TechCrunch40: Exit Strategies Panel

The last panel at techcrunch40 is called exit strategies and is moderated by heather harde, techcrunch ceo and includes ted wang, michael montgomery, craig walker, raj kapoor, michael marquez.

Here are my live notes:

Heather - sell when you can and get as much cash as you can. What's the real best way to sell your business for the most amount of cash?

Montgomery - it's about preparation in making sure that you know that you have something special that someone is going to want and then delivering on that something special.

Heather - when was grand central ready to sell?

Craig - we were raising a round b when google gave us a call - the more you want them, the less they want you - thats when the phone rang - the best way to be acquired is to not be acquired

Evan - we werent giving any thought to acquisition with blogger when google came knocking - we were looking at a term sheet - we didnt run an auction - we liked the idea so we went with it

Heather - when do the startups need counsel and or bankers?

Marquez - most of the companies we acquired its about alignment of strategy - do these companies help us with our strategy?

Raj - I made some mistakes with my sales - I had a banker and we had one buyer - and it wasn't that useful to have the banker as they took a lot of the sales price - second time he could have used an auction process.

Montgomery - it's very important that we should be educating our clients so when it does happen they are prepared.

Heather - how does deal making work in CBS?

Maquez - its about alignment of strategy - its also about biz development relationship - startups need to be open to how they play in that ecosystem

Heather - all kinds of valuations - ebitda, etc.  How did you decide what the valuation is?

Craig -  it's hard to get it everyone's mind that there is a massive opportunity - you can go off your userbase and user growth