18 natural ways to connect with potential acquirors

At Best Exit, we advise startups to play a long game when it comes to their exit. For the best outcome, line up relationships early in order to make sure that you have multiple parties at the table when the time comes.

In B2B marketing, they say it takes an average of 8 touches with a prospect before you get a meeting. Don’t expect it to be different when your startup is prospecting for partners and potential buyers.

The good news is that you’ve got many ways to make those touches. Start by considering these:

1. Connect with their team on LinkedIn. The value in this one is not just the initial attention from the connection request. If you can get them to connect, they’ll see your updates, which is a very natural way to stay in touch. So don’t be shy; they’ll see that your business is related to theirs and it won’t seem weird. Also, follow their company page, while you’re at it and (when genuine) like and comment on their posts.

2. Explore LinkedIn Groups. Find and join the groups on LinkedIn where the companies are likely to have participants who will see your posts and comments.

3. Improve your inkedIn profile. Update your company’s description and sync it across all of your team members. Consider adding dedicated product pages acquirors might find interesting.

4. Get your team on LinkedIn. Every team member is a potential connection point. Make a company workshop out of getting everyone to buff up their page to highlight the right skills.

5. Join their mailing list. You can bet that in many companies, new signups are circulated, which will help you get noticed.

6. Follow them on Twitter, retweet their content (genuinely). Keep it authentic and the right people will see it.

7. Join a trade group. If you have the means, this will often deliver lists, community forum access, and a good opener for a cold email.

8. Attend a trade group conference. At the very least, troll the conference site for the list of companies, presenters and others, as a guide to outreach targets. Use the conference as a nice excuse to reach out to potential partners for a short meeting.

9. Get a free exhibit hall pass at a conference. If you can’t afford to go, often exhibit hall passes are cheap or free, and actually achieve your objective of facilitating connection.

10. List your company in directories. Include both generic directories (like Product Hunt and Crunchbase) and industry-specific directories (like Theorem in legaltech, for example). Be everywhere they are.

11. Buy ads on LinkedIn. Don’t say “ick” before you consider that you can literally promote relevant posts directly to people at potential buyers, and only pay when somebody clicks. You might even try Google, too.

12. Connect with consultants. If your industry has consultants who advise your potential clients on vendors, you need to be in front of them first. They also know the landscape and might connect you with other vendors who might be buyers.

13. Put some code on GitHub. If you have any public projects that can showcase your technical team’s talents, do so. While you’re at it, you can learn a lot about potential buyers (like their development environments) from their own public GitHub activity.

14. Build an integration with their product. For buyer candidates with open APIs, demonstrate how your services might work together by building a simple integration. You might be able to do a quick and dirty integration through platforms like Zapier. If the buyer target is big enough to have a developer program, apply and participate.

15. Add a “Partner” section to your website. Provide examples of potential alliances and a dedicated intake form. Publish your API specs here, too.

16. Talk to their venture fund. If a potential buyer is big enough to have a team that makes investments, that group is likely to be tightly connected with the operations team. You don’t need to be in the process of fundraising to make an approach.

17. Find a connection through their investors. If you can get through to one of their venture investors, and they forward your information, you can count on that one being opened.

18. Identify common customers. Sites like Stackshare are a great way to discover which customers you might have in common with potential acquirors. Talk to those customers about how they would benefit from tighter integration, which can provide a great opening to approach a buyer.