Most founders sell a business once, with no idea what they're doing. Shivani Gupta refused to go in blind.

Before she sold her wellness business, Shivani tracked down more than 20 founders who'd already exited and asked every one of them the same questions. What did you sell for, did you use a multiple of EBIT, what would you do again, what would you never do again. She put every answer into a spreadsheet, found the three lessons that came up most often, and applied all three. It added 25% to her final sale price, with no broker. A former electrical engineer who left corporate life after a trip to Nepal, Shivani had already built the business to 10X and exited at 11X. This conversation is the closest thing to an exit strategy masterclass you'll get from someone who taught herself the whole thing.

We get into:

• The research p ...