Selling Your Business: Plan for a Life After

Everybody thinks about the big payout when they sell their business. However, very few people are prepared for the emotional toll the sale takes on them. My guest today is Laura Rich a successful former journalist who founded a publication called Street Fight. She took her experience of selling that business and built a community for other entrepreneurs who find themselves lost after the post-exit.

The Exit Club is a podcast and an online community that helps post-exited entrepreneurs find a new focus and passion. Laura and I discuss the depression that sets in after the business sale. It is real and it is hard to talk about with other people. She tells me about her sale of Street Fight and why she chose to sell. She also offers some insight on what The Exit Club has taught her about the entrepreneur experience.

You will learn about:

• Laura’s background in journalism.
• The pressures Laura dealt with after her business sold.
• Laura’s new focus on post-exit transition.
• Why Laura found her exit from the company isolating.
• The trouble entrepreneurs have discussing their emotional reactions to their sales.
• Experiences Laura has heard while doing The Exit Club podcast.
• How to find your new passion.
• Why Laura sold Street Fight.
• The 4 stages of the post-exit transition.
• Why entrepreneurial post-exit is similar to how athletes, veterans, and retirees experiences.
• How to avoid getting stuck in your business.
• The difference of post-exiting with millennials and gen-xers versus baby boomers.
• The early days of Street Fighter.
• The questions to ask yourself before you sell your business.
• How planning can ease post-exiting stress.
• The due diligence process and the surprises that come up.
• Why you need to avoid “rebound” businesses.
• Laura’s main points from today’s conversation.

Takeaway:

Exiting a business is a complicated and wild emotional ride. It is important that we know as entrepreneurs that we all go through a post-exit lost feeling. You are not alone in the “what now?” feeling.

Links and Resources

The Exit Club
Laura Rich on LinkedIn

About Laura:

Laura Rich is a former journalist who wrote for Condé Nast, Adweek, Fast Company, The Industry Standard, and others. After moving to Colorado, she founded Street Fight. She sold the company in February of 2017 and found a need for entrepreneurs during the process. Today, she hosts The Exit Club podcast, a show that helps entrepreneurs who have exited their companies cope with the emotional aspect of an exit.