
How I knew I was done with my company - sivers
http://sivers.org/done
======
staunch
I'm curious how you deal with someone else running your company now. Do
employees email you with horror stories of what's going on now? Do you try to
keep an eye on the company from a distance or try to keep it out of your mind?
Do you try to help the current owner?

~~~
sivers
Completely out of mind. For me, it was total detachment on that day described.
Like moving to a new home, your mind and time is best invested in your new
place, not your old.

That was part of my condition of sale I told the 3 companies before we even
talked: on the day of sale, I'm gone. No consulting or anything. I had to make
a clean break.

~~~
rodyancy
How did they respond to that? Obviously, they were still interested enough to
proceed with the offer, but do you think they offered less because of that
condition? Also, what went into preparing them to take the reins? I guess you
probably had key employees that you could transfer your responsibilities to
before the sale. Were there any other logistics that went into it?

~~~
sivers
I left the day-to-day operations in 2002, and had been living in California
and London (while the business is in Portland Oregon). So it had been running
without me for 6 years.

Yeah I might have made more if I promised to stay with the company, but that
was completely out of the question for me.

There were no super key employees. (Some great people, but everything quite
documented so someone new could step into any role at any time.) It was just a
working system.

The two main techies were probably the most key in explaining the system to
the new techies.

I set it all up this way to give myself personal freedom, but it definitely
helped for handing over the keys to the new owner.

~~~
quizbiz
Do you have any advice about building a business that is, "just a working
system"?

~~~
sivers
This is the best book on that: <http://sivers.org/book/EMythRevisited>

Then this: <http://sivers.org/book/UltimateSalesMachine>

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raphar
I liked the linked article where he tolds why he switched back to PHP after
trying 2 years with rails. He doesnt hate Rails, but he loves it because he
learned how to write better php.

[http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_swit...](http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html)

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adamhowell
Anyone else have any experience with business/life coaches? I can't really see
how I'd get anything out of something like that.

~~~
sivers
Isn't that a lot of what Y Combinator is about? It just means access to
someone whose opinion you really respect, that also knows you well enough to
give you wise customized advice.

~~~
adamhowell
I'd say YC is more like a business partner. They know everything there is to
know about your business and offer advice -- but that's because they've been
there before and have an invested interest in making sure you succeed. So it's
important they're honest with you and guide you as best they can.

But a coach is in a different position. How do you get someone with enough
knowledge in your area to provide insightful advice? How do you make sure
they're not blowing smoke up your ass to keep you as a client?

My guess is you just make sure you get the best or have an old friend in the
business who won't pull punches. In that sense it's nice that something like
YC is around for the upstarts that can't yet afford the best or don't have a
prebuilt network.

But not every small startup can get into YC, obviously, which I guess is where
sites like Hacker News and a good network of like-minded friends can fill in
the gap.

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zeptozorro
It's not as hard as I thought it'd be to let go of stuff. Selling a company
shouldn't be too tough when there's nothing left to do except steer the ship.

