buyer or a Strategic Buyer?

Which Is Better, a Financial Buyer or a Strategic Buyer?

If you decide to sell your business to an outside acquirer, you’re going to have to decide between a financial and a strategic buyer—understanding the different motivations of these two buyers can be the key to getting a good price for your business.

A financial buyer is acquiring your future profit stream, so they will evaluate your business based on how much profit it is likely to make and how reliable that profit stream is likely to be. The more profit you can convince them your company will produce, the more they will pay for your business. 

But there is a limit to how much they will pay, because financial buyers are playing the buy-low, sell-high game. They do not have a strategic rationale for buying your business. They don’t have an army of sales reps to sell your product or a network of retailers where your product could be merchandised. They are simply trying to get a return on their investors’ money, so they tend to buy small and mid-sized businesses using a combination of this investment layered on top of a pile of debt, and they want to buy your business as cheaply as possible with the hope of flipping it five or ten years down the road.

Because financial buyers are usually investors and not operators, they want you and your team to stick around, so they rarely buy all of a business. Instead, they buy a chunk and ask you to hold on to a tranche of equity to keep you committed.

A strategic buyer is a different cat—usually a larger company in your industry, they are evaluating your business based on what it is worth in their hands. They will try and estimate how much of their product or service they can sell if they added you into the mix. Because of their size, this can often lead to buyers who are willing and able to pay much more for your business.

Tom Franceski and his two partners had built DocStar up to 45 employees when they decided to shop the business to some Private Equity (PE) investors. The PE guys offered four to six times Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA), which Franceski deemed low for a fast-growing software company.

Franceski was then approached by a strategic acquirer called Epicor, which is a global software business with a lot of customers who could use what DocStar had built. Epicor offered DocStar around two times revenue—a much fatter multiple than the PE firms were offering.

 


*** Richard Kranitz (Wisconsin) is an experienced attorney and business consultant in the areas of corporate, securities and tax planning for corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability companies, multi-unit enterprises, and a variety of different non-profit entities. In addition, he has counseled their owners and executives in compensation planning, estate plans, and asset protection. Attorney profile at: https://solomonlawguild.com/richard-a-kranitz-esq