322: Building to Sell: How to Get the Maximum Value for Your Online Business

Are you building to sell? You should be. Even if selling isn’t your main priority it will make you a better business owner and it will make the value of your business higher. This episode has the details of how to do it. 

Joe Valley is the author of The Exitpreneur’s Playbook and a buyer and seller of many online businesses, both on his own and now as a broker with Quietlight.com. 

Joe’s book is designed to help you get maximum value for your online business and in this episode we go deep into his vast knowledge of building to sell. He answers a ton of questions you should be asking when you’re thinking about selling your business, what multiples to look at for eCommerce, plus he shares mistakes you might be making now and how to prevent those BEFORE you’re getting ready to sell. 

It's an excellent interview and Joe is truly an expert in building to sell. If you’re ever going to want to sell your business or have thought about buying a business in the future you’re going to get a ton of value in this episode. 

Episode Highlights:

• 4:03 Why Joe wrote his book
• 6:14 Who an Exitpreneur is and building to sell
• 7:11 The argument for building and selling a business
• 10:17 How Joe sets tangible goals with real data
• 11:41 Where to start when determining the value of your business 
• 17:09 How to find a good bookkeeper 
• 18:47 The multiple you should be looking for in eCommerce
• 22:13 Why you should separate inventory when looking at the value of a business 
• 24:19 Joe’s take on aggregators and the roll-ups of FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) and Shopify stores
• 29:50 Things to look out for in deal terms and the “stability payment” 
• 32:19 Do roll-ups blow up or end up incredibly successful?
• 34:36 When you should start planning if you’re building to sell your business 
• 36:46 How to “exit without exiting” 
• 39:06 Is there a sweet spot for time to sell a business?
• 42:09 Joe’s first 3 actions to have success with your first acquisition
• 46:31 How deals are financed on Joe’s site
• 50:32 What Joe’s excited about right now

Resources:

• Quietlight.com
• Exitpreneur.io
• Book: The Exitpreneur’s Playbook by Joe Valley
• Book: Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel
• Centurica.com Market Watch 
• Boopos.fund
• The Coalition
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• Review or subscribe on iTunes