Founders spend enormous energy negotiating price and earnout terms — and almost none negotiating the thing that determines whether the next few years are bearable: their own role.
Most founders evaluate a PE firm on price and reputation. Almost none evaluate the one thing that determines what the next three years will actually feel like.
There is a version of selling your company everyone prepares you for. There is another version almost nobody prepares you for
The conversation that does not happen in any data room — and the things worth negotiating before you sign. A founder's honest account of what comes after the deal closes.