A small business goes through various stages of development, facing different cycles throughout the life of the business. What you focus on today may not be what is important tomorrow, and your challenges will change and require different approaches to be successful. You need to be able to anticipate upcoming challenges and financing sources you will need to succeed at each stage of the business lifecycle. The five business life cycle stages are launch, growth, shake-out, maturity, and decline (Chairman, 2016).

A few years ago, a few of my friends and I started a business to aggregate car services around the city. We contacted several car mechanics and would provide customers with mechanic quickly on the spot. We began a team of 3 people and grew to a size of 15 people. Later, our business began to struggle, and we had to slowly wind up our venture. In this case, I have seen the business through its various lifecycle over the two years that we have operated. However, ideally, for this question, we should consider a situation where an organization has reached maturity and is steady rather than a defunct one.

With the above exception in mind, if I was an acquirer of the business, the best approach will be first to consider what kind of business that was. For example, if the business is a startup as the example above, I would like to acquire it at a maturity stage. This is because start-up businesses have high risk, and unless they generate steady revenue/profit, it is an extremely risky proposition. However, if the business is stable and growing while being a publicly traded company, then I would like to acquire it at the growth stage. At this stage, the share value of the company will provide good value. This is because the future of the company is still uncertain. I would like to capitalize on the growth curve and multiply my investment in the new company. So depending on the company, I would either purchase it at the maturity stage or the growth stage.

How realistic would it be to try to acquire a publicly traded company? While there are individuals that half and occasionally do acquire publicly traded companies and take them private, how often does this happen? What kind of an acquisition is more realistic for an entrepreneur?