Before you go public, or selling for that matter, make sure your startup is not your life's work. My first project was one I worked on since I was 16 and sold it when I was 24. Granted, it wasn't a startup but a software product, it was to me a combination of high school, college and graduate school. When I sold it and signed the ridiculous non-compete papers, I had NOTHING else to work on. Even the much taunted liberal arts PhDs get to keep their titles; I kept nothing. (sure, I was happy to sell it by then, because I was burned out, but it might have been better to delay the negotiations until I was in a better emotional and financial state and was optimistic about the future.)
I know this is tangential to the topic at hand, but had to air my grievances to warn someone else who might be tying their startups with their personal identities.