Good call out! This book was definitely useful in terms of thinking about specialization before testing the market. There was even a sequel to it I believe.

However, the general audience for "Built to Sell" is for SMBs and does not cater towards the venture-backed technology startups here in the valley (who hope for a strategic acquisition instead of a ebidta multiple).

Here are all the materials/books that were useful while I was in the thick of it: Bilal who sold his startup to Amplitude: https://bilalmahmood.medium.com/how-to-sell-your-startup-744... Touraj who is the COO of Serve Robotics and previously did a couple M&As and was leading Corp Dev at GoDaddy: https://www.amazon.com/Exit-Path-How-Startup-Game/dp/1264703... Ezra's book on Magic Box Paradigm: https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Box-Paradigm-Framework-Acquisit...

Congrats on your exit! Your note reminded me something Ezra Roizen wrote in Magic Box Paradigm. Paraphrasing here, he said that M&A outcomes often feel miraculous, but then again, babies are miracles too, and they happen every day :)

thanks for support!

thanks jason, really appreciate the perspective, will checkout your book!

Glad some chapters are helpful, thanks!

Good feedback, I’ll add one later tonight

pdf link added at the bottom of the page

haha sorry this info is under NDA

Depends on who you talk to, 3-5% of total deal size plus a retainer is the norm

Yep. More the smaller the deal. Sub $1M ARR, it can be 10-20%

Good feedback, thanks! Will include a version of the original stream of conscience and raw note in a day or two

I would take back my negative feedback in that case! Am reading the book, content is interesting, but I am never sure what is actually your thought vs LLM fillers!

raw manuscript text here: https://derekyan.com/manuscript/Obsolete%20-%20The%20Secrets...