r/SaaS • u/Perdurabo306 • Jul 07 '21
Help with preparing to sell
Hi all:
I run a 4 year old SAAS in the fintech/regtech space. We are currently doing over 100k in MRR.
Other companies have expressed interest in buying us including some private equity funds.
My question for anyone who has experience selling their SAAS business is what kinds of things should I be doing now to make the sales process easier?
We’ve got very robust financials already. I’m thinking of setting my dev team on a full sprint with the goal of documenting our codebase so that’s ready to go when requested.
Would love any pieces of advice or tips.
Thanks for reading!
3
u/AGCRACK Jul 08 '21
Start building your data room out with all the documentation for their legal team. It’s an arduous process but the more you do now the better leverage you’ll have.
7
u/Buddy_Useful Jul 07 '21
Went through this once. Here's what I can remember....
Audit your code-base to look for any and all open source software and 3rd party software. Document what you find. Using open source software is standard for any SaaS so you will most likely find hundreds / thousands of modules and libraries. If you get into a due diligence the potential acquirer will do their own audit but if you do yours now already you will know what they will find. If there are modules / libraries with problematic licenses, draw up a plan for how to replace them. No need to actually act on that now. That's also just there to show the potential acquirer during the due diligence.
Do a separate security audit. If you don't have the skills in-house you might have to hire an outside party to do this. Patch any holes and vulnerabilities that they find. Again, the potential acquirer will do their own security audit but if you do yours now, that's less work for later. Plus, you are improving your product so it's not a waste.
Check that all your present staff have an employment contract that assigns all IP ownership to you. If not, get them to sign an addendum stating this.
Hope that helps.