Scaling & exit: building a business that runs without you — and can be sold

• Write playbooks: capture every recurring task (weekly PPC, reorders, customer questions, launches) once as a step-by-step document — refine it on the next run. What's documented is delegable; what's delegable is sellable.
• The delegation ladder: first rule-based routine (customer service by FAQ playbook, inventory-list upkeep — typically to a virtual assistant), then specialist tasks (PPC management, content), decisions last. Rule of thumb: delegate what has a clean playbook AND costs you hours weekly.
• The test: two weeks of vacation without a laptop — what breaks? That's your next process construction site.

FBA businesses are valued at a multiple of adjusted annual profit (SDE: profit plus owner-specific costs). Realistic ranges move — depending on quality and market climate — roughly between 2× and 4.5× annual profit; inventory is usually paid on top at cost. What pushes the multiple up:

Buyers today are mostly private buyers, investment groups and strategic acquirers — usually via specialized brokers and marketplaces (the big aggregator wave of past years has calmed). Brokers cost a commission but bring buyer access, valuation and process management.

• Smooth the numbers: clean private/business separation, consistent bookkeeping, a monthly P&L history.
• Reduce dependencies: document processes, delegate routine, make supplier relationships transferable (contracts, second contacts).
• Close risks: trademark registered, compliance complete (GPSR, EPR), no open violations on the account.
• Sharpen the growth story: name the two or three unpulled levers and back them with data.
• And even if you never sell: every point above makes the business more profitable, calmer and more crisis-proof. “Built to be sellable” is simply the quality seal of a healthy business.

The purchase price isn't decided in the multiple negotiation but at three levers before it: which SDE base the buyer accepts, how the payment is structured — and which twelve-month window everything is calculated on.

1. Add-backs: every accepted euro counts several times over. SDE is book profit plus adjustments (“add-backs”). Cleanly defensible: your owner salary, genuine one-offs (trademark registration, a closed legal case, the launch photo shoot) and private expenses that ran through the business account. Buyers strike out: PPC budgets cut shortly before the sale (they normalize back to the ad level that actually carried the revenue), “one-offs” that recur every year, and unpaid own work — if you work 50 hours a week for free, the buyer deducts the cost of your replacement again. The lever: at 3.5×, every documented add-back euro is €3.50 of purchase price.

2. Value earn-outs at a discount. Hardly any deal is 100 % cash at handover. Typical is an upfront payment plus an earn-out tied to revenue or profit targets over the next 12 months. The catch: after handover the buyer runs the account — whether the targets are hit is no longer in your hands. Rule of thumb for comparing offers (a deliberately conservative assumption): count earn-out portions at half. €100,000 upfront plus a €40,000 earn-out makes a €120,000 comparison value — an offer of €125,000 fully at handover beats it, even though it looks smaller on paper. So negotiate the upfront component first, the headline total only after that.

3. Timing on the trailing twelve months. The multiple is applied to the trailing twelve months (TTM), and the trend inside them additionally sets the multiple band: growth gets paid at the top of the band, a visible downtrend is punished twice — smaller SDE and a smaller factor at once. So ideally you sell while the curve is still rising, not once it has tipped.