Notes from two exits
I've sold two companies. Neither made headlines, both made me a different founder. A few things I'd tell the version of me that started eCheque:
The exit is a byproduct, not a strategy. Both times, the acquisition came from building something a specific buyer couldn't ignore, not from shopping the company around. When you optimize for being acquired, buyers can smell it.
The deal terms you skim are the ones that bite. Everything you sign in year one is a negotiation you're having with year five. Read the boring clauses. Then read them again with a lawyer who has seen founders cry.
Selling doesn't feel like winning. It feels like handing your kid to a family with a bigger house. Sometimes that's exactly right. It still stings.
The third company is the honest one. The first, you build to prove you can. The second, to prove the first wasn't luck. The third one — Indie — is the first company I'm building because I can't not build it. Turns out that's a very different fuel.