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Four Buyer Categories Framework
A systematic way to categorize potential acquirers into four distinct types based on their acquisition motivations and strategic needs.
How It Works
Different buyer types have different pain points, decision-making processes, and valuation approaches. By categorizing buyers, you can tailor your approach and messaging to each type's specific motivations.
Components
Unicorns: High-growth companies seeking to accelerate growth
Dying Dinosaurs: Incumbent companies needing fresh blood/tech
Adjacent Alligators: Peers/competitors for merger synergies
Talent Farms: Large companies primarily wanting your team
When to Use
During the initial phases of exploring a sale when you need to identify and prioritize potential buyers.
When Not to Use
When you already have a specific strategic buyer identified or when doing a pure financial sale to private equity.
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
Example
“A B2B SaaS company maps potential buyers: Salesforce (unicorn seeking growth), IBM (dying dinosaur needing modern tech), HubSpot (adjacent alligator), and Google (talent farm wanting engineers).”
Related Knowledge
Gather comprehensive intelligence on potential acquirers to position your company optimally
Having detailed insights into buyer priorities, pain points, decision makers, and internal dynamics before your first pi
Create comprehensive materials that remove all friction from the buying decision
Buyers can easily understand your value proposition, team, technology, and strategic fit without additional meetings or
Manage multiple potential buyers simultaneously to create leverage and maximize valuation
Multiple term sheets arriving within the same week, allowing you to negotiate better terms by creating competitive tensi
transparency-timing-mistake
DENNIS System for M&A
A systematic 6-step approach to selling your company, adapted from the comedy show Always Sunny in Philadelphia's 'DENNIS System' for dating.
Startup Sale Readiness Assessment
A four-question framework to assess whether you should sell your startup by comparing your current beliefs against your founding assumptions.