Headcount floors: why one buyer wants 30 staff and another takes 10

1. 1Larger teams produce more, and more diverse, records. Sunset's valuation weighs headcount, years, volume and tool usage, and SimpleClosure says more staff and longer history increase value.
2. 2Certain buyers need tasks repeated many times. micro1 looks for clearly defined routines that staff perform repeatedly, and describes its target as firms of 30 or more.
3. 3Each deal carries fixed overheads. Scoping, scrubbing, sample checks and acceptance cost about the same at any size. Our inference: under some threshold, the price may not justify the effort.

Minimums are guidelines more than rules. A Meta page named Nyne AI targets companies with 10 or more staff, while Nyne.ai's website sets 20. Goldmined's site asks for 20 desk-based employees whereas its ads say 30. Ads and web pages are often written at different times.

Counting methods differ too. Nyne looks at American W-2 payroll, Handshake at people working full time, and Goldmined only at office-based roles. A roofing firm of 30 with 25 people on site might miss a desk-based minimum.

For companies that have closed, buyers use the peak headcount. micro1's closed-company ads need 25 or more at the peak, and Pewter accepts 20 or more, current or peak.

Find out how a buyer counts staff before ruling yourself out. A firm of 27 with a busy office and a decade of records may still interest a buyer whose floor is 30. A business that has shrunk from 40 to 15 people may qualify on its peak.

Choose buyers by the records you hold as well as by headcount. Plenty of repeated written processes suggests buyers like micro1, while deep dispatch and operational history suggests buyers like Nyne.