Exit Strategy & Long-Term Vision

The business case

Thirteen People, One Billion Dollars — Instagram · United States · April 2012. Instagram launched in October 2010. Roughly eighteen months later, in April 2012, Facebook agreed to acquire it for about one billion dollars.

Why it matters

Value is not one number. It depends entirely on who is buying and why. Founders frequently ask what their business is worth, as though there were a single answer. There is not. A profitable local business is worth a multiple of its earnings to a buyer wanting income. A fast-growing product may be worth far more to a strategic acquirer who needs what it has, and far less to anyone else. Knowing which kind of business you are building determines what you optimise for — and it is better decided deliberately than discovered late.