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How First Impressions Can Drive the Value of Your Business
The initial impression customers have of your business often influences how much they decide to spend with your company. This is well known, but have you ever considered how first impressions affect the way potential investors value your business?
When raising capital, investors’ initial perception of your business significantly impacts their valuation, affecting both the equity you’ll need to give up for growth and the company’s value when selling.
Take Jeremy Parker’s experience raising money for Swag.com as an example. Investors initially perceived Swag.com as a simple distributor of promotional products. Despite Parker’s efforts to position the company as more than a middleman, investors weren’t convinced. They categorized Swag.com with other promotional product companies, offering Parker a low single-digit multiple of EBITDA for a stake in his business.
Parker re-strategized, presenting Swag.com as an e-commerce platform with a memorable domain name and a world-class, elegant, direct-to-consumer buying experience. This shift in perception transformed Swag.com from a simple distributor to a technology company in investors’ eyes. As a result, Parker received an acquisition offer that valued his $30 million company at a healthy multiple of revenue.