This article offers a perspective on a different time period than we typically cover in class: the time surrounding and directly after the negotiation to sell a start up. It offers important considerations that are often overlooked. Although sharing insight like this with entrepreneurs and business owners, etc. themselves may be helpful, I think the most powerful way to convey such considerations during this process would be for the attorneys negotiating the deal to raise them with their respective clients. These attorneys should not just be thinking of the deal itself, but should also consider raising issues such as those mentioned in the article with their clients.

For example, an attorney could negotiate and draft a fantastic employment agreement for the original founder of the company after he is bought out. But has the attorney thought about the “grudging partner” problem? As the article points out: “Rarely is there a conversation, yet alone an agreement, before closing around how buyer and seller will actually work together after the sale.” Such considerations can go a long way in ensuring a healthy business deal, rather than just an iron-clad legal one.