Signal Without Desperation Seller Positioning
Walk a founder through how to position themselves as a willing-but-not-desperate seller when fielding acquisition interest — using Suli Ali’s framework from advising multiple company sales including Milk Road.
When to Use
The user is being approached by a potential acquirer, or is thinking about initiating a sale process, and wants to know how to respond. They might say:
- “Someone reached out asking if we’d be open to a conversation about acquiring us — how do I respond?”
- “I want to sell but I don’t want to seem desperate”
- “A buyer made an offer — how do I create more competition without blowing the deal?”
- “How do I signal I’m interested without looking like I’m begging?”
- “We’re thinking about selling — how do we approach potential buyers?”
The Core Principle
From Suli Ali (F-McXK-60BI.md):
“A buyer is often looking at a bunch of different businesses at that point. They’ll reach out to ten different businesses, five will say no, and they’ll say, ‘Okay, great — we’re knocking those five off, we’re going to focus on the five that said yes.’”
The entrepreneur’s default instinct — “never say you want to sell” — backfires in practice. Experienced buyers read through the posturing and simply move on to founders who are open to a real conversation. The goal is not to seem uninterested but to seem interested with options — which requires having (or manufacturing) a real alternative.
“You just say, ‘We like our business, we had interest, it didn’t go very far because we weren’t very keen, but we really like you. If you want to talk, we’re open.’” — Suli Ali
Step 1: Create a Soft Offer Before Entering Real Negotiations
Before approaching your preferred buyer, engineer a piece of legitimate interest from a less-ideal acquirer. This gives you a real signal to reference without lying.
“When I was ready to sell a business, I would find somebody I knew was interested but wouldn’t have a good offer, get them to make an offer, and then say, ‘Cool.’ That enables you to reach out to other people and say, ‘Hey, we have an offer to sell the business and we’re thinking about whether or not to do that.’” — Suli Ali
This is not fabrication — it is sequencing your outreach deliberately so that by the time you reach your top buyer, you can honestly say there has been interest, you haven’t acted on it, and you are now coming to them because of genuine strategic fit.
Ask the user: Is there a buyer in your orbit who you know would be interested but isn’t your first choice? Could you have a conversation with them first — even informally — to establish real documented interest?
Output for the user: A sequencing plan — who to approach first (low-priority) and how to use that conversation to set up the approach to the preferred buyer.
Step 2: Craft the Exact Language for Responding to Inbound
When a preferred buyer comes inbound, do not say yes or no. Say: we’ve had interest, we’re not actively looking, but we respect you and we’re open to a conversation.
Suli Ali’s recommended framing:
“We’ve had interest, and nothing felt right — we really like our business. But we respect you guys. If that’s something you want to talk about, we’re open to listening. We owe ourselves that, right?”
What this language does:
- Signals genuine interest (“we’re open”)
- Signals you’re not desperate (“nothing felt right”)
- Signals you have other options (“we’ve had interest”)
- Gives the buyer a face-saving reason to pursue (“you respect them specifically”)
- Frames the conversation as low-stakes (“just listening”)
Shaan’s gloss on this:
“Buyers who are experienced can kind of read between the lines pretty quickly. What you just said is: ‘I’m wide open.’ But it’s the signal that you’re interested without begging.”
Suli’s metaphor:
“It’s like looking at somebody across the bar and catching their eyes for one second, then smiling and looking away.”
Ask the user: If a buyer emailed you today asking “would you ever consider a conversation about acquisition?” — what would you say? Draft the response together, using the framework above.
Output for the user: A ready-to-send response draft (2-4 sentences) that signals open interest without price-telegraphing or desperation.
Step 3: Disclose Skeletons Early to Build Trust
Once a buyer is engaged, resist the instinct to hide weaknesses. Surface them early and proactively.
Shaan Puri’s account of the Milk Road sale:
“Sam goes, ‘Just tell them up front all the shitty things about your business that might scare them away. Because guess what? They’re going to find those anyway when it comes to due diligence, and you’re going to be four or six weeks in, emotionally invested, and it’s going to get ugly later. They’re going to feel like they found some big wart on the deal at that point.’”
What happened when they did it:
“Later, after the deal was closed, they said: ‘You said something at that dinner where you were just like, here’s all the ugly parts of our business, let’s talk through them. That built so much trust because we didn’t know you very well, and immediately we were like, okay, we felt at ease.’”
Ask the user: What are the three things a buyer is most likely to discover during due diligence that could damage trust if they find them on their own? List them now. Then help the user reframe them as proactive transparency rather than defensive disclosure.
Step 4: Read Buyer Quality in the First Meeting
Not every buyer is worth engaging seriously. Suli Ali’s framework for detecting a charlatan:
“There are a lot of charlatans nowadays and they’ll often lead with a lot of flattery and not substance. It’s very easy for me to tell when somebody is just honest about their resume. Versus when somebody leads with a lot of puffery that with a Google search you can see isn’t true.”
The tell: “You’ve said a lot of words but you haven’t said anything yet. They don’t lead with numbers and information — they lead with flowery language that doesn’t go anywhere.”
The counterintuitive finding: the buyer who led with the most flattery in the Milk Road process made the highest (but also least credible) offer — “a fool and his money are easily parted.”
Ask the user: After your first meeting with a buyer, score them on: (1) Did they lead with substance or flattery? (2) Did their claims hold up on a Google search? (3) Did they ask smart questions about your business? Use this to triage which conversations to invest in.
Quick Reference
| Situation | What to Do | What to Say |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound from preferred buyer | Signal open, not eager | ”We’ve had interest, nothing felt right, but we respect you — we’re open to listening” |
| No other interest yet | Engineer a soft offer first | Approach a lower-priority buyer first to create real optionality |
| Asked to disclose weaknesses | Disclose proactively, early | ”Here are all the reasons you shouldn’t buy this company…” |
| Buyer leads with flattery | Triage carefully | Ask for specifics; don’t invest heavily until substance appears |
| Buyer makes early low offer | Use it as leverage | ”We have an offer. You’re who we’d prefer — are you open to talking?” |
Search the Archive
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grep -ri "Suli Ali\|Milk Road.*sale\|Bebo.*acquisition" transcripts/
Output
After working through this framework with the user, deliver:
- Sequencing plan — who to approach first to manufacture real optionality
- Response draft — ready-to-send language for responding to the preferred buyer’s inbound
- Skeleton disclosure list — the 3 weaknesses to surface proactively, reframed as transparency
- Buyer quality scorecard — how to evaluate each buyer after the first meeting
Source
Behind The Scenes of Selling My Company For Millions | Suli Ali (#410) — Shaan Puri interviews Suli Ali, January 2026.