The gap between what a business is worth and what it sells for is almost entirely preparation. Two identical products, same revenue, same churn — one sells at 3.8× and one at 2.6×, because one seller spent a weekend getting their house in order and the other didn't.
Month 6: make the numbers checkable
This is the highest-return thing on the list and it takes an afternoon. A buyer's default assumption is that your figures are optimistic, and they discount for it whether or not they say so.
Connect your payment processor so revenue can be verified at source, not from a screenshot.
Connect analytics so traffic can be verified the same way.
Separate business and personal spending. Every mingled expense is a question you'll answer twice.
Write down the add-backs now, with a reason each, while you remember them.
Month 5: reduce the concentration
Look at your top customer, your top traffic source and your top integration. Anything above about a third of the total is a discount waiting to be applied. You probably can't fix all three, but you can usually fix one, and moving a customer from 40% to 25% of revenue is worth real money at exit.
Month 4: cut owner dependency
Every task only you can do lowers the price. Ranked by how much they cost you:
Support that requires product knowledge nobody wrote down.
Deploys that only work from your machine.
Sales or partnerships that run through your personal relationships.
Anything on a personal account — email, domain registrar, API keys.
Month 3: write the operations document
One document. Every recurring task with how long it takes and how often. Every vendor with what it costs and why. Every credential and where it lives. The deploy process, start to finish. The three things most likely to break, and what to do about each.
Month 2: clean up the transfer path
Find out — in writing, from the provider — whether your payment account can transfer to a new owner. This one fact reshapes the entire deal, and discovering it in week three of a live negotiation is how deals die.
Move everything off personal accounts. Domain, hosting, analytics, email, third-party services. If it's tied to your identity, it's friction, and friction at handover is priced in advance.
Month 1: prepare the pack
24 months of revenue, by month, exported from the processor.
Churn by month, split voluntary and involuntary.
All costs, itemised, with invoices.
Traffic by source, 24 months.
The asset schedule — everything that transfers.
The ops doc.
A buyer who receives all of that in the first exchange is dealing with someone who has done this properly, and behaves accordingly. Preparation isn't just worth a better multiple — it's worth a better buyer.