The standard V/TO looks out ten years, but our personal horizon is five years for an exit. How do we reconcile our five-year exit target with our three-year and ten-year EOS goals without signaling to the staff that we are short-timers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is common for owners to feel conflicted when their personal exit runway is shorter than the standard ten-year target on the V/TO. To handle this, do not shorten the ten-year target. The ten-year target represents the long-term destination of the organization itself, regardless of who owns it. Buyers want to see a business that has an ambitious future far beyond your departure. Keep the ten-year target bold and independent of your personal timeline. Instead, use the three-year picture on your V/TO to build the exact operational state the business needs to be in when you go to market. Use your quarterly Rocks to build the infrastructure, systems, and team that make you redundant. This approach keeps your leadership team focused on building a valuable company without signaling that you are planning to abandon them. It aligns your personal exit runway with the natural strategic planning cycles of the business.