At TechTO, Bitmaker Labs founder Andrew Mawer shared a story many startups can either relate to or want to know more about — the process of being acquired.
Mawer co-founded Bitmaker in 2012 and sold Bitmaker to General Assembly this year.
He touched on the reasons a company might want to consider selling, how to consider an acquirer, and the gruelling paperwork process.
“If you have a good company that you’ve built, you’ve probably already had inbound interest. If you don’t like the bidders, source some yourself because there are only handcuffs if you don’t like the people who bought you,” said Mawer.
He also touched on the biggest question of the acquisition process: how do you measure the price of the acquisition?
“The one thing a lot of people rely on are multiples of revenue… the problem is a lot of these are flawed to begin with and rely on predictable future cash flows, which in a volatile environment doesn’t really exist,” Mawer said. “Pick a multiple that gets you and your sellers the highest return. It’s easy.”
Watch the video below:
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