The business was ready. I wasn't.

In March 2021 we sold Comma Group to Amplifi. On paper, it was about as clean as a sale gets.

We wrote an exit plan at the start: five to seven years. We sold almost to the day at five. You couldn't script it.

The data room opened in mid-December. The buyer's risk report was done by the end of January, and it found two issues. Heads of terms in December, completion in March.

The business was ready. I wasn't.

What the business got right

We had one principle from day one: outsource everything we didn't understand.

Every contract, every NDA and every statement of work went past our lawyers. Our articles, our shareholder agreement and our EMI scheme (the tax-efficient way to give employees share options) were all done properly, years before anyone asked to see them.

So when a buyer did ask, there was very little to find. Due diligence was quick at the end, because we'd put the thinking in.

What I hadn't done

The exit plan we wrote at the beginning was never about the number. It was about the time.

That was the right instinct. But it meant the deal itself caught me less prepared than the business.

Did I understand the multiples, the way a buyer turns your profit into a price? It wasn't top of mind. Did we explore the other options? We didn't. We sold off-market, to someone I knew from trade shows. It was a good buyer, and the teams already knew each other before we signed. But I never tested that route against the alternatives.

And the personal side only came home after the deal.

The part nobody prepares you for

Recently, the co-founder of a founder community told me that every exited founder he'd spoken to said the same thing: the period after the sale was the hardest of their life. An event organiser told me the same a day later.

I recognise it. Losing the role that defined you for years is common, and rarely discussed before a deal. I did a lot of that thinking after we sold. So why didn't I do it beforehand?

None of this means walking away is the only good outcome. Staying on as chair or a non-executive director is a valid exit. So is a clean break. They are different exits, and they change the buyer, the structure and the price you'll accept.

Two kinds of ready

Preparing the business is a discipline most founders understand. Clean paperwork, a team that can run without you, numbers a buyer can trust.

Preparing yourself is the half that gets skipped. I've written about why in Two assessments, not one.

Three questions to ask yourself now

1. Clean break or next chapter? Do you want to leave on completion, or stay on in some role? Answer it before a buyer asks.
2. What is the exit for? For us it was time. If that's true for you too, what will you do with it?
3. Do you know your number? Not the headline multiple, but what the sale needs to do for you and your family, and how a buyer would arrive at it.

The Exit Goals module in The Founders Exit® starts with these questions, personal outcomes first, before any talk of structure. Start free at app.thefoundersexit.com.

I talked through the whole Comma journey with James Lamb on The Ownership Journey. Listen on Spotify.