Exit

Exit is the M&A and succession planning workspace for founders preparing to sell, merge, transfer, or wind down their business. It is built around the idea that exits are processes, not events — and that founders who prepare systematically get better terms, cleaner transactions, and fewer surprises.

The workspace gives you a strategy definition area, a six-category readiness assessment, a buyer pipeline Kanban, a data room tracker, a diligence request log, a closing checklist, and an AI document generator for exit materials.

Overview

The Overview tab provides a snapshot of your exit workspace at a glance: exit type, target valuation, readiness score, buyer pipeline summary, and data room status.

Use the overview to orient quickly before a buyer conversation, to onboard a new advisor, or to check your current position before deciding whether to start a formal process.

Tips:

• The readiness score aggregates your six category scores. Watch it improve as you work through gaps.
• Low buyer pipeline numbers are expected early in the process — focus on strategy and readiness before running active outreach.
• A clear overview is also useful for co-founders or board members who are not deep in the day-to-day exit work.

Strategy

The Strategy tab is where you define the shape and intent of your exit — the type, timeline, valuation target, acceptable deal structures, non-negotiables, and advisor context.

Exit type:

• Acquisition — Sale of the company to a strategic or financial buyer.
• Merger — Combination with another company, often with shared equity.
• MBO — Management buyout: the existing management team acquires the business.
• IPO — Initial public offering; requires substantial preparation and regulatory compliance.
• Wind-down — Orderly closure of the business, often asset by asset.
• Succession — Transfer of ownership to family, employees, or other designated successors.

Key fields:

• Target timeline — Realistic window for completing the exit. Shapes how urgently you need to prepare now.
• Target valuation — The outcome you are aiming for, grounded in revenue multiples, comparable exits, or EBITDA benchmarks. Use this as your anchor in early buyer conversations.
• Deal structures — Mark all structures you are open to: all-cash, earnout, equity rollover, mixed, or TBD. Each has different risk profiles and implications for your post-close obligations.
• Non-negotiables — Terms or conditions that would cause you to walk away from an otherwise acceptable offer. Define these before you have an LOI in front of you.
• Advisor notes — Context for M&A counsel, investment bankers, or legal advisors. Document your strategic rationale, key constraints, and any prior conversations with buyers.

Tips:

• Earnout-heavy structures often return less than their headline number. Model the scenarios before agreeing in principle.
• Non-negotiables are strongest when documented before negotiations start. Defining them mid-process looks reactive.
• Share your advisor notes with any external M&A counsel before kickoff so they can advise from your actual position rather than a generic one.

Readiness

The Readiness tab scores your business across six categories — each representing an area buyers and their advisors will examine during diligence. Each category gets a score (0–5), notes on the current state, and a gaps field for specific issues.

Categories:

• Financials — Audited or reviewed financials, clean bookkeeping, revenue recognition, cost structure, and financial projections. Most buyers start here.
• Legal and IP — Entity documents, IP ownership assignments, employment and contractor agreements, outstanding litigation, and regulatory compliance.
• Operations — Documented processes, vendor contracts, operational dependencies, and business continuity. Buyers care whether the business can run without you.
• Technical — Architecture documentation, code ownership, technical debt, security posture, and infrastructure dependencies for software businesses.
• Commercial — Customer contracts, concentration risk, pipeline health, revenue quality, churn, and NPS. The commercial story is the core of your valuation case.
• Team — Key employee retention plans, org chart, reporting lines, management capability, and succession for critical roles.

Score guide:

• 0 — Not started or significant issues present.
• 1–2 — Early stage or substantial gaps remain.
• 3 — Functional but with known gaps.
• 4 — Largely ready with minor outstanding items.
• 5 — Fully diligence-ready.

Tips:

• Score honestly. A 2 with a clear remediation plan is better than a 4 that falls apart under examination.
• Use the gaps field for specifics — not "legal needs work" but "three contractor IP assignment agreements outstanding."
• Legal and IP readiness is the most commonly underestimated category. Audit it first.
• Revisit scores quarterly and track improvement. Consistent progress is a credible story for buyers and advisors.

Buyer Pipeline

The Buyers tab is a Kanban pipeline where each card is a prospective buyer and each column is a stage in your exit process. Run it like a sales process: keep it current, track next steps, and manage timing deliberately.

Stages:

• Target — Buyers identified as a fit but not yet approached.
• Engaged — Initial contact made; conversation in progress.
• NDA — Non-disclosure agreement signed; information sharing can begin.
• IOI — Indication of interest received; buyer has expressed a preliminary valuation range.
• LOI — Letter of intent signed; exclusivity or near-exclusivity in effect.
• Diligence — Formal due diligence underway.
• Closing — Definitive agreement signed; closing conditions being satisfied.
• Closed — Transaction completed.
• Passed — Buyer declined or process terminated.

Tips:

• Run two to three buyers through the IOI stage simultaneously to create legitimate competitive tension before moving to LOI exclusivity.
• Use the NDA stage deliberately — only share sensitive materials after an NDA is signed.
• Keep next steps and due dates current. A buyer card without a next step is a stalled conversation.
• Log all meetings and key decisions on the buyer card to build an audit trail for your advisors and legal counsel.

Buyer Fields

Each buyer record has three groups of fields accessible through the Add or Edit dialog.

Overview fields:

• Name — The buyer's name or primary contact.
• Company — The acquiring entity or firm.
• Stage — The pipeline stage the buyer is currently in.
• Buyer type — Strategic buyer, private equity, family office, individual, or other.
• Next step — The specific action needed to advance the conversation.
• Due date — When the next step should happen.
• Notes — Context, background, prior relationship, or anything else useful to remember.

Deal fields:

• Indicative value — The buyer's indicated or offered valuation range.
• Deal structure preference — Whether the buyer favours all-cash, earnout, equity rollover, or mixed structures.
• Synergies noted — Key strategic rationale the buyer has articulated.
• Exclusivity — Whether the buyer has requested or received exclusivity.
• Advisor / counsel — The buyer's M&A advisor or legal counsel.

Pass fields (visible for Passed buyers):

• Pass reason — Why the buyer declined or why the process was terminated.
• Main concern — The primary issue that prevented a deal. Patterns here often reveal positioning gaps.

Data Room

The Data Room tab tracks the readiness status of your diligence materials across seven categories. Each item can be marked Missing, Draft, or Ready.

Categories:

• Financials — Audited statements, management accounts, financial model, KPI data.
• Legal — Corporate documents, material contracts, litigation history, regulatory filings.
• IP — IP ownership assignments, trademark registrations, patent filings, open-source audit.
• Commercial — Customer contracts, pipeline data, pricing model, partner agreements.
• HR — Org chart, employment agreements, option plan, key employee retention agreements.
• Technical — Architecture documentation, code repositories, security audit, infrastructure overview.
• Corporate — Cap table, shareholder agreements, board minutes, corporate governance documents.

Tips:

• Use the Set up checklist button to populate the default item list, then remove items that are not relevant and add deal-specific items.
• Work systematically: Missing → Draft → Ready. Do not mark items ready until they are reviewed and complete.
• Prioritise financials and legal first — these categories are where most formal diligence begins.
• Coordinate the data room structure with your M&A counsel before sharing access. Buyers often judge organisation as a proxy for operational quality.

Diligence

The Diligence tab tracks individual due diligence requests submitted by buyers — their status, category, assigned owner, and which buyer submitted them.

Request statuses:

• Open — Request received and logged; not yet assigned or started.
• In Progress — Being actively worked by the assigned owner.
• Responded — Response sent to the buyer; awaiting acknowledgement or follow-up.
• Closed — Request fully resolved.

Tips:

• Log every request immediately when received. Unlogged requests become missed requests.
• Assign a clear owner to each request. Unowned requests stall.
• Use the In Progress status to signal to buyers that requests are being actively addressed — this maintains confidence during an intensive process.
• Look for patterns across requests from a single buyer. Clustered questions in one area often signal a concern worth addressing proactively in a management presentation.

Closing

The Closing tab is a structured checklist of the tasks required to move from a signed LOI to a completed transaction. Each item is assigned to an owner: seller, buyer, or shared.

The default checklist covers the standard closing sequence for an asset or share sale. Add, remove, or modify items to reflect your specific deal structure and jurisdiction.

Owner types:

• Seller — Actions that are your responsibility or your counsel's.
• Buyer — Actions that are the buyer's responsibility. Track these to follow up and avoid close delays.
• Shared — Actions requiring input from both parties.

Tips:

• Load the default checklist at the start of the closing phase and customise it immediately.
• Review the checklist weekly with your advisors and mark items complete as they are confirmed done.
• Buyer-side items that are incomplete near the close date are legitimate leverage points. Know which ones are blocking completion.
• Share the checklist with your legal counsel at kickoff so all parties are aligned on scope and ownership.

Documents

The Documents tab generates exit-ready materials from your workspace data using AI. Documents are stored and editable in the workspace after generation.

Document types:

• Teaser — A one to two page anonymous overview of the business for initial buyer qualification. Typically the first document shared.
• Executive Summary — A concise, named overview covering the business, opportunity, and ask.
• CIM (Confidential Information Memorandum) — A detailed document covering business overview, financials, market position, team, and deal rationale. Shared post-NDA.
• Management Presentation — A slide-format narrative for management meetings and buyer presentations.
• Financial Summary — A structured overview of historical performance, KPIs, and projections.
• Buyer Outreach Template — An initial contact template for approaching prospective buyers.
• NDA Template — A mutual NDA template for use before sharing sensitive materials.
• LOI Summary — A plain-English explanation of LOI terms, exclusivity implications, and key negotiation points.
• Closing Memo — A summary of deal terms, closing conditions, and post-close obligations.

Tips:

• Fill in your strategy, readiness, and buyer context before generating documents. The AI uses that data to produce specific, not generic, output.
• Edit every generated document before sharing. AI output is a strong first draft, not a finished product.
• The teaser and executive summary are the highest-priority documents — generate and refine them first.
• Export the full bundle as Markdown to share with your M&A advisor or import into a data room tool.