Is this acquisition offer fair?
A bootstrapped founder came to Alfred with an inbound offer on the table and a hard reply deadline. We framed it the way a board would: a defensible valuation range, not a single number, then stress-tested the offer against it to see whether to accept, counter or walk. The brief was simple: a fair read of the number, with full context on the company, before any reply went out.
The situation
The offer looked generous on the headline figure, but the terms underneath did the real work: an earn-out tied to targets the founder couldn't fully control, and a holdback that quietly moved cash years out. Alfred separated the price from the structure, so the founder was reacting to the deal that was actually on the table, not the one in the email.
Alfred built a defensible valuation range and modelled each path — accept, counter, walk against a clear walk-away point, the number below which keeping the company beats selling it. The outcome: the founder countered with conviction, the buyer moved, and the deal closed on terms that held up to scrutiny because the reasoning behind every line was already on record.
