Tag Archives: Market

What’s Your Exit Strategy – Both Timing and Price? Four Considerations

Situation: A CEO is considering an exit strategy for the company that she founded. The company has been very successful, and the CEO wants to optimize the value of the company on sale. She seeks advice on how to both maximize the company’s value and how to best prepare for a sale. What’s your exit strategy – both timing and price?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Value is tied to revenue and profit growth. Revenue growth is based on expansion of the customer base and reshaping the product offering to optimize its market appeal.
    • Consider a usage-based price for the offering. Accompany this with a range of usage offerings based on current customer use patterns.
    • Consider tiered pricing or pricing/use to access lower tiers of the market.
    • Consider bundled products, for example along with complementary products of another company with whom marketing partnerships could be formed.
  • As part of the valuation exercise, determine the best exit strategy and timing:
    • Identify the companies that could be buyers.
    • In each case, identify why they would buy the company.
    • The most compelling reason to purchase the company will be strategic, not financial.
    • Identify the key decision maker in each of the potential buyers.
    • Also identify any factors that would make the company less desirable to any potential acquirers and develop remedies for these.
    • This exercise may help to plan the timing and to understand more about the price that could be fetched.
  • To appeal to a buyer, optimize the organizational chart.
    • If the CEO occupies too many seats on the chart this presents a substantial risk to an acquirer if the founder leaves.
  • Evolve the organizational structure to support growth.
    • If there is no compelling reason to sell in the near term, then staff the company with professional marketing, financial talent, and so on.
    • A lack of talent in key positions limits both the company’s growth and its appeal to potential buyers.
    • In the case of this company, the most important hire will be in marketing. Note that marketing does not equal sales. The company is creating a market and convincing people to change their habits. This is a marketing task, not a sales task.
    • If the analysis of the factors mentioned above determines that now is time to sell, then stay slim.

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When Should You Bring in External Resources? Four Suggestions

Situation: A company provides market research, technical assistance, and related services for clients. It receives most of its work from proposals. Both writing successful proposals and carrying out the work of accepted proposals are critical capabilities. Should they bring in external resources to increase the number of proposals submitted? Where should these resources be focused?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Identify the most critical tasks that contributed to proposals that have been awarded.
    • Determine, between writing and editing, which tasks are most critical. Focus internal resources on these tasks and seek outside resources to assist with the less critical tasks.
    • Provide incentives to those who write grants that are awarded.
  • What portions of the proposals could be written using external resources?
    • Background information, including corporate history, tends to be repetitive between proposals. However, this material is also difficult for an outsider to master.
    • One option is to secure outside resources that will commit to the company for a long time. These resources would have the time to learn and master the historical data.
    • Another option is to use the company’s database to store and code historical data. These data could then be managed by a less expensive internal resource and collected with appropriate filters for each new proposal that arises.
  • Codify the repetitive source material in a database. Secure software that makes it easy to filter and recall selected data for the writers of new proposals.
  • An alternative to using outside resources is to develop an internal coordinator who is master of this database and who is responsible for gathering appropriately filtered data to support the efforts of the company’s proposal writers.
    • By taking care of this portion of the proposal writing task, it will be easier to find enthusiastic project leaders to take on the more creative aspects of new proposals.

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Where Should You Focus the Business? Four Recommendations

Situation: A company has experienced limited growth and profitability for the past five years. It is also short of resources. They have invested a lot of time and effort in a new technology which has yet to bear fruit. The CEO seeks advice on the company’s future direction. Where should you focus the business?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Continue to support BOTH business – the core product line and the new technology – but rearrange priorities to boost revenue and profitability growth. Simultaneously, focus new R&D investment in the company’s core product. This has three principal benefits:
    • The company’s primary expertise is in its core product line. This product is its principal source of revenue and has the greatest potential for profitability and growth.
    • R&D and start-up production of new iterations of the principal product is less resource intensive than the new technology.
    • Further, sales of the core product are far less cyclical than the market for the new technology, and therefore more promising to a small, niche company.
  • Looking at this recommendation sequentially, the group recommends that the company:
    • Continue to sell the current product line a well as existing complimentary products to maintain revenue and profits.
    • If additional work or resources are needed to mature the new technology, have someone else take the lead role in R&D and private label the technology for the company.
    • Focus all new R&D investment on improvements to the core product.
    • Refocus market research on current and potential customers for the principal product line to determine their greatest needs to guide product line innovation.
  • The company needs access to advanced equipment to support development of the core product line. Consider creative ways to gain access to this equipment at little expense.
    • Look for advanced equipment that is available at distress or liquidation-sale prices by companies who made poor investment decisions.
  • Find a partner that wants to focus on the new technology, but who also wants and needs the company’s expertise in its core product line.
    • The company focuses on the core line; let the partner develop the technology.

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What Software Version Do You Launch First? Three Suggestions

Situation: The CEO of an early-stage software company has two versions of its software that they could launch. It has an alpha site set up and is configured to serve up to 10K simultaneous users. There are two beta versions that they could launch next. What software version do you launch first?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Use the more basic version for the Beta launch.
    • Restrict the Alpha to individuals within the company until the major bugs are resolved. Once this is ready, proceed to Beta launch.
    • The right target users will be both early adopters who are effective sneezers.
    • Select a segment of the market that is the home of both enthusiasts and sneezers – for example, if it were the music market target dance music – a crowd that is easy to attract.
    • Target a service that many in the game and related early adopter worlds like. At the right time they will sneeze frequently to their friends and contacts.
    • Let the creative audience know that the Beta version is an artist-centric site, but that it will be followed soon by a consumer link that they can tell their fans about.
  • Assemble a knowledge bank of experts to guide the company as it progresses through Beta. These experts can and to help the company prep as fully as possible prior to launch.
  • Crossing the Chasm – when the company is ready for this.
    • Find an appropriate venue that attracts target users. Again, as an example, in the music world this could be American Idol. Through American Idol, the play would be to allow fans to access and download the songs that their favorite contestants sang this week, plus other songs from their favorites.
    • An approach like this quickly opens a large market for a new app.

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How Do You Execute the Product and Market Timing Plan? Five Points

Situation: A company’s CEO is operating in a complex marketplace. Product pricing and consumer acceptance are issues. Consumer education about the product is an important part of the market plan. It may take a couple of years for the market to develop. How do you execute the product and market timing plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Important issues are survival while the market develops and maintaining a unique technology advantage.
  • As a small player in a busy and rapidly evolving market, a critical element of the strategy will be to rapidly gain the attention of the people that Seth Godin has named the “sneezers” – those who have significant influence on their consumer and business peers and who can quickly help to create the momentum that will drive the company’s market position.
    • Examples: give the product to the key influencers at target companies.
    • Make it easy or free for the key influencers within your partner organizations to experience, love and spread the word about the product. Allow them to give a few free copies to friends.
  • To avoid becoming roadkill, fly under the radar.
    • Look for opportunities as they occur in this evolving market. They may come from many players.
    • Have a solid strategy in place to execute once an opportunity arises: What do you want to achieve? What is the timeline? How will you measure achievement?
    • Have multiple back-ups to the key partners that the company is currently courting.
  • Instead of looking for VC funding to fund the next round, why not secure the additional funding from the company’s original backer?
    • To earn this the company will have to demonstrate: interesting partnerships, traction in the marketplace, and assurance that an existing major player won’t squash the company.
  • A perceived barrier is that the product is not quite ready to deliver the experience that customers will expect.
    • What is “not quite ready”? Most successful products are not 100% ready on introduction. Look at Microsoft’s strategy. From their earliest products to the present, new versions are launched when they are 80-90% complete. They then respond quickly with updates based on customer feedback. Many other companies have done the same.
    • Historically, first to market has beaten later, more complete entrants.

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How Do You Pursue a Market Expansion Opportunity? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is considering expanding market reach to include an additional specialty niche in the market currently served. He sees the opportunity to diversify the current offering, to make significant money, and to grow the company. The principal challenge is finding a person to build this capacity. How do you pursue a market expansion opportunity?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Without a leader to build the new capacity, an individual who already knows both the technology and the market, it will be difficult to build the new capability.
    • Bring in a heavy hitter with a proven track record in the market to develop the new capability. Someone who can build a team to offer the same quality / delivery package that has been the source of the company’s success.
  • Once this individual has been identified and is onboard, gather top management and develop clarity on the company and its values – why the company is in its current as well as the new business and what the company does for itself and its clients.
    • From this exercise develop or update the values statement and a vision / mission statement.
    • Consider hiring a consultant with proven experience in the market to help develop the value statement, mission, and some of the strategic and planning capacity that the company has not yet developed on its own.
    • Communicate these openly and reinforce them frequently with staff. This will help them understand the company culture as well as the vision for the company. It will also help them to understand the decisions made to guide the company.
  • Is there another firm – or an independent consultant – with proven expertise in in the new field to work with the company on the proposals that are being submitted for the new market?
    • This will help to evaluate the market and to get a taste of what is involved in this work before making a major investment to support the new capability.
    • It will also speed the development of expertise to address the new opportunity. If it goes well, the company can consider either a deeper joint venture, hiring the consultant, developing its own capability with internal resources, or a combination of these options.
    • In the short term, this will impact cost and margin but will substantially reduce risk.

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How Do You Build Channel Sales? Three Key Points

Situation: A company has developed a disrupting technology that allows OEM manufacturers to produce high-end machines at a fraction of their current cost. The challenge is that the company does not possess the capacity to reach producers of high-end machines.  The CEO seeks advice on how to efficiently focus channel development. How do you build channel sales?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The dilemma is having a major disrupting technology in a market with a strong division between OEMs servicing the low/medium-end market and those servicing the high-end market.
    • This technology collapses the division between the low/medium and the high-end markets.
    • This shift disrupts the current business models of either group of OEMs, as well as their technology development plans. This is the source of resistance.
  • Therefore, the most promising channel development partner is either:
    • A low/medium-end OEM who is also a disrupter and who has the capability to develop a high-end sales and marketing effort; or
    • A high-end OEM that knows the market but who’s current strategy is failing and needs an entirely different solution to revive their prospects.
  • The near-term task is to gain market capability – both manufacturing and marketing/sales – and to use this capability to gain early market acceptance.
    • If, over the next 12 months, the company can begin to impact the market shares of the high-end OEMs, this is the surest way to gain their attention. Once the company starts to gain share, a likely outcome is that one of the high-end OEMs will buy the company to lock up their IP.
  • Another company used a similar strategy several years ago.
    • They entered a new market by way of a business collaboration with a high-visibility partner.
    • In one year, they took 30% market share from the market leader through this collaboration.
    • As a result, the market leader bought them because “it was less expensive to buy you than to spend the marketing dollars that we would have had to spend to compete against you.”

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How Do You Improve Your Company Presentation? Four Points

Situation: The CEO of a specialty company that is a leader in their market asked the group to review the company presentation. The members of the group were asked to put themselves in the place of a potential customer or investor. How do you improve your company presentation?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Don’t assume that the audience has a sophisticated understanding either of the company’s market or its technology. In any pitch either to a new prospect or for funding there will be individuals in the audience who are not experts. The pitch needs to deliver a message that any listener can easily translate to any colleague.
    • Give brief examples from the experience of current customers to make the technology and its advantages concrete.
  • What is the problem that the company solves?
    • State up front: What is the pain – why is it there? How does the company’s solution address this pain? What’s the impact?
    • Show market potential and explain why the company’s solution will be a home run.
    • What makes the company’s solution unique and gives it a sustainable advantage?
    • Assume Ignorance – KISS – Keep It Simple Silly!
    • The presentation should be high level, easy to understand, and crystal clear in 5 minutes.
  • Establish credibility by summarizing current success and list the names of current customers.
  • For presentations to investors have ready answers for the following questions:
    • How the funding sought accelerate development, and what is the expected return that this will produce?
    • Assure that timelines are realistic, particularly for a ground-breaking technology.
    • Do not be vague in answers to questions like “what is your market share?” Answers must be crisp and believable. If additional documentation is required to validate company estimates have a back-up slide in the presentation to address this. Keep the explanation in the back-up slide simple, even if the analysis is complex.
    • Add an expectation of return on investment. What equity will the company give for an investment of $X. State the company’s pre-money valuation as a believable number. Then give an estimated 3-year post money valuation with $X investment. Investors will discount anything number given but will not want a range.

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How Do You Keep a Company Afloat Short-term? Three Points

Situation: The CEO of a service company continually finds the company short of cash. They have just hired a new accountant, but it will take time for this individual to understand the financial situation and to generate recommendations to improve cash flow. How do you keep a company afloat short-term?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Point #1: This isn’t just a question of controlling costs; the company needs to build the infrastructure to succeed.
    • If there isn’t someone on the team in a position of authority, who the CEO can trust completely, hire this person. The CEO can’t control all risks.
    • While the company has shrunk over the last two years, it is still a substantial company and needs professional management. To grow effectively, professionals are required in key leadership positions. If necessary, hire experienced outside talent
    • Look for teachable moments as challenges arrive. The CEO, instead of solving a problem, should work with employees and mentor them through discovering and implementing solutions.
    • How to communicate this to current staff?
      • Put the story together. Be able to make a clear statement to them, including the current situation and future possibilities for which the company must prepare.
      • Generate charts and metrics to support key points.
      • Use senior staff as the mouthpieces to present the story to the rest of the organization. Once they are onboard, have them help craft the message. Don’t underestimate the CEO’s authority. This is business, not a popularity contest.
      • Let others make mistakes – it is part of the learning process – no matter how critical the situation.
  • Point #2 – Return to the company’s roots.
    • The faster everyone accepts that a focused approach is the only way to survive, the faster the company will turn around. Reestablishing company presence in key markets with a new model that speaks to their desires makes a lot of sense.
    • Be very clear as to what flat-rate service pricing covers. Include this in the signed customer agreement. Don’t allow costs to creep up or it will kill the profitability of flat rate jobs.
  • Create an infrastructure nimble enough to adapt as market conditions change. Identify what really works and focus on this.

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How Do You Choose Between Strategic Options? Four Points

Situation: The founding CEO of a technology company is considering options for the future. The company is doing well, with two options for future development either within or outside the company. How do you choose between strategic options?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Domain expertise is less important than business experience, P&L experience, and fund-raising success. A diversified background and successful experience as a CEO are as important as specialty industry experience.
    • Continue to pursue all options for the time being. See how the new opportunities mature before making final choices, and either split time between the options or assign good managers to oversee each.
    • Ownership agreements should be based on cash investment of the parties – not time and effort.
  • Option #1 – Focus on the primary company.
    • A challenge is that most of the Board members just see the numbers, not the dynamics of day-to-day operations. They don’t know the CEO’s contribution.
    • Assure that the Board understands the CEO’s contribution and is rewarding the CEO appropriately.
  • Option #2 – Focus on New Opportunity #1.
    • Is this option more like a product or a company?
    • Consider this option as a product incubator rather than a single product company – producing and spinning off a series of ideas for development.
    • This can be done either within the primary company or as an outside effort.
  • Option #3 – Focus on New Opportunity #2.
    • Software development can be self-funding. Compared with manufacturing, software is inexpensive to develop and requires little investment to scale and sell once the code is written.
    • The trick is to rigorously focus on market opportunity while minimizing cost.
    • Watch staffing commitments. Use scarce resources to lock up irreplaceable capabilities. Hire or offer equity only for significant contributions such as IP development. For labor, use consultants, independent contract arrangements, or look for what can be outsourced.
    • Like Option #2 this can be done either within the primary company or as an outside effort.

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