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Comment by rodyancy | Hacker News Reader

How did they respond to that? Obviously, they were still interested enough to proceed with the offer, but do you think they offered less because of that condition? Also, what went into preparing them to take the reins? I guess you probably had key employees that you could transfer your responsibilities to before the sale. Were there any other logistics that went into it?

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I left the day-to-day operations in 2002, and had been living in California and London (while the business is in Portland Oregon). So it had been running without me for 6 years.

Yeah I might have made more if I promised to stay with the company, but that was completely out of the question for me.

There were no super key employees. (Some great people, but everything quite documented so someone new could step into any role at any time.) It was just a working system.

The two main techies were probably the most key in explaining the system to the new techies.

I set it all up this way to give myself personal freedom, but it definitely helped for handing over the keys to the new owner.

Interesting.

Being unwilling or unavailable is probably a downside. But being unnecessary is a massive upside.

Do you have any advice about building a business that is, "just a working system"?

This is the best book on that: http://sivers.org/book/EMythRevisited

Then this: http://sivers.org/book/UltimateSalesMachine

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