Days to a few weeks
A clean handoff
You introduce us, you tell the team, you walk us through the undocumented. Then you go. This is available because we are operators — not a first-time searcher who needs you in the chair.
After close
You do not have to disappear. You also do not have to stay.
We design the handoff around your life — not around our learning curve. Thirty years of building teams is why we can mean that.
The principle
A first-time searcher needs the founder. We do not.
Most acquisition stories keep the owner in the chair so the buyer can learn the business. That is not our model. We buy so you can leave well — and so the people who already know the work can keep doing it.
Three honest paths
We pick one before close. Together.
About ninety days, tapering
A designed season
The most common path. You translate the relationships. We take the decisions from day one. Hours step down on a calendar you can show your family.
If you want a longer tie
An advisor’s chair
Some founders want a year of the occasional call — customers, industry, the edge cases. That is a written, paid role. It is not two CEOs, and it is not an open-ended favor.
The cadence
Written. Finite. Kind.
The research is clear: vague stay-on is how founders get stuck and teams get two bosses. We would rather be specific.
- 01
Before close, on paper
Role, hours, end date, who the team hears it from, and how either of us ends it early with respect. If it is not written, it is not a plan.
- 02
Week one: you tell the team
No surprise memo. You say what is true: the company is in good hands, the people stay, the name stays. We stand there with you.
- 03
The first month: introductions
Customers, vendors, the quiet experts. You give the blessing. We do the listening. Authority is already ours — you are the translator, not the manager.
- 04
Then we taper, then you go
Weekly, then as-needed, then done. The door is not slammed. A call is always in order. The work no longer depends on your calendar.
What we protect
Support is more than a consulting agreement.
Your reputation
Employees and customers should remember a handoff, not a disappearance. We will not recut the culture while you are still in the building.
Your time
A finite, paid role with an end date. We do not keep you as unpaid insurance, and we do not stretch a season into a second career.
Your ability to leave
The point of selling is a next chapter. We design the company so it does not need you — which is the only honest way to let you go.
What we will not do
Integrity has a shape after the papers are signed.
- Two bosses. After close, we decide. You advise.
- Earnouts that keep you hostage to next year’s number.
- An open-ended “stay as long as you like.” That is how people get stuck.
- Asking you to stay because we are not ready. We would not be buying if we were not ready.
Tell us which path you want.
If leaving well is a condition of the sale, you are already in the right conversation.