Nicholas Willson Email & Phone Number

A few years ago, as the CEO and one of 2 private owners, I transitioned my medical device business through a successful, all cash sale to a Fortune 200 company.It was one of the hardest experiences of my business career. David vs. Goliath!I learned that even a highly profitable business needs to take major steps to prepare itself to appeal to a larger acquirer. The numbers do not simply speak for themselves.Selling your business, or other liquidity event, requires a well thought out, well implemented Exit Strategy. This is in addition to 3 years of a growing P&L and a strong Balance Sheet - if your business is to be acquired for maximum value in a relatively painless way by a strategic or financial buyer.Since then, I have worked closely with many middle market companies. All founder-entrepreneurs want a successful exit. Yes, it is important to enjoy the journey, but we all dream about the destination. My work is about getting to the destination. The final mile, as it were.I consult to a select few businesses as The Exit Strategists. This is a specialty consulting niche, and the work is intense and largely one-on-one with the company's principal owner-manager. I draw upon my network of professional advisers - business lawyers, HR specialists, IP specialists, temporary CFOs, tax advisers, investment bankers - to create and implement an Exit Plan that will succeed.Typically, the part time work lasts 12-24 months, plus 6-12 months actively selling the business. Together, we ensure that your company presents as an "outstanding" acquisition target, with multiple "must have" assets, in a non "owner-centric" way, to a "expanded range" of qualified, motivated business acquirer companies and/or institutions.There is no cookie-cutter approach. All business situations, and all owner situations are unique. It is likely that a founder-manager will have created the business in her (or his) image. That worked for many years. Now we have to re-configure and de-personalize some of that image. Think of the analog of selling your family home. It is on a smaller scale, and the timeframe is shorter. Consider the myriad of steps you took (or would take) to sell the family home that you had lived in for many years. You want to maximize value, minimize the time on market, and make the process as relatively stress free as possible.That is the work of The Exit Strategists.I work with substantial, privately held, typically family owned companies, that are valued in the $10 mm - $100 mm range, or more.Email: nick@exitstrategists.net

Listed skills include Entrepreneurship, Mergers And Acquisitions, Start Ups, Business Strategy, and 22 others.