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I faced a choice like this as I went through M&A of my most recent company. We were doing well, growing like a weed, but also because it was a consulting services company it was very cyclical and dependent on a few large clients. There was a real risk that we could lose both key clients and staff at the same time and eat up our capital reserve. Growth was also dependent on us reinvesting the profits of the business while maintaining working capital. Each time i took money out of the company, it was taking out of it's capital reserves. The earnout comes in a stages as is norm when you're expected to stay involved. So it hasn't changed my life much except for paying off all of my debts. While i think the rich vs king thing might have some truth, I ran my company this time to be king. To enjoy doing good work with smart people and build interesting products. Have an awesome office, run a good conference, and the like. It was a lifestyle business and i wasn't looking to sell it. But i'm happy to have gotten the offer, happy with the arrangement, and happy with my new role as CTO of the acquiring company. It's not perfect, but neither was everything perfect running a company all on my own. The really ironic part is that i've been involved in many startups, which were very intentionally about making money and value. Odeo became Twitter, and really was worth a lot of value, but left after 2 years & sold my options, long before it was clear Twitter would become, well, twitter. With my most recent company, it was about creating a place i wanted to work myself, with a team i liked, doing great work. Sometimes you make money where you intended to change the world, and change the world where you intended to make money. |