The seven-week exit

The best deal I ever did, I left seven weeks after completion.

I was already the chair. The buyer looked at the agency and saw a managing director in place, a head of client services in place, a creative director and a COO in place, and concluded, reasonably, that the founder was surplus. Their exact position was that I was a bit wild and it was a good thing I was already out of the day-to-day. They paid me a stonking great payout to get out of the way. Everybody was happy, me most of all.

Compare that with the standard construction: a three-year earnout designed to chain the founder to a desk, working for a boss they never wanted, hitting targets they no longer control. Anecdotally, six out of ten founders don't finish those. The buyers know it, and they structure their offers accordingly.

The difference between the two outcomes is built years before the deal. Make yourself non-executive chair. Appoint the MD. Let the team run the agency while you still own it, so the buyer can watch it working without you. Then you negotiate from the strongest position there is: they want the business, and the business does not need you in it.

I now advise agency founders on exactly this, a small number at a time, as a board advisor. If you want to leave well, and sooner than you thought possible, start at felixvelarde.com.