For the past 17 years I've been working on building a software company, a company that I started with a business colleague back in the distant and heady pre-banking collapse days of 2007. It wasn't my first rodeo, I've been involved with a couple of tech start-ups previously, but this was certainly the biggest, most ambitous, risky and longest running. Anyway, there have been many twists and turns, failures as well as successes, but eventually by hook or by crook we built a business that employes around 100 people today and has over 600 large companies as customers, a decent and profitable outfit you could say.
However, you can have too much of a good thing and having recently reached the grand old age of 60 we both decided that the time was ripe to sell the business and move on. On Tuesday evening this week, after many months of haggling and just before CGT rates were raised by the new Labour Government, we signed the paperwork with a large public US company and they purchased our little firm outright for cash. (BTW this is all public domain news now, in case you're thinking you might make some quick insider money)
When I first started thinking about selling up, apart from being anxious if anyone would want to buy us, I believed that, for me, if it happened it would usher in a time for relaxation, no more do or die decision making, no more sleepless nights, no more 70 hour weeks, no more 5am trains, no more sacrificed pay cheques but instead, a massive celebration, champagne and sausages on sticks all round! But, it's been a little different from that. Don't get me wrong, we are and will celebrate and in style, but I've slowly come to realise that this isn't the end of a story, it's just the begining of a new one.
For example, the huge anxiety felt by us founders pre-sale is now being felt by our remaining work colleagues post-sale, everyone is worried about their jobs (they don't need to, they're more secure now than ever) and for them this is, understandibly, a huge voyage into the unknown. My own sense of satisfaction in building something of value and then realising that value is now being tinged with concern that the new owners will somehow ruin it or not treat it right, silly of course, it's just a big pile of software but from this new perspective it's so much more than that, it's been my life for nearly two decades and also a huge collaborative effort with much intellectual and emotional investment from many people over many years.
Much as the temptation is to pat ourselves on the back right now and toast the future with vintage Krug, I'm also aware that luck plays a much bigger part in these things than anyone would like to admit. I've been involved with several start-up companies over the years and have failed as well as suceeded, once you've been around this block a couple of times you realise that you're nothing special, and success boils down more to hard work than brilliance, practicality than genius. It's a difficult, if not impossible thing to teach younger people. I wished I'd known what I know now when I was 30 but I guess that's the nature of experience, in many ways you realise it's time to quit when you see everyone making the same mistakes you did but dismissing you with a roll of their young 20-20 vision eyes when you point it out, still, I can smirk at them all from the confort of my sun lounger, Pina Colada in hand, now :)
So, it's a huge milestone for me for sure, but my sense is that like the picture above, that milestone for my Wife and I is blank and where we're headed next will be as much of an adventure and a mystery as the last 17 years was, I'm ready!
