{"id":47640,"date":"2023-10-20T15:54:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/what-its-actually-like-to-sell-your-startup-youll-be-an-emotional-wreck-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:54:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:54:27","slug":"what-its-actually-like-to-sell-your-startup-youll-be-an-emotional-wreck-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/what-its-actually-like-to-sell-your-startup-youll-be-an-emotional-wreck-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"What it\u2019s actually like to sell your startup: “You’ll be an emotional wreck” – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For a lot of startup founders, selling their business is the ultimate end goal\u2013 the light at the end of the tunnel that they are constantly striving to reach.<\/p>\n

But how does it actually feel to reach this huge milestone?<\/p>\n

Viewabill founder and CEO Robbie Friedman describes these emotions in an insightful LinkedIn piece detailing what it\u2019s like to hand over your startup.<\/p>\n

Friedman says he used to \u201cpray for the day\u201d when he could successfully sell his startup.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hand somebody the keys to the kingdom, turn around and do a little heel-click while walking off into the sunset. To be done, to move on,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo throw your life-ruining iPhone 40 feet into the air and watch it crash into a million little pieces, one piece for every painful email that you endured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friendman reached this goal a month again, and says it isn\u2019t anything like how he imagined it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no trumpets. No parades, No I-told-you-so\u2019s. No glamorous vacations or funny out of office notifications,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cExhausted and worn from the years of constant blood, sweat and tears, I didn\u2019t even take toll of our accomplishment before receiving my new email address and being told to show up to the acquirer\u2019s new hire orientation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like just another day, with all the ups and downs to which I\u2019d grown so number.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that it wasn\u2019t until he visited his company\u2019s offices for the last time that he became nostalgic for the early-stage startup days.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverywhere I looked there were artifacts of life, of team work, of excitement,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m the first person to ever become sentimental about 30-somethings doodling stick-figure diagrams explaining how to properly flush the toilet, but for the first time I realised that I actually miss the playful startup days, the days when every idea could lead to a world of possibilities.”<\/p>\n

The acquisition process is like a \u201cstartup\u2019s puberty phase\u201d, he writes, and founders need to be prepared for the clinical, emotionless process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile you\u2019d like to believe that everyone cared about all the great things you\u2019d done, the truth is, once the term sheet is signed, momentum does the rest of the work,\u2019 he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings just happen and no one has time to invest personally in the outcome – except you of course. You\u2019ll be an emotional wreck, thinking and re-thinking the deal while everybody else involved is just trying to do their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

And although the focus is always on money whenever there\u2019s an acquisition, Friendman says this becomes less significant once it\u2019s all said and done.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t start a startup to be rich,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do it because it\u2019s an avenue for a normal person like yourself to take a turn at being wildly creative.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney is good, but it\u2019s not the reason to do anything\u201d<\/p>\n

You can and should read the whole piece by Robbie Friendman here.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em>LinkedIn <\/em>and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a lot of startup founders, selling their business is the ultimate end goal\u2013 the light at the end of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47640"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}