 Hi everyone, a very happy new year to all of you and thank you all for carving out some time for attending today's webinar on the episode 25 of the Business X learning series in where scale, value and exit. To all the attendees out there please type in any questions you might have in the Q&A section and we will try to answer as many as possible at the end of the session. I would now like to welcome our speaker Mr. Gaurav Mara, Chairman and Founder of the franchise India Group. A very warm welcome to you sir. Thank you, thank you Sonali and welcome friends and very very happy new year to all of you. May this year be after this very very tiring year 2020, 1921 should be a great year for everyone for our businesses to move forward and some businesses to not fully come back but start thriving. So this is going to be a very important year as I see and we've already started seeing the signals in the last quarter that the whole space of investment is coming alive. There was actually about two odd quarters of absolute null in the market but we've seen the market treatment that while the stock market has done well and I think a lot of good IPOs really has helped in pulling the momentum and I see this to continue 2021, 2022 and 2023. There will be a run which would continue to be there. I feel also there will be a lot of consolidation in the market and a lot of opportunities of MNA would arise in the next two odd quarters particularly I think a lot has already started happening, a lot of discussions we are seeing in our clients a lot of work started to happen especially last quarter. We were not that busy I would be honest for the first two quarters of this year but in the last quarter had a lot of action going on especially if the business sector actually gets a lot of startups really coming in and this was getting a little dried and some of the startups and one startup really got a last week one strong investment acquired by a larger group while largely swap off equity but it's a good deal which came up so it's an interesting times we look forward for really building up this next two quarters significantly. So today's discussion is really about early stage companies you know whenever they're looking at exiting even the companies which are there in the system and built it for many years and you want to really look at an exit sometimes they get disappointed by the valuation because we've done a lot of series in last this is 25th but in other episodes we've done a lot of work on how to value your businesses and what are the considerations and we got some interest of people coming and saying that look by valuation I was expecting such and I was getting a much lesser valuation and sometimes it is a perspective of how you look at your businesses because you worked hard on the business and you've invested your time energy and effort but the investor looks at it very very differently and has to have a very strong neutral I would say approach to the business. You are always biased about your own business because you built it you work very hard you're emotional and your expectation is very high on that and the buyer comes from the very very neutral value so it takes out a lot of adjacent components of a business and really sees the merit of the business and sometimes the valuation is significantly lower than your expectations. So today we want to talk about some of the softer ways you know how you can improve I think you get into that space I would say that you need to be very definite and when you want to do that because it's not really that you might not be ready for your businesses because a lot of time businesses are presented to us and either they are delayed in terms of reaching out to us and coming to us and saying this is the time I want to really exit or raise capital or they premature you need to have a right timing and that's very important to determine and you need to go to a maybe a good consultant to really take an advice or even approach business X and R teams we will also be able to advise you at what stage you need to really start doing this exercise but you don't continue to put some kind of a foundation stones if you're going on that path and that's very very important and if you don't put that path right then you will not be able to reach there. So the valuation obviously we have seen in the past we have done this coming the ways of doing valuation the typical structures are that how do you do your pricing of your business versus your earnings which is the which is the most common practice you also can discount your future earnings future earning potentials you also see your past gains you can also I mean there has to be also some kind of what I call assets and liabilities to be subtracted out of the valuation sometimes the liabilities are not very defined I take this in the last episode of mine I defined how investors would look at your balance sheet and sometimes there's a lot of other assets which look great to you are not so great for potential investors to look at it so and these are all would be determining your value and sometimes it comes a very lower number and which you wouldn't you're not expecting and sometimes your expectation from your own business is not right so what are the 10 things which would be outside the just the I would say your balance sheet and the overall industry aspects and the size of the business and so on so something would be what would be somebody saying that is my voice is not audible is the audible Sonali can you hear me well? Yes it's audible to me it's perfectly fine okay so say if you have to see from your end I think it's not so it's all right so thanks for the feedback but you need to see it at your end say if it is not right so outside this the parameters what are the 10 things which to me would make a lot of difference in terms of when you approach a buyer and you want to really present yourself the first thing is how do you set yourself apart fundamentally if any buyer is there in the market to look at a category in a or an industry and a player like you in the market then they are obviously looking at other players also what is your niche and how you define that niche would be very very important and how you determine that niche it can be your consumer group it can be that part of it it can be your product itself it has its own audience and own customer base and so forth it can be how you are uniquely placed in a particular market that can also be different sometimes you are very strong in some market and you've taken some market share in that particular market so what is your niche are you are you how you present yourself as a business is very very important to me and I feel that the niche businesses be businesses which have their own positioning it might be smaller but they become more attractive then businesses which are very generic in nature and have no particular niche of theirs would not make sense and that's something to me is a very important aspect how do you really start defining your business now these days we're getting these we're working with almost about 20 different EV brands you know these electric vehicle brands and most of them so leave aside couple of them are very early state startup they have no assembly line everybody is trying to do the same thing and I asked the same question to every single startup and said this is great idea everybody wants to get into EV space because this space looks very interesting in four five years but what is your uniqueness it can be through technology it can be over a product offering it can be market which you really capture like one of the companies came from one heathropod and I advise them just to stay in one state and just go on a capture and market share in one state rather than spreading themselves because they didn't have any kind of a product advantage and if you can go and create some kind of a distribution advantage or a market barrier in a particular market then probably can be a strategy on that so you need to really see where are you placed and at some times the technology at the back end or the offering would become similar pretty much everybody has a similar kind of product and how do you really now position in that and there would be people who would go with their own market share and what their dominance and they've created in the market share or through distribution which they've built some do they're from their offering somewhere they're brand positioning so really you have to find out where it is and when you are early stage companies you have no ability to do all so you need to really pick up one or two points and go deeper into that and find your own niche that would be to me a very very important aspect I'll give you an example recently one of the companies we were advising just announced but three days four days back they were in a edutech space company called new stencil this is a company we've been advising for last five or months and they were in the obviously online training space edutech product and there are similar so many different companies which were there in the market but they were doing only more focused on government jobs and so it was very attractive positioning you know the kind of work they've done the kind of tutors they have already onboarded and things of that nature found their absolute niche and so they were acquired by another large edutech company and that was being just announced this now of information is public so these were announced in about I think a three four days back so now these are the companies to me which are very clearly finding their niche and there are similar lots of similar companies that are out there which have no advantage I mean they all have pretty much the similar kind of a technology product and why would a large company which is already gone ahead space why would they look at these businesses and buy it I think now if they had a very clear differentiation on the content or the differentiation on the delivery or a particular target group which they have actually aggregated to me would have made a big big difference second point second point is that how do you really present your strengths to investors is also very important you know how do you really go out and unlock the capabilities in your organization very very clearly because any investor who looks at investing into a business clearly looks at a future doesn't it's not so much interested in what you're doing today what your business has a potential to deliver three years from now five years from now that's very important is there are some kind of inherent value some kind of research work you've done some kind of a strength area you have which are which makes you future ready and you go out and promote this part to your investors and clearly do that and then also try to take that space in the public domain you know I see these days I mean every founder is very active on LinkedIn but they're trying to repeat themselves nobody's trying to take a position so if you try to take it might sometimes look like a self-propaganda but you need to take clear position in the market and keep watching keep watching that space they keep showing that where you are coming from and what you're really trying to deliver that and that's something you need to be very very particular and there is no shame in terms of doing a little bit it looks like a propaganda you're self-promoting yourself but it's very important to go out and create and claim that space nobody else might have done maybe they are similar companies but they've not taken a space at least from a commuting convoy point and I think people who are more visible and like these are dark kitchens now dark kitchens there many many players have come in the market almost everybody has a dark engine infrastructure available in that now whosoever would go and take right positioning would able to aggregate better brands and hence would get better traction on the platforms and would be able to get better like these days I mean as you know company like a Faso's just started up with second third largest burger chain company for Wendy's and they went out and say all dark kitchens of Faso's would start doing Wendy's now this is a good story from a market viewpoint and it's purely market built up situation so it's a it's a good PR to really come for a company like Faso's Faso's lacked a credible global brand and there was a Burger King story going on on the right side and there was a clearly space where big IPO has just happened market it was very bullish about this whole situation and having a situation like Wendy's announcement which can unlock a bigger value for shareholders investors and so forth was a very clearly a good time it has to have also a strong backing you know empty promises empty spaces would not work so you need to really see when you start promoting your strengths and you're trying to unlock your strength areas you need to be very very clear that you are you're backed by a solid intiting otherwise they fall flat very very important third point is how do you streamline your operations it's very important that organizations and I've seen of people investors backing out not taking up opportunities and businesses because they feel it was very complex or it was not very productive or they had a lot of other issues to really streamline or bind the companies it looked very confused one of the companies we were advising and we were trying to buy a co-working space for a large player and they looked at a business and when they looked at a business they realized that this was not really they want to buy and purely their asset is great everything was great but it was too complex in operations they were so inefficient it had no meaning to me that why this business would not run and the answer was that they finally made an offer and say we won't like to just take the real state you don't try to take the business because business was very complex and it was not really making any sense it was a badly managed operations so investors like a very smooth very defined operations structure which you can see in a very very I mean window for an investor to look at your business is not as you have you have built the business over the years right and the investors would spend maybe couple of days to really see your business in a couple of days if they don't see the assessment of business coming smooth to them they would withdraw they have no time more than that to do that I'm a typical DD exercise I have seen is not more than a couple of days and that also revolves around more financial and the softer things are left around and softer things tell a lot of things to you and they reflect to you because if you start interviewing some of your key people and understand your operation then if they feel that this is not a very efficient operation that lacks productivity and racks come out of discipline then this would not go in fourth point is again very similar how do your leadership is defined again multiple times in my episode said they need to make a founder redundant if the founder is there is is important but he's not that that to me makes a value of a business much higher unlike a lot of people say that founder is a critical part of the business it is from a business design and his contribution to run and contribute to business but if it is over dependent on a founder then the business is not good because the business would not go to the next level and how you're building your team you know and one of the companies I recently was working with a good startup backed by a very seasoned serial entrepreneur and and I was talking to the team and in every discussion they would bring about six people every time in discussing with me and most of the time the four I have actually not spoken word and they're just sitting on the meeting and these are long meetings one one half hour two hours meeting and I felt that why are these people come if they don't have to contribute anything and they're just listening so it's a it would sound to you that they're just been there in the system but they are also being prepared to become a part of the management structure so they are getting a lot of information they are part of a collective decision making all these are important part of your culture and these are organizations which are don't like I mean if you if you go to a company and you're meeting only the on the founder and you don't have anybody else to do that it shows very independent but if you meet a team which has a probably a similar level of knowledge base and capability been developed and they have participated in almost all major decision making in the structure it gives you a lot of comfort now this is lacking in the classic businesses classic businesses are very clearly centered around the founder and the managing directors and the likes of them and they don't have the collective participation they're very instruction based people so this has to change at this stage people like that kind of thing so if they don't like that there is a collective leadership structure which is very very strongly being placed so that people are involved in the entire part of the journey of smallest decision making even very very small decisions which they want to really take taking on a consultant like I mean we were pitching one company and they were just taking on us as a consultant now this decision is very much in control with the with the CEO who's a founder of the business but he always would bring in his complete team for that decision making so that to me reflects a very strong point of a judgment structure it's a very clearly a team play and dividing the capabilities around this piece so this becomes the fourth point the fifth point is how business is relevant for current times you know sometimes your business is doing well and you had a strong customer base but you're not acquiring enough at this moment so if any business shows me that you were 2019 you were you had more customer base coming to you and people we see are even more and now it is actually declined while you have still the business residual business has grown maybe your turnover alone but your new acquisition has declined to me that is also a red flag that really creates in that thing that why are you not becoming more and more relevant so if I see the stream going up that you are even even more demand by customers now that to me is a very big reflection so so even if you're going into getting into that you might be in a comfort zone at this stage because your cash flows and your current customer base is giving you enough this happens in media companies a lot of times but you're not focused too much on new acquisition so before you even present to your new buyer you need to go back to the market and start bringing it it brings a huge confidence because again they're not really understanding in depth why you're not doing it at this stage for them it is a reflection that you might not be attracting the new customer base today if any media business comes to me and presents that look I have a very healthy clientele and I have retained these clientele and so on's work but I'm not acquired enough that tells me that you are not so much in your growing side of it maybe you are unable to engash your relationship and it would eventually drive so two things to me it makes very important how your new customer acquisition is happening and and the previous one are retained and they continue to spend more with you so these are these are very clear signals if you show me retention better a new acquisition also happening and also your overall spend going up if this data really comes and spend on that to me investors would like it another important area is that how your current and older clients speak about you how your vendors are talking about you and ecosystem is talking about you so these are all very important and touchy points in in the system especially because you if you are businesses dependent on a lot of suppliers and how these suppliers are being with you and how these suppliers are also evolved with you so those are also very strong capability what are the relationships you enjoy you know any business is not in isolation every business is linked with a lot of players say I was evaluating one of the liquor businesses and for them they presented that they were one of the top most players for a you know UBE and other players and so on so data was very important because how they're enjoying these relationships the future sites they would open up would be purely backed by these companies because they believe in their business model they put a lot of money behind them they do a lot of promotion behind so that to me was a bigger story than just this company to be presented which was a you know bar chain which was done but the relationship was very very important because a tremendous amount of relationship they were backed by the top players in the industry to me that was very important so if your business is really having a lot of these suppliers around you how do you are being backed by them how they're working with you how much they are committed with you like chroma today we also advise chroma it's a large part of a retail chain now they have very strong relationship with their vendors and suppliers each chroma store would get lakhs and lakhs of rupees from each store by their different OEM so samson would put a certain money apple would put a sum of money and some other players would so they get on that independent retailers don't get that because they are not in the space of where chroma is so that business model really is very strong and that's why they get better margins but they do a lot of promotions with them they put in a lot of activities they actually choose chroma as a point to launch products these relationships to me are very very important how your suppliers are working with you the seventh point is business intelligence now this is where your data has to speak anything which is happening in your business your customer acquisition your retention your cost of customer acquisition cost of service every smallest thing has to be driven by data and that data has to come as a business intelligence and all that pieces should really reflect a lot of things which your business is running to and what are your business models is so that's very important that how do you really build your business intelligence and present that business intelligence to your future buyer and that future buyer should really reflect and see through that this business is very strong especially on the margin side because people buy the business and if you can able to demonstrate somebody that look today's margin would improve next year the next year would get even better and this is backed by data and that's something to me is very very important part and eighth point is another very important aspect is that whenever you are looking for a buyer or you are looking for an investor in your business you get on to a little bit of freeze zone because now especially when you're looking for an exit I've seen the businesses which are looking for exit they just become freeze they don't want to really put more money in your own business because they feel that I'm anyway exiting the business and I've seen this many many times and that period can take you anything from a say six months to one year and you're not putting more money in the business to me it's a very bad situation because the business is on one side would not improve or grow and rather the mindset would be that you're already detached to a business so business is having a you know you've lost interest in growing your business that to me is again a red flag it would put the valuation reasonably reasonably down and if you've been in market for some time and people know that you're in market for some time and you're not really investing in growing your business it is even a further red flag so how do you really continue to invest and grow your business is very important you need to run the business as you do I feel if I will say that if you design a business to sell you never sell but if you're building a business for the growth you will always have so that's something you need to make a choice you cannot stop and get into freeze you need to continue to improve and and build your business you know key team members to me key team members would play a very very important role in any business transfer I feel that resources would play a very integral part of the transfer and I mean especially these days it's businesses are around people and and these days almost all businesses even the older industrial point of businesses are also around people so how do you really having this retention of your people with you and how you can demonstrate that these are a very high quality people fully experienced and they are ready to work on a shift from a from this trend I think and that to me is a very critical acquisition piece and that piece to me also make a very big difference and on a lot of these acquisition which happened where the the say head office has to be moved to the parent the buyer side and they feel that there is a resistance of the people moving there and they could lose most of the people if they were this transfers are happening they also become a red lock so if you really see that this is much smoother and there is a value for people to stick around the company and stay with the new buyer group I would say that this would create a better value the final point which is the 10th point is that how do you give the overall organization which you taking to the market a larger face lift this is to me in investment banking we call dress the bride how you dress the bride take the fatigue out of the business have the business been refreshed you know recently we have been advising one again retail kind of business a retail business and it's fashion and business has been quite old and running for about I think three decades but last particularly four or five years since they've been actually looking for an activity looking for a buyer and they've not got it but the business is absolutely free it's just not having anything they're not coming with new ranges new designs they're not doing their launches their fashion shows nothing is happening the business is really running on some you know older subscriber base and they were still trying to do that balance sheet is still okay balance sheet has not gone down but the business is fatigue it has and I told the promoter and say it's you're in a fashion business if you don't have the vibrance with you if you don't have a new collection then you're really talking about you get opinion makers talk about is you get a social influencers talk about it if all that is not happening nobody's going to buy into your fashion business anyway it's a business which is Indian fashion brand you anyway haven't challenged to really compete with the western brands coming in which are much more vibrant high on design cutting edge you know design sense and here we are competing there and that's where your business has gone down and you're not even keeping your business relevant so how would that work so you need to really see through that how do you continue to build and build your facelift of the business and this we in our investment we have term say dress the bride it's a like in property when you want to sell a house don't sell it without painting it and getting it designed again and a little bit of touches can give you a better price and that's why good consultants really do actually they sometimes take a house do you read modeling and design it a little bit better dress it better and then put it in the market and that's where you get bigger returns so I'll just repeat it 10 points we've touched upon if somebody wants to make notes you can the first point is set yourself apart find your own niche second is build your strength and say what is unlock points you have in your business which can be attractive for buyers especially for a future performance streamline your operations show that this is very very productive infrastructure you have anything which is not productive take it out for the system create your strong leadership structure build your new customer base continue customer basis and I think that means the business is extremely relevant what is your supplier group telling you which is the sixth point how your suppliers are are integrated with you almost everybody who is integral part of your business or sport part of your business is strongly integrated with your pieces and a good efficient businesses have their suppliers are absolutely married to that business in a very right sense but not locked in you know that very important point is that don't do any kind of contracts which puts a buyer into a problem that you have to live with something which is you know not defined like recently one of the companies we were advising and the key supplier was a machinery supplier wanted to sign a five-year contract to supply and I told the founder that not to sign that deal because five years was a very long period and this would not be the new buyer might not like to buy the same machine and you would like to replace that was a critical piece of that business and so that way you have to be very careful that you need to have very binding its suppliers but not to get into a point where it can become a roadblock for a new buyer to come in then you have to have a business intelligence how do you build data points in your company every single thing has a data point and data point can clearly reflect how you are going to be running and growing the business and going forward and especially if you can demonstrate scale for a new buyer and new buyer likes that if I get in there this is a data points if I change these few things the business can go to x or 3x and so forth another eight point is keep yourself invested in the business continue to grow your business don't wait for a buyer don't bring in a freeze situation if you bring in a freeze situation you already started declining your valuation hold your key people these key people are assets to you and they need to be ready for the mindset of moving with the new setup and if they are not and they surprise you at a moment then you can also have a challenge on on that piece and finally do a facelift bring the pin the best out of you and do a new brand communication all that pieces which are touch points for your organization has to come up so these are the 10 points which we wanted to share this is some of the suggestions I would do especially for businesses who are now looking to either invest get raise money or even looking at an exit of the business so I like to bring in Sonali back and if she has some questions this is 30 minute I've already done but I do say if you have questions Sonali I'll be more than happy to take it sure sir thank you so much for another very insightful session for all of us I'm sure it was helpful to all our attendees watching and yes we do have quite a few questions lined up with us the first question I would like to take up is I'm looking to sell my gym business due to inability to focus on it due to other commitments is it the right time I mean will I get interested buyers since the market is down at the moment yeah actually depends on where you are and what is the strategic value in the business kind of equipment you have made we just did one big deal in November for a gym in in Bandra in Delhi so that was to me very strategic it had one of the locations which was very attractive from Bandra the parking is a big issue so that was the location which can give you what has 50 car parking because it was an office block and and there was a parking dump here and in the morning because office people don't come in so they they agreed to give the extra parking for this so you have morning hours and you have late evening hours so so the lot strategic value was there in the in the asset and we were able to continue that transaction so it really depends on where your gym is what what is the size of the gym who can be the buyer at this stage I am very clear that there will not be a financial investor purely who would just come in unless and until it's still making money I would have resistance on a financial buyer but yes strategic yes if somebody is already running and operating or wants to shift this current location because that's not that great and you can come down to your location but what all is there in the business needs to be seen but there is always a buyer there was always a buyer how do we really define value would be important I would like to go into a little more depth into where you are and with no obligation if you send me a mail I will tell you is it right or not right and you also have to see that if the reason is that you are not able to concentrate itself and it's not doing well then better is to find a exit right now rather than waiting another six months to lose money if it isn't losing money I'm sure because of what is going on the business would not be and if you are already out of the interest then your situation six months down then it would not going to be any better and this is also mistake a lot of people do so they just keep dragging and becomes even more difficult at a certain stage so if you feel that you have to really call that timing which is very important for you today absolutely the next question we have is when doing marketing in different environments which is countries with a lot of changes in culture how to actually create an impact so this is a little you know question which is which is not related so much to on on resale and I think you just doing that how do you really market yourself in different countries I think the value system remains same how principle is implemented in that so it's a mix of what I say principles remain absolutely same what do you stand for and what what your value system is and but you give a freedom to final localization of that delivery of content that it reaches in the same kind of a situation to people like for example I'm wearing this pin which is a remax which is one of my companies it runs in 115 countries it's a largest real estate broken companies service based business but they stand for home buyers a better professionalism and things like that so that remains same but every country they would go out and regionalize a little bit because sensitivity of communication would change very differently home buying in India is very you know is very look very differently home buyer is looking more security return on his investment he wants a long term piece whereas in US it's very lifestyle it's what so what you sell in US is very different you will sell more backyard with barbecue and these are the things in India you will sell for something else you know you would like to give things which are more important for like a gate gate community and security and things of that nature which are which are by large default in some developed country you are you are giving more emphasis on that so that changes you need to really see where your marketing and what would be the critical pieces for the consumer to really do that but you still stand for professionalism you still stand for you know so the values don't change the communication or the final impact points might change in every communication absolutely very well said sir the next question we have is I'm a strong follower of the series and have heard you say this multiple times but each time I get this question in my mind if the business is not dependent much on the owner it makes me feel insecure that I as an owner can be replaced at any point of time as I'm not looking to exit my business anytime soon any suggestions you have for me in this case you know so you know I've been myself a big believer of founder being integral and I've been a victim of myself you know my position in my own organization which sometimes become very difficult you know to replace yourself in that sense so but truth is that's not something which is right you know if franchising there which is largest company in the world in franchising is totally dependent on me and I'm not getting younger so it's not going to really be having a genuinely value and this I'm telling from my own experience you know I was telling you a term sheet of with the very big investors in one of my parts of businesses and over a dinner this investor told me that look while I like that he was so involved in the business but honestly I don't like it so much so I see the point and I see the point that if today they're investing on me and I'm the one who's going out and the business is totally dependent on me then what am I getting in this right so making yourself a redundant in the business doesn't mean that your opinions and your contribution has no value it has great value but it is not only dependent on you you have created a search which we can revive without you and more you create that structure it's actually would come from you but it takes a hard way to let loose you know and give it to others to really do that it's a very difficult decision for entrepreneurs to do it but and entrepreneurs who do it very efficiently are great you know there's a young guy which is actually recently he got you know his wife delivered and he's just very young he's done two sales already one company sold was innovate to oil rooms it's a co-working space and earlier again he had a tech startup which he's with is Dr. Ritesh young guy but he's good he's good he builds his business very efficiently defines all the processes very system-driven everything was very system-driven so any company would easily buy them so that's where he is doing it right and a lot of people I know are not able to do it they're too involved in their business and they're putting the personal effort rather than putting systems and processes in the business and and that's something which we I come from a classic background why can I can tell what not to do but I've done it in my own organization too much you know that everything revolves around sometimes around me in some part of business some part of business I'm not involved and there's businesses run by professional teams or somebody else but in some part of business I'm too involved and that's not good for investor I know I'm not looking for any but if I was putting myself out and say looking at that part of my business and say that people would not really have any sense on that business the next question that we have is any special advice on gaining employees trust when the company is not doing very well and they feel unsafe about their future in the company? Transparency is the only answer you cannot even you are not doing well everybody knows about it and more than anybody else your frontliners know more than anybody else they know everything about when you're not doing well and you need to be transparent about it and I can tell you when you are transparent you'll get stakeholders you know these are co-founders to me while they've not invested with you but they're co-founders they would stand by and they will rise to occasion and they will try to do that but if you are and that's where the problem happens you know there's nobody who's not gotten to the problem you know the best of the entrepreneurs these days you know trolling is going on on little money entire thing I've seen you know his you know early 2000 and how he built businesses and how he took these businesses from nothing really creating enterprises which are billion dollar plus and there was a time that even that and now business is not doing well so if he stays in that mode and and continue to sound which is not actually it's good that he's accepted in public that he's not really in that but so people get into the mode they stop accepting the problem right there is a problem and if you prolong that situation and not accept and not be transparent to your stakeholders then you are in a problem but if you accept that any business there is no business which would not have a difficult cycles they would have difficult cycles it would take everybody out and tell them that we are in a difficult cycle and this is the plan you have and and if they they have an opinion on that plan and if they have feedback take that feedback positively and then you can go out and and achieve the goals and you can also put up a long term plan for people you know I honestly feel that if startups people who start from garage can attract talent and say join with me we have something great happening why would businesses which are doing already at a certain stage can get the same feeling the only thing you need to come in acceptance of where you are and and say like let's do a new journey let's take it from here to this level you understood what didn't work but what would work for us and at this stage almost every 60 70% of all businesses I would say would be in the same situation even if you are in that situation then you're not alone 60% of all businesses are in some form of difficulty you know and even thriving businesses you know were not doing well at this moment so they have to come with acceptance that there is a there has to be a bit of a work to be done before it's going to start shining again. Sure sir the next two three questions that we have are actually topics that can actually be taken up as a whole session one of the questions is your views on how hiring a coach can help to increase the valuation of a business. So this can be a good topic we can take up next time or next time with Sonali Fitzsitt and I think she has a sequence we do invest value exit and and what else scale so this can be a coach to scale kind of an answer we run a part of the world's biggest coaching company called Action Coach so I can give some tips on that. Absolutely another solution that we have is please do a session on the kind of documentation required while buying a business on a value fair for both the parties. How do you do documentation it's a what I think we did some session where we talked about information. And it was the last visit session that we did. So if you can refer Sonali can send you that tradition we did that piece while if you want some physical documentation to be shared we're more than happy to tell some of the valuation reports which we have but we did the session on what do you need in our information. Absolutely and lastly the last question we have is what do you think at the top most parameters or points every business should look at who is B2C to try growth and get high valuation which is again something very similar that we have done in the past episodes. Yeah so there are all parameters again the issue is that whatever you've done in past please try to understand if you are looking for valuation or a potential exit whatever you've done in past has no relevance. People buy into your future if anything in your past done which reflects a great future and you are able to back that with the strong data that is the only a thing would come for your merit. Anything else which was there so oh I was in 2015 at the top we were having the market share and I think these are all emotional discussions which you have has no meaning for somebody because I sit in a meeting and people talk about five years back we were a number one market share everything was around us and then this happened and that happened people started bringing fraud from China it got reduced. It has no meaning when you were a top or not top but you lost a market share you lost a market share and suddenly you can give me signals that last four months we are going grow and there is a absolutely what five years back and three years back it has no meaning. It's a myth which people live in. Historic datas are only about if you have a subscriber attention which you have subscribers which are there and they're pertaining to continue to do with it then there is the case for a merit for showing future but there is also dying now because like Geo announced that I will not do voice charges. Now if anybody would have owned or anybody collectively says oh because we used to make so much money in this they want to lose subscribers we need to match him you know every time he will keep throwing in a challenge and you need to go and match him and your business model is not saying that and people would move from your network to another network you're not even potential to retain it then the valuation is continue to go down you know and that's exactly what is happening is pushing so much to put their valuation at a lower level and a lower level and a lower level and there would be time where they would raise hands and say okay buy us out at a ridiculous valuation and that subscriber will go into somebody else and because you will erode your valuation you're not able to retain your customer base and continue to do that and that's what this case looking like to me that every single movement is not really helping Geo's business so much but it is effectively taking away the competition's valuation out of the game. Absolutely so with this we'll just wrap up our Q&A session Gaurav sir thank you so much for another wonderful session and for very patiently answering all our questions like always quoting Mr. Kapil as he said in the chat box that it was a very crisp and extremely valuable session so thank you so much once again anything you would like to say in the end. No thank you very much have a very great year ahead plan yourself well this first few days don't rush into going back and repeating your business and whatever you're doing don't rush into that maybe take a week for you to go and say what differently you can do for what you've been doing and how it can significantly improve your future of the business and and that answers are always available with founders but they don't get that time they don't get that those two days three days to really question everything everything you do question itself why I'm doing this way why not other way around and if you get that kind of answers you will see that you will find a lot of answers for whatever you do so thank you very much Sonali for posting this again and we'll continue to bring in whatever little knowledge we have thank you thank you so much sir thank you to all our attendees for attending this session we really hope you were able to add value to your lives through this session a very happy new year and if you are looking for if you are looking for getting some kind of help in terms of valuation and also looking at some help on exit or bringing investment in your business then also reach out to Sonali she is a team and we have a team of evaluators we have a team of consultants who can help you get the right support for your business thank you very much thank you so much sir thank you to all our attendees we'll see you next Saturday at 3 p.m for another session of the business x learning series thank you so much thank you