P514 - Knowing your “ideal buyer profile” is critical to planning a great exit, with David Eldridge, SaaS Founder, NED and Chair

“The Art of Exiteering”, or taking the long term view, in order to maximise the value of an M&A or IPO — building long term readiness to have a significant and positive impact on that outcome.

Highlights:
- If you are building a great tech company you must have a thorough understanding of the ecosystem you are disrupting
- Partnerships are very important in long term value creation for distribution, innovation, and ultimately exit
- Creating optionality for stakeholders is critical in the exit process

The companies Notion invest in share much in common: they all want to build businesses that dominate categories, that scale and endure. At some point in their journey, they will want to realise the value of their hard work, allowing themselves as founders, and us as funders, to realise our investments. They may end up listing on the public markets or being acquired – the latter being more likely for European companies.  

That exit may well be far in the distance for many founders, even as they achieve significant success. Some people will say, “build a great business and the outcome will take care of itself” and while that is true to an extent, we also believe that long term readiness can have a significant and positive impact on that outcome. We call this “The Art of Exiteering”; taking the long term view, in order to maximise the value of an M&A or IPO

Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou discuss with David Eldridge. David founded Alterian which he led through IPO and subsequent acquisition of four companies; Alterian was then acquired by SDL in 2011. He Chaired Idio, a Notion company for six years which was acquired by Episerver in 2019. David is now the Chair, formerly CEO, and joint founder of 3radical, Chair of Apperio and Non-exec Director at Neighbourly and Precision Point.

Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/knowing-your-ideal-buyer-profile-is-critical-to-planning-a-great-exit/