What if there were no exit?

Photo by Simon Watkinson on Unsplash.

“What’s your exit strategy?”

The familiar question at the familiar stage of an investment pitch. The potential investor across the table from you wants to know how they’re going to get their return on investment.

It’s a fair question, mind. They are ponying up the money, and they have a right to ask it.

But, I cringe when I hear this question.

See, if you’re a founder, if you’ve started a company, you’ve poured your soul into it. That idea that you’ve given birth to, you’ve spilled your guts into it over nights, weekends, and every waking moment. This is not just an idea, a plaything, a side hustle. To you, it’s an obsession.

When you’re talking to an investor for the first time, you’re airing your obsession to someone else, hoping that it will electrify them. You want to see the investor get hooked, to see them jump at the idea of getting involved. You’re on the precipice of a marriage (of your company with an investor).

You’re hoping for the joyful, “Let’s get married! It’s going to be great!”

Instead, you’re getting the jarring, “How profitable will our divorce be?”

The damage is greater than that.

Because the exit-strategy question is such a fashionable mainstay of startup pitches, every entrepreneurship course stresses the seriousness of founders articulating a range of exit strategies from the outset. Students learning about entrepreneurship are made to believe that a company without an exit strategy is not a real company.

Frankly, that shifts the founder’s thinking. Founders feel pressured to pitch an investor on a quick, profitable divorce, instead of seeking what they truly want inside—to build a life-altering, struggle-filled, lasting, beautiful marriage together with the investor.

Let’s talk wedding vows instead.

When I get pitched at by founders of early-stage companies, I stop them at the garden-variety Exit Strategy slide.

I opt to talk about wedding vows instead.

What I want to know from the founder.

• Are you in it for the long haul?
• What is your belief in the venture? Where does your belief come from?
• How big can you grow this company?
• What does this company look like, at its fullest potential?
• If money was no object, how massive could this be?
• How big is the market? How big could you grow the market?
• How much of the market share could you grab? And, how?
• How will you scale, if you see the market demand grow?
• What threats do you see to growing this company to its fullest potential?
• What partnerships do you need, to grow this company to its fullest?
• What skills do you need to acquire, to grow the company to that extent?
• What aspects of running the company are you most ambiguous about?
• What are your biggest sources of uncertainty about the venture?
• What are the mistakes you’re most afraid of making?
• What makes you lose sleep at night?

What I want the founder to ask me.

• Are you it for the long haul?
• What do you see as the fullest potential of my company?
• What are the threats that you see, that I cannot yet see?
• What are the possible mistakes I am making, or could make?
• What are the flawed assumptions I am making?
• What knowledge gaps do I have, that I need to fix, to do this right?
• What skill gaps do I have, that I need to fix?
• What worries you about investing in this company?

I may not jump headlong into every venture that I’m being pitched, but hey, if we decide to get married, I want to know how we’re both all in.

Founder, I’m here to grow this thing with you.

I want honesty, I want authenticity, I want vulnerability.

I care if you have stick-to-itivity, whether you have the grit to persist through the lows as much as you exult through the highs. I care that we fight the lows together. I care that you won’t give up. I care that this is an obsession for you, an all-consuming obsession to see it through.

I want to hear about your deepest fears, I want to hear your candid assessment of your knowledge/skill gaps (so that I can find a way to bridge those gaps), I want to hear the commitment in your words, I want to hear your fears in your voice, and I want to feel the belief in your bones. I want to know that your actions match your words. I care far less about your track-record, your pedigree, your rock-star recommendations, your Board Members, your Advisory Board Members, and your marketing materials. You see, I am not marrying those things. I’m in it for you, for the long, long road-trip with you. Empty gas-tanks, flat tires, broken tail-lights, desolate highways, flying debris, wild animals, roadkill, speed bumps, potholes, low visibility, fog, rain, snow, the works. I’m buckling up, and I’m not bailing.

I want to hear that you are all in. I want you to hear that I am all in. And, once we both internalize that mutual commitment, I want to run a million miles a minute with this thing with you. Together.

Exits are a way out.

I’m far more interested in being all in.

I really don’t have much respect for the people who live their lives motivated by an exit strategy existing, being performed. There was no option that we were trained in that says, ‘If it gets too hard, get up and leave.’ — Andy Grove