When to Sell Your Business--Before It's Too Late

As a founding entrepreneur, it is hard not to always be "in love" with "your baby". You created something from nothing, you nurtured it along the way, and you built something really great. Until the point "your baby" stops growing, your profitability falls with increased competition, and the roller coaster starts picking up speed in the wrong direction, with revenues going down, not up as before.  It is very easy to want to "stay the course" and hope for things to get better in the future. Depending on the root cause of the fall, like a temporary decline in the economy, it very well could rebound. But, there are times when the root cause cannot be fixed, or worse yet, will continue to "snowball" in the wrong direction.  In those scenarios, you need to know when to pull the "ripcord" to save whatever value you have left before your business is worth zero. This post will help you identify what to look for and how to get you and your shareholders a "soft landing" when things start to turn south.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] The Four Pillars of Equity Distribution For Startups

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about how best to split-up the equity between cofounders of a startup.  This video will help you learn how to handle all the key drivers here, like if the cofounder is investing cash, if they are deferring salary, their role in the company and more.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to make sure all cofounders are being treated fairly upfront, so there are no debates about equity interests in the future. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick, Shyann Malone and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.