Turn Your Company Into a Giant Buy Button
Do the acquirer's homework for them so buying you is one-click instead of a research project.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 90%
Shaan's rule is that you take matters into your own hands and do the work for them. Concretely that meant writing a strategic one-pager explaining why the deal made sense from the buyer's perspective; having the engineering team write a technical one-pager covering everything built, how long it would take anyone else, and the special sauce, so the buyer could see how much time acquiring would save; turning the team into a presentation of talent and prior track record, on the logic that it is a dating profile and the buyer is deciding to swipe right or left; and writing the acquirer's own internal memo, in Amazon's six-page memo style, with the guessed internal details marked in blue. For one acquisition he even drafted the announcement the buyer would send to their exec team and employees, arguing why the deal was a good idea. The framing is never please buy me, it is I am trying to figure out whether this makes sense for both of us. Finally, clean financials in a proper data room remove the last friction.
Origin
One of Shaan's deal doulas told him he needed to turn his company into a giant buy button, like Amazon one-click checkout, and he built the packaging materials around that instruction.
Core principles
- 01Never leave the buyer to do the strategic reasoning themselves
- 02It is a two-way street, not a plea
- 03Your team is a dating profile: swipe right or left
- 04Match the buyer's internal format, memo culture included
- 05Friction anywhere in diligence is friction on the deal
How to run it
- 1
Write the strategic one-pager
Produce a one-pager explaining where you think the deal makes sense strategically for them, framed as thinking it through from their perspective and what things would look like once you join.
Pro tip Open with because if we're going to do this, I wanted to think about it from your perspective — it reads as diligence, not desperation.
- 2
Have the team write the technical one-pager
Get engineering to document everything built, how long it would take anyone else to build it, and what the special sauce is, so the buyer immediately sees the time saved and the assets already in place.
Pro tip Quantify build time in engineer-months; that is the number a buyer converts into cost.
- 3
Turn the team into a talent presentation
Package the people: who they are, what they have done before, and what they have proven together. Treat it as a dating profile, because the buyer is deciding whether to swipe right or left on these specific humans.
Watch out A talent-driven buyer is acquiring a proven working team, so the fact that they already work together is the asset.
- 4
Write the acquirer's own memo
Draft the internal memo in the buyer's house format, such as Amazon's six-page strategy memo. Where you had to guess internal details, mark those guesses visibly, as Shaan did in blue.
Pro tip Marking the guesses in blue signals honesty and invites the buyer to correct rather than dismiss.
- 5
Draft the announcement to their employees
For one acquisition Shaan wrote how he would announce the deal to the buyer's exec team and employees: we bought this company, here is why, here is how this solves one of our problems, and here is why this is exciting.
Pro tip If you can write a persuasive internal announcement, the champion can reuse it verbatim.
- 6
Remove diligence friction
Get all financials clean, proper and in a data room, so nothing in the buying process is difficult. That is the last piece of the one-click checkout.
Watch out Messy financials discovered mid-diligence give the buyer a free reason to retrade the price.
In the wild
Knowing the buyer had a memo-writing culture like Amazon's six-page strategy memos, Shaan wrote one himself arguing the deal made sense, guessing at internal details he could not know and marking those guesses in blue so they were visible as guesses.
→ The reasoning arrived in the buyer's own native format rather than as a startup pitch deck they would have to translate.
Shaan turned his team into a presentation listing all the talent he had and what each person had done before, explicitly designed so the buyer could scan it and decide whether to swipe right or left.
→ The buyer could evaluate the talent bundle quickly, which matters when unique talent is one of the six strategic buy reasons.
Common mistakes
Presenting and then praying
Most founders say here is what we do and then sit there hoping the buyer understands it, gets it and likes it. That outsources the strategic case to the busiest person in the room, who will simply not do it.
Framing the materials as please buy me
The packaging only works if the framing stays two-way: I wrote this to give myself clarity on whether this makes sense for both of us. A pleading frame destroys the leverage the materials are meant to create.
Leaving financials messy until diligence
Clean, proper financials in a data room are part of the buy button. Discovering accounting problems mid-process adds friction exactly when momentum matters most and hands the buyer a reason to retrade.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders in live acquisition conversations with a strategic buyer
Not ideal for
Pure financial or EBITDA-driven acquisitions where the spreadsheet is the whole pitch
From the transcript
“You want to do the work for them.”
“You need to turn your company into a giant buy button.”
“Make it really easy for them to it's a dating profile.”
“I had our team write a technical one pager.”
From the episode
Shaan's Masterclass: How To Sell A Business For Millions
Shaan's Masterclass