Determining a company’s valuation can be vital information to anyone, especially entrepreneurs, employees or potential investors.Â
Various attributes contribute to know the value of a company accurately, such as the market or industry performance of the company, operating experience, revenue and profitability growth, stage of growth and management team.
How To Value A Company
External factors also contribute to the evaluation of a company’s value, such as economic factors and market sentiment. The impact of technology also plays a role. The following elements discussed to illustrate the different ways a company is valued.
Company Size
The size of a company is a significant factor in determining it’s value. Typically, the larger a company is, the higher the evaluation will be since smaller companies have little market power and are overshadowed by a lot of key leaders. Larger businesses increase the value of a company, usually because big businesses mostly have well-developed products and services, which makes it easier to access capital.
Growth Potential
Factors such as expected growth and an opportunity for a company to expand in the future are one of the key elements that boost a company’s valuation.
Growth Rate And Market Worth
The market worth or traction and growth rate of a company are compared to its competitors. This is a crucial element that most investors are interested in. Investors want to know how large your market is and how fast your company can capture a share of the market. Investors are interested in how much your services or product are in demand.
Profitability
A company that rakes in a substantial amount of revenue in any industry it belongs to is grounds for good valuation. Companies with higher profit margin will be valued higher than those with lower profit margins or loss.
Competitive Advantage
The competitive advantage of a company is determined by a distinctive feature that sets its product or services apart from competitors. This advantage has to be sustainable to be a company of high valuation.
Like any asset, a company’s valuation is what investors or buyers are willing to pay for it. There are different metrics to value public and private companies.
- Public Company Evaluation: Company valuation for public companies is referred to as market capitalization; where the value of the company equals the total number of outstanding hares multiplied by the price of the shares.
- Private Company Valuation: Private companies are harder to value due to less information, a limited track record of performance, or unavailable financial results.
The valuation of companies is in three stages of entrepreneurial growth.
- Ideation Stage
Startups are usually at these stages. They are companies that have an idea, a business plan. A concept of how to reach customers, mostly they have no financial results, the valuation of companies in this stage is based on either the track record of the founder or the level of innovation that potential investors see in the startup. The value of such companies is based on projected growth.
- Proof of Concept
This stage is for when a company has a handful of employees that generate results. In this stage, the rate of sustainable growth becomes the most crucial factor in valuation.
Companies in this stage are valued based on their revenue growth rate and how well it’s competitors are executing are performing.
- Proof of Business model
Proof of business model stage is the third stage of startup valuation. This is after a company has proven its concept and begins scaling to show it has a sustainable business model. In this stage, the company has recorded several years of financial results.
Conclusion
A company may need to be evaluated for several reasons, especially investments. The factors listed above can be analyzed to determine the value of a company accurately. However, seeking an expert opinion in measuring the financial ratios as well as the company’s profitability might be a lot more useful.