Nearly every founder or executive considers selling their company at one point or another. Before embarking on the complex process, it is crucial for the company leaders – especially within the ever-evolving tech community – to ensure their strategy encompasses all aspects of a sale, from understanding the environment to being accurate with pricing expectations.

We are releasing five tips for a successful exit. See below for tip number one:

1. Set Realistic Pricing and Terms Expectations
   Everyone on the company side should understand and accept an honest valuation. Setting these expectations early, with as much industry due diligence as possible, will avoid morale issues during the exit process and keep founders, investors and employees grounded and united. Many deals have been lost because of divergent expectations among founders and investors. This risk can be mitigated through clear communications among all key members of the team.

Setting realistic goals on the exit front requires a critical mass of due diligence and valuation information. The main factors include: recent acquisition and valuation activity in the space; the perceived value of the team, especially engineers; and the potential for outsized demand — for instance, is there latent interest in the space from behemoths such as Amazon and Google? Check out Twitch, a site where gamers can watch others play which sold to Amazon for $970 million in 2014.