The Acquisition Conversation
For founders who might exit one day and have never had the conversation.
Definition
An acquisition conversation system is the outreach and positioning method for founder-to-founder discussions about selling a company, covering how to open credibly, what a buyer actually evaluates, and how to hold your footing when valuation comes up.
Someone might want to buy your company. You have no idea how that conversation starts, and you are frightened of starting it badly.
The outreach and positioning system for founder-to-founder acquisition conversations. How to open, what to send, how to talk about your business to someone evaluating buying it, without looking desperate or naive.
What you get
- The founder-to-founder outreach method, in a register that opens doors instead of signalling desperation
- The asset memorandum structure that makes your business legible to somebody evaluating it
- Positioning language for talking about your own company to a buyer
- The conversation guide for the part where valuation comes up
The problem
Why this keeps happening
Most founders discover the acquisition process by being approached, which means they enter every conversation reactive and uninformed about their own value.
The alternative feels worse: reaching out yourself seems like advertising weakness. It is not, but only if the approach is built correctly.
The founders who exit well usually had the conversation early, more than once, before they needed to. The ones who exit badly started when they had run out of other options.
What is The Acquisition Conversation?
The Acquisition Conversation is an acquisition conversation system is the outreach and positioning method for founder-to-founder discussions about selling a company, covering how to open credibly, what a buyer actually evaluates, and how to hold your footing when valuation comes up.
A founder-to-founder outreach method, the asset memorandum structure that makes a business legible to a buyer, and the positioning language that keeps you credible throughout.
Illustrative diagram. Shape of the argument, not measured data.
How it runs
How does The Acquisition Conversation work, step by step?
The Acquisition Conversation runs in 5 steps: prepare, position, approach, document, hold. Each step is described below with what it produces and why its position in the sequence matters.
- 01
Prepare
Assemble what a buyer actually evaluates, which is rarely what founders think it is.
- 02
Position
Frame the business around what it would be worth to them, not what it cost you.
- 03
Approach
Open founder-to-founder, in a register that reads as an opportunity rather than a plea.
- 04
Document
Build the memorandum that answers the obvious questions before they are asked.
- 05
Hold
Keep your footing through the conversation, especially on valuation.
What is inside
What do you get with The Acquisition Conversation?
The Acquisition Conversation is delivered as a working skill file plus a written companion covering the method. It contains 4 parts: outreach method, asset memorandum, positioning language, conversation guide.
- Outreach method30%
- Asset memorandum30%
- Positioning language25%
- Conversation guide15%
Failure modes
What do people get wrong?
The 4 most common failures are: waiting to be approached; framing around what it cost you; opening with the wrong register; no memorandum. Each one is explained below with why it happens and what to do instead.
- 01
Waiting to be approached
You enter every conversation on their timing, with their framing, and no comparison point.
- 02
Framing around what it cost you
A buyer is not paying for your effort. They are paying for what it is worth to them.
- 03
Opening with the wrong register
A pitch reads as desperation. A founder-to-founder note about a shared market reads as an opportunity.
- 04
No memorandum
If the obvious questions are not answered in a document, they get answered badly in a call.
Someone might want to buy your company. You have no idea how that conversation starts, and you are frightened of starting it badly.
Bhavik Sarkhedi · somewhere over Australia
The alternatives
How does The Acquisition Conversation compare to the alternatives?
There are three ways to solve this: do it yourself, hire it out, or buy the method. The Acquisition Conversation is the third. It costs $25 once, the method stays yours, and you can re-run it without paying again.
| Consideration | Doing it yourself | Hiring it out | This system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who opens it | They do, on their timing | An advisor, for a fee | You, when you choose |
| Cost shape | None, until it costs you | Percentage of the deal | One payment |
| Works below advisor thresholds | n/a | Usually not | Yes |
| You understand your own value | Rarely | Second hand | Yes |
| Repeatable with several buyers | No | Expensive | Yes |
Key terms
The vocabulary, defined
- Asset memorandum
- The document that makes a business legible to somebody evaluating it.
- Founder-to-founder
- An approach made peer to peer rather than through an intermediary.
- Strategic value
- What the business is worth to that specific buyer, not on the open market.
- Early conversation
- A discussion held before you need an outcome, which is where leverage lives.
Who is behind it
Built from the actual work
Named to the Forbes 2025 list of top personal branding experts. Published twice in The New York Times. Writing for HuffPost since 2016.
Before you buy
Questions
Is this legal or financial advice?
No. It is the communication and positioning layer. You will still want a lawyer and an accountant for the transaction itself.
Is this just a pack of prompts?
No. A prompt is one instruction. This is a working system: the method, the order, the judgement calls, and the standard for what finished work looks like. You are buying the workflow I run inside a paid engagement.
I am an executive, not an operator. Is this too hands-on?
Each one is built so you can either run it yourself or hand it to whoever does this work for you. The value is that the method is decided, so nobody is improvising on your reputation.
Could I not just ask an AI to do this?
You can ask. You will get a generic answer, because the model does not know what good looks like at a senior level and has no opinion about sequence. That judgement is the product.
Do I need to be technical?
No. Installing it is dragging one file into a folder.
What format do I actually receive?
A working skill file you install once, plus a written companion explaining the method so you can adapt it rather than follow it blindly. It runs inside Claude.
What happens after I click buy?
It opens an email to me, already filled in. I reply with a payment link and send the files the same day. Deliberately human, because I want to know who is using these.
Is there a refund?
Yes. If you use it properly and it does not do what this page said, tell me and I refund you. No argument.
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