[fairity]

Agreed in general. But, in this specific instance, his outcome is probably comparable to what it would have been had he optimized for profits. Given your 500K/yr estimation, he's selling for 8x earnings - not the best, not the worst.

I've taken the profit optimization route for my own business, and often wonder how much money I'm leaving on the table by not hiring a larger team and chasing (profitable) growth.

[bigiain]

Also, "not the best, not the worst" combined with "securing my families financial future" and "doing the right thing by my team/employees" and "relieving myself of a management and company ownership role I don't enjoy" sound like a totally better outcome _for him_, than spending another ~7 years managing something he's bored with and not starting new things.

For a lot of other people, a half mil a year profit from a successful small company they'll own pretty much in perpetuity might be what they'd choose. I can see why he didn't. (I'd almost certainly have made the same choice myself.)

[orasis]

I suspect in most cases you would have quickly hit a growth ceiling with that larger team. Fantastically fast growing companies have generally growth pulled out of them by the market. Yes, there are things you could probably do to grow faster, but those things are the spontaneous insights that occur in the shower.