AppMasters Podcast host Steve Young, interviews One Touch Video Chat’s Co-Founder and COO Carrie Chitsey. Listen here

Today’s guest on the AppMasters podcast has sold multiple businesses and founded one of the first text, mobile web and mobile app companies in 2008. She shares her advice on selling multiple companies, how to detect industry trends, what to avoid when seeking outside investment and how to figure out your selling window.

Carrie Chitsey is the Co-Founder and COO at One Touch Video Chat.

On Selling Multiple Companies

At the onset, you have to decide what your company is – is this going to be a lifestyle company where you will be working on it for the rest of your life or is it a company where you will just make a living out of or is it one which you want to sell? If you decide it’s something which you want to sell, ask yourself who your buyers are and what your selling window is. If you hold on to it too long, you might not get as much as you would have gotten should you have pounced at the right time. Think through this, find an experienced mentor, and decide on this upfront as it changes the ball game.

The selling window depends on the industry but regardless of what industry you are in, look at the past. Business-to-consumer trends always follow consumer-to-consumer trends so if you look back at history, you will figure out your window. Create a timeline or a graph so you can figure out when your window is.

Detecting Industry Trends

Carrie has always been a disruptor and she looks at trends and what the more progressive companies in the US are doing. Since she was a kid, she was never a follower so when she started in her first texting company, she knows what’s forthcoming because of her foresight brought about by her observations and connections. That’s why, although she initially received negative feedback, she treaded on fueled by her people skills, her passion for technology and her faith for herself and her vision.