Exit Strategy

Definition

The plan for how founders and investors will eventually cash out, ranging from IPO to acquisition to quietly shutting down and pretending it never happened. It's planning your escape route before you've even built the building.

Example Usage

"Our exit strategy is to get acquired by Google, which is also our backup plan, our plan B, and the only reason our investors haven't fled."

Related Terms

Beginner

growth stage

The phase when a startup has proven product-market fit and focuses on scaling revenue, typically raising Series B or C funding. Where dreams of changing the world meet the reality of quarterly revenue targets.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

Cap Table

A spreadsheet that tracks who owns what percentage of a company, growing increasingly depressing with each funding round as the founders' share shrinks like a wool sweater in a dryer. It's the scoreboard of startup capitalism.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

lifestyle business

A profitable company designed to generate comfortable income for its founders rather than pursue hypergrowth and venture returns. The entrepreneurial equivalent of choosing happiness over glory.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

scaling

The corporate fantasy of growing a business exponentially while somehow maintaining quality, usually uttered right before everything falls apart. It's the process of increasing capacity to handle growth—or in startup speak, the thing you'll figure out later after raising millions in VC funding. In tech, it means making systems handle more users; in reality, it means discovering all the shortcuts you took when building the foundation.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

spray and pray

An investment strategy of making many small bets across countless startups, hoping a few will hit big enough to compensate for the inevitable carnage. The venture capital equivalent of buying lottery tickets in bulk.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

equity financing

Raising capital by selling ownership stakes in the company rather than borrowing money. It's the fundamental bargain of venture capital: you get money now, investors get a piece of your future success (or failure).

🚀 Startup / VC

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