This hidden lever can multiply your exit value

Most founders overlook one metric that matters when they choose when to sell.

Alexis Grant

November 20, 2025

This hidden lever can multiply your exit value

Episode Length: 9 minutes

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When founders think about what drives their valuation, they tend to focus on the obvious factors: profit, business model, and how involved the owner is in operations.

But there’s one lever that quietly shapes buyer interest far more than most people realize — growth.

Your growth rate doesn’t just show where the business is today; it signals where it’s headed.

Two companies with identical revenue can receive dramatically different offers if one has shown steady momentum and the other has stayed flat. Buyers pay for trajectory, not just performance.

And here’s the twist: while most improvements benefit you whether you sell or keep running the business, growth is the exception.

Consistency may give you a better lifestyle, but if you want to maximize your sale price, growth matters — and timing your exit while you’re still rising often leads to a higher multiple.

What you’ll learn:

The surprising variable buyers care about most
Why two identical businesses can get wildly different offers
The counterintuitive timing mistake founders often make
How your growth curve influences your valuation
The one exception to “improvements always benefit you now and later”

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Transcript

This is the single most important factor when it comes to selling your business, and most founders just don’t realize it….

A whole bunch of factors influence how much buyers are willing to pay for your business. To name just a few, valuations are based on EBITDA, what type of company you’ve built, how much of the business relies on the founder… and we talk about all of those pieces in another episode.

But today I want to focus on just one piece of the puzzle, and I want to focus on it because most founders come into this process not realizing just how important this is.

I’m talking about growth.

In this context, what we mean by growth, is how much your revenue and your profit have increased over the last couple of years.

This is why, when I talk to founders, I ask about revenue and EBITDA for the most recent year, and then I also ask about the year before that. And it’s good to know what they’re projecting for the current year, too. I want to see not only where the company’s at now, but what their numbers look like in *comparision* to recent years.

In other words, I want to picture their growth curve.

Say two companies are both on track to earn $1M this year, with similar profit margins. And other factors are equal too, like say they’re both SaaS companies.

If one of the companies earned $1M consistently over the last few years, and the other earned $800,000 last year, and $600,000 the year before that…

The company on the growth trajectory would likely attract stronger offers than the company that stayed consistent.

That’s because the buyer is looking not only at where the company has been, but where they’re going. And their track record, ironically, is the greatest predictor of where they’re headed. The company with the faster growth rate would be seen as more attractive to buyers.

OK, so here’s the other thing I think is really interesting about how growth impacts sale opportunities – specifically from the founder’s perspective.

For most of the factors that affect sale price, it benefits the founder to improve them, whether you sell or not. If you make improvements to your business, that makes it a better business for you to run, and it also helps you sell for a higher price if you choose to sell one day.

For example, one great way to increase your sale price is to increase your profit. But this also helps you if you want to hold onto your business, because you get to pocket more money along the way as an owner.

Another example is founder dependency. If you can make your business run without you, a buyer will likely pay more for it than they would if key functions relied on the owner.

From your perspective, it makes sense to delegate and grow a team even if you don’t end up selling the business, because that means you’re less stuck in the day-to-day, and the business is less risky for you.

What I’m saying is, the things you’d do to set yourself up to sell the business for more, are often the same things you’d probably want to do even if you hold onto the business. That’s why it makes sense to do these things now, because you benefit either way.

But growth is the exception to this rule.

If you’re running a business that allows you to bring home a healthy profit year over year, that’s an amazing win. It doesn’t matter whether the company’s making more this year than it did last year if you’re happy with a consistent take-home.

In fact, it might actually be a benefit that the profit is consistent instead of growing, because that might set you up to have a better lifestyle and less stress.

But, if you want to optimize your business to sell, it’s better to show several years of growth. Consistency is OK – and you can certainly sell a great business that’s been consistent – but if you can layer on growth, that will really impact your sale multiple in a meaningful way.

So what does this mean, from a practical perspective?

It means you should think about selling the business when it’s still growing.

This feels counterintuitive to many of us. Why would you sell if the business is headed in the right direction? Shouldn’t you squeeze as much value out of the business as possible before you sell?

But if you wait to sell until the business plateaus, you will simply not command as high of a sale multiple as you would if you sell when the business is growing.

We’ll do another episode that looks more holistically at getting the timing right for your sale.

But for now, just know that your growth rate really matters.

Understanding this early in the game gives you a huge advantage, because you can be really smart about positioning yourself for the best outcome.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.