Published June 27, 2026 · Updated August 21, 2026
Pedro Oliveira, Founder & Principal, Renova Strategy
The best time to start thinking about an exit is before you need one. I know that now. I didn’t always.
I started my first business in 2011. By 2014 it worked. It produced. Clients were happy, revenue was coming in, and honestly, I was proud of what I had built. What I didn’t have, and didn’t yet understand I was missing, was an acquirable business. One that someone else could value, step into, and run without me.
I didn’t start thinking that way until 2015. And even by 2017, when I went through my first acquisition, my business wasn’t ready for it. There were things I didn’t know to think about. Things I wish someone had walked me through before I sat across the table from a buyer.
It took going through an acquisition of my own in 2022, and then selling another business in 2025, to fully understand what it actually takes. How a buyer looks at what you’ve built. What they’re really asking when they’re doing due diligence. And how much value gets left on the table when a business goes to market before it’s truly ready.
This is the distinction most owners never see until it’s too late.
A business that works is one where the revenue comes in, the clients are happy, and things get done. A business that sells is one where a buyer can look under the hood, understand exactly what they’re getting, and see a future that doesn’t depend on you being there every day to hold it together.
That second part is where most small businesses fall short. Not because the business isn’t good. Because it was never built with a buyer in mind.
When I was on the other side of a deal, I wasn’t just looking at revenue numbers. I was asking a completely different set of questions.
Is this revenue predictable, or does it walk out the door when the owner does? Are there processes in place, or does everything live in someone’s head? What’s the customer concentration look like, is one client responsible for 40% of the revenue? What happens to this business if one key person leaves?
And here’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough: many acquisitions include earn-out clauses. Part of what you get paid depends on how the business performs after the deal closes, sometimes for years. That changes everything. It means the business doesn’t just need to look good at closing. It needs to actually be a solid acquisition for the person buying it, one that holds up and grows without you running it day to day.
This is where preparation makes the biggest difference.
Most small businesses can benefit from one to two years of intentional work before going to market. Cleaning up the financials. Reducing dependency on any one client, vendor, or person. Getting the right processes documented. Building the kind of recurring revenue a buyer gets excited about instead of nervous about.
The gap between what a business is worth today and what it could be worth after that kind of preparation is often significant. And most owners never close that gap because they never looked at their business through a buyer’s eyes until they were already in the middle of a deal.
Even if a sale is five years away, or not on your radar at all, looking at your business this way makes it better. More resilient. Less dependent on any one thing. More valuable, whether you sell it or not.
At Renova Strategy, this is one of the conversations we have with owners long before a deal is on the table. Not because we’re pushing anyone toward an exit, but because the businesses that are most ready to sell are usually the strongest businesses, period.
If you’ve never looked at your business through a buyer’s eyes, it’s worth doing. You might be surprised by what you see.
If you want to talk through where your business stands, that is exactly what we do.