I've been lucky enough to have sold two companies (edit: in the very low $XXX M range to provide context on the rest of my comment), and 1 is the most important point by far in this list.<p>The other thing that I almost think should be point 0 is that medium sized acquisitions (high $XX M - low $XXX M) are incredibly hard to "incept". If you're looking for a low $XX M exit, that can be justified with good tech + a good team. If you're looking for larger exits, that's all about revenue, and company traction.<p>For the high $XX M to low $XXX M acquisitions, you can't just start talking to companies 6 months to a year before you run out of cash to make it happen. Typical tech companies do product planning cycles 1 to 2 years in advance, and a key part of that planning cycle is whether they're going to build or buy parts of the solution. The result here is that unless your product/company is part of the acquirer's plan (e.g., either to buy you or to build equivalent that was too hard), it's really hard to get the corporate sponsor and the budget and the timeline etc to work. Hence, it's damn hard to "incept" a deal.<p>This is important for founders to understand IMO because so many of the recent Series A and Series B fund-raises have taken low $M ARR companies and given them valuations >$100M. That means these companies have no option but to go for a revenue and traction outcome after >$30-50M ARR. Tech acquirers aren't going to pay a premium of your Series B valuation if you don't have consistent off the charts growth. IMO, there's going to be disappointed employees mainly in a bunch of companies in the next 2-3 years.