Burlingham interviewed owners on the other side of their exits and found the difference between happy and haunted had little to do with price. The good exits shared traits: owners who knew who they were beyond the company, who understood what they wanted from the sale in advance, who chose successors and buyers deliberately, who gave themselves years rather than months, and who treated employees’ fates as part of the deal’s terms.
The Institute’s reading: this site’s Preparing to Sell stage ends with a page called Life After the Sale because seller regret is real and predictable, and this is the book behind that conviction. It belongs years before any process, next to Built to Sell: Warrillow makes the company sellable; Burlingham makes the seller ready. A sale that wins the negotiation and loses the founder is a failed deal this literature knows how to prevent.