Exit Strategy

In 2009 I can remember attending a business networking function where one of the topics was an exit strategy.

To me an exit strategy sounded like something you had when you wanted to quit your business, the key and most offensive word for me here was that word, quit — why and who the heck would quit their business?

I’m not one for quitting, not until I have exhausted every possible option available. Even if those options are unrealistic or lead to a pathway that is unclear.

Quitting or exiting your business just didn’t seem to gel with my ideas of success at the time.

Turning Point

3 years later I would go onto to founder a project that would suck up the next 10 years of my life without it even bringing in a dime.

The project started our purely as a tag handler on twitter, it would retweet people that used the tag and would eventually become one of the largest and most well known tags in the South West UK.

A great little promotion tool. Some of the reviews were encouraging including:

Very pro active Networking in Torbaywith a very wide following especially on Twitter but also on FB & Insta.

Theres a great website too

and another said

Amazing, it is a great way of getting local information out there.

There is just one small problem, and most of us in business can already see it. Nice positive reviews don’t pay the bank manager on a Monday morning let alone paying its founder any kind of salary.

The website, the tag and all its digital assets were a lovely, happy service and you know something else, I loved it. I loved helping people, I loved seeing other people grow and succeed in their business. I loved the relationships I built off the back of it and the people I met.

However, fast forward 10 years and one question constantly kept going round and round in my head. How are you going to monetise this website? How is it going to generate revenue to warrant a further 10 years.

The answer hit me like a slap in the face. It won’t.

The truth is information websites like the one I founded only really generate significant amounts of revenue when you build large amounts of traffic with advertisers prepared to invest in the website.

My exit strategy for the website was to accept the inevitable. It was a lovely website, a great idea, but it was never going to generate the kinds of returns I was looking for.

10 years of learning

I had tried for years to build up audience, push traffic to the website and had got some wins, in fact at its peak the website had over 14,000 followers across the social media world.

It had sponsored various events including a discount card. Launched numerous community projects including research into a local currency as well as raising awareness of the local area and the businesses within it.

I had learned a lot about my local area, at the time, and a lot about the people who lived there. I don’t regret the day I set up the website, the tag or the 10 years I spent working on the project.

Would I do it again? If I did I’d look to sell each tag as a franchise business.

Where did it go wrong?

Ultimately I think it went wrong with the 2/3 rebrands resulting in the website and the business proposition becoming distorted.

The marketing message was all wrong and trying to monetise a service that had been free for so long just wasn’t going to happen.

Conclusion

My exit strategy was pretty final and may not have been the best route to travel down.

However in most business cases the idea is to sell the business on to someone else and move onto your next project.

For me, selling a business with no turnover but a fantastic brand just didn’t make sense to me.