Never reveal your minimum price in a business sale

Thank you very much for the invitation. Hello, everyone.

Yeah, thank you very much. Well, I spent indeed almost twelve years in Shell. so it was a long journey. it is a company that I really love and I we will never s hear me say something bad about the company. Great company, great culture, great people. I really can recommend anyone who is looking for a corporate career to to try Shell. At least when I was there it was an amazing amazing Time, a lot of things that I learned and great people that I met, and I always remember it in with good thoughts. after I did 10 years there, I was kind of already thinking that I wanted to do something on my own. so this was already an idea I had in my in my mind. also, as in any big company and big corporation. You can feel that there are certain people that are heavy strongly motivated, they wanna do everything, they wanna add a lot of value, they wanna push. And then there are other people who are still very good workers, hard workers, but you know, they're more relaxed, they're they feel where well where they are. And this at some point started annoying me. so these two things combined kind of made the decision. when I was also invited to become a w a founding partner for Next Story, I completely didn't have second thoughts. I immediately said yes. even though I knew it would take a I would have to take a hit on my finances, it was the the right time to to do something else.

Yes. so yes, we do MA advisory for founder-led tech companies. and in most cases it is the first time that it is the first exit for the founder that we work with, which means that they have not experienced a real MA process. And a real MA process can be very time consuming. very tiring and emotionally draining because there are always some hiccups, some negotiations along the entire process which can last for six, twelve, eighteen months. And there could be cases where you receive an offer, it is it sounds great, but actually something and and you sign it and you move forward, but something Bad turns out that the buyer walks away and it can be very, very emotionally draining. And honestly, this is kind of the key role and and the the most difficult part of our job is to keep the founders emotionally sound, to educate them on the process, to tell them that these are normal things and they should not act emotionally, they should not react emotionally to all of the things that are happening. to help them keep their feet feet on the ground because they know that it can be a really life-changing if they manage to exit the business. they can some want to retire, some want to invest and buy an another company and to to grow further. and this huge change that this exit can lead to naturally creates a lot of emotions for them. And it is our job to keep them on their feet, to keep them checked. And sometimes we don't succeed actually.

thank you. It's it's a very good question. There is a lot that founders don't know. and it is just because you can only gain this knowledge through experience. It's not something that you write in the books. Whatever books you read about MA, unless you have been in a number of different situations, you will not learn it. You you just need to experience it. for example, a lot of people think that withholding information in negotiations is very important. And it is, but it is important with to withhold the right information. For example, you never sh share what's your what's the minimum price that you are gonna sell the company for, right? But it is important to share information that is might be relevant for the other party and is not that relevant for you. it is important to be able to read between the lines and to understand what motivates the other party, what is their driving force. And wherever you see that you can give away something that for you is not important but might be important for for the other party. to use it and to use it in the right time, in the right place, in order to get something in return. That's so there are a lot of small things and and things that you you can only learn through experience. That that's it.

MA of A AI in MA is definitely entering and entering fast. I still think it's so far impossible to replace the human factor in an MA transaction mainly because of this. managing different situations, managing emotions, managing people. this is the the part that so far at least AI cannot replace. But otherwise we use a lot of AI for example when we are doing the sourcing of buyers for a specific target. You know there are tens of thousands of companies worldwide that could be potentially good acquirers for a particular target company and using AI makes you better in identifying the right buyers and then afterwards achieving the better outcome the best possible outcome for a from a transaction so yes ai is a key factor and is becoming more and more important

Definitely use an experienced advisor. I would and not because I'm doing that. I I really have seen it in action. Don't do it yourself unless you have experience in MA. I think this is the first and foremost important factor. The buyers that you're gonna be negotiating with, they're very experienced in what they do. They know what Push what motivates the the founder, what can get him in a tight spot, and they use that and they will be using that. And you need to have someone in the middle who knows their what they do and how they do it in order to protect you and in order to give you the the best possible outcome. So my my real first and more foremost important advice is use use an advisor. then second thing, definitely use the advisor from an early stage. Don't include an advisor late in the process once you have already started. Because the advisor can help you structure the finances, structure the company in the right way so that when you go to the market, you're actually ready and you can achieve the outcome that you're looking for.

I'd say more of the same. You know, we're we've been growing very well over the last few years. we have now structured our ways and work ways of working and operations in a in a very lean and efficient way, but also in a way that really helps add value to to an MA process so we are able to service our customers better. so it's really growth opening new offices entering new geographies even though we're already global and we're working with companies from all over the world. but the still the most exciting part of the journey is working with founders, with great people that have built something amazing and helping them capitalize on their efforts. So I while growing the company is important, I still plan to remain focused on leading processes myself because this is really what excites me about about my work.

there there are a lot lots of things that I would change from current perspective. We actually started with e commerce, because when we started the company it was the boom of e commerce in twenty twenty one. with COVID. so everyone thought that everyone will continue buying online and e-commerce will continue growing like crazy. There were millions and billions poured into e commerce and then in twenty twenty-two suddenly things dramatically changed back to you know shopping in retail face to face life etc. Of course some things stayed Being able to do this virtual work. But we had to pivot from e-commerce to tech so that we have because e-commerce MA market almost completely died for for a couple of years. It was really, really difficult. So for starter, this is something that I would change and start with tech right from the beginning. but you know, it's important to adjust to be able to be flexible. In reality MA for e commerce or tech or industrials, some people might say it's a completely different thing, but in reality it's it's not. as long as you know how to do the process, how to find the buyers, how to negotiate, how to maintain relationships. again, reading between the lines of what motivates the different parties, it's all of the same. Yeah, okay, finance financials might be a bit more complex on the industrial companies, but you know, this is stuff that every finance analyst can do. so experience in in MA is what matters and is is fine to do different sectors.

I'm available on LinkedIn. you can search me. Not too many netko kolevs out there. so you will be i able to find me easily. my email can be shared as well. but reach out to me on LinkedIn and we can take it from there.

Thank you, Mick.