Most founders expect a premium the first time they hear their company’s valuation. Many hear a discount instead, because buyers don’t price the story of where a business is headed. They price whether it can keep performing after the founder steps back.
In his latest Forbes Business Council article, Ken Paskins explains why buyers pay for predictability, not potential, and where the founder-dependence discount really comes from: decisions that still route through the founder, processes that live in people’s heads, concentrated revenue, and a leadership bench one layer deep. He shares how one company nearly cut the operations leader who made it sellable, and the four questions every founder should ask long before anyone makes an offer.
