The Exit Strategy 82% of Founders Get Wrong

Description

12 exits. $925 million. And Gregory Shepard told me the one thing that nearly destroyed every single one of them was something no founder ever sees coming.

Gregory Shepard is a serial entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and author of The Startup Lifecycle who has spent five years researching why over 90% of startups fail using 210,000 case studies.

He walked me through the whiteboard technique he used to reverse engineer his own mistakes across three decades of building and scaling companies and the mindset shift around exit planning that changed everything.

We got into some really honest territory around what hustle culture actually cost him, why he believes the people giving founders advice on growth and valuation are often the ones doing the most damage, and a dead simple piece of exit strategy advice for business owners who think they have left it too late to sell.

This one is packed full of golden nuggets

In this episode we cover

The real reason most startups fail and why nobody talks about it
The question you should be asking yourself every week that could save your business years of pain
The exit strategy mistake that keeps 82% of business owners trapped
Why the people you trust most might be giving you the worst advice
The signal that tells you exactly when to sell before you are left without a chair

Enjoyed today’s episode? Leave a review over on Apple or Spotify. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-business-strategist-with-adam-strong/id1518654325

https://open.spotify.com/show/4vKVMmsZ4MwVooQOlEAzrd

00:00 Introduction

02:54 Reflections on Early Entrepreneurship

07:17 Learning from Mistakes

12:15 The Importance of Documentation

14:06 Pivotal Realisations in Business

20:47 The Impact of Hardship on Resilience

21:37 Balancing Multiple Startups

24:26 Motivation Behind the Hustle

26:30 Evolving Definitions of Wealth

27:43 Mindset Shifts in Exiting Businesses