Week 13 Reading Reflection

Another chapter of the book focused on the financials but this time primarily on valuation in the event of selling the venture out to potential acquired. The author highlights the different methods such as discounted cash flows where the projected earnings for the life of the firm are discounted back to time zero to find a net present value for the firm. However I believe the views of the options in this chapter are rather simplistic and in fact the range of options is much wider; I would like to see more about how the founders can still remain involved in the venture after an acquisition has taken place because they’re often given a lot of space and benefits to continue to run the companies that they know best.

Celebrating Failure

         Just this past week I had a presentation for one class which is mostly case-based and in which presentations are worth more than the exams in terms of the grade. I had a lot of work into it together with my group to write the paper we were going to present on and then we also put a lot of effort into making sure then presentation would go smoothly. The morning of the presentation I woke up feeling unwell and yet I was not worried because I thought I had prepared well and by this time with the experience gained over the years I had overcome my fears of speaking before others. However as I approached the end of my segment, I phased out for a moment and forgot the last two points I was going to make. I took a moment to try to remember and could not even though had I just looked at one of the screens in front of me, these points were highlighted in that slide. I just had a moment of total black out and passed it over to the next person in the group. Although I was told the class barely noticed, I couldn’t help but blame myself for not having rehearsed enough and affecting our group’s overall performance. I learned that there is no substitute for practice and despite sickness sometimes you just need to pull it together and put forward the best you can.

My Exit Strategy

           I believe that exit strategy is something I would develop at least three years in and that it would a direct result of the progress made at that point. My thought at the moment is I would be willing to test the acquisition market and see if there is a potential large corporation who would be willing to pay a fair market price and who would have a lot to gain from integrating this firm into theirs and are willing to include that value in their valuation. The reason I would sell it so is so I get back to my list of ideas and the pick one that I would like to go with but which I couldn’t because it was too capital intensive for me to afford when I started this one. My entrepreneurship model is Elon Musk, who built company after company with the proceeds of the last one he sold in order to create the capital needed to go after the biggest, craziest ideas he had in mind. I don’t think my exit strategy would affect the way I make decision about the firm, at least until the very end before exit time is up.