Chapter 7Sell for the Right Reasons
The biggest mistake I made as a founder was thinking that selling meant giving up. I used to roll my eyes whenever another founder mentioned that they were looking to exit. I wanted to build the next big thing, not just some startup that got acquired and shut down immediately. You hear it everywhere in the Valley—real entrepreneurs don’t think about exits, they think about impact. Investors nod approvingly when you say that and refuse to write checks for those slide decks that include an M&A slide. But deep down, everyone knows the truth: in a capitalistic world, everything has a price. You may not sell for a million, but what about a billion?
Selling your company doesn’t make you a sellout. It makes you human. At some point the weight of responsibility—for your team, your investors, your own family—becomes heavier than the myth of building forever. The key is to sell for the right reasons, not out of panic, fatigue, or ego.
1. When the Right Offer Comes Along
Every now and then, you catch a lucky break. You're in the right market at the right time, and a decision-maker somewhere wakes up one morning and realizes your company is the missing piece they need. When that happens, your duty as a founder isn't to wave it off; it's to take the call seriously.
I’ve seen founders turn down great offers because they were too focused on the fantasy of what could be next quarter. But the reality is, genuine, actionable offers are rare and impossible to manufacture. When one shows up, at least explore it. Sometimes the “right” offer isn’t even about the money—it’s about reach, infrastructure, or distribution that accelerates your vision faster than you could alone. See chapter 4 on how my missed opportunity resulted in years of subsequent struggle and slog in the years following.
As for the fear of losing control—titles don't matter. As a founder you already work for someone: your customers, your employees, your board, your investors. Having one boss instead of four hundred is, if anything, a lot simpler.
2. When You're Out of Your Depth
When Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, it wasn't because the founders failed—it was because they'd built something bigger than they could protect. The lawsuits piling up from media companies could've crushed them. Google had the lawyers, the money, the infrastructure. YouTube had the product. Together they worked.
That story stuck with me. Founders like to believe grit can solve anything, but there are problems money, scale, or legal muscle solve better. Sometimes the most responsible move isn't doubling down—it's handing the reins to someone equipped to handle the next chapter.
3. When Growth Gets Ahead of You
The perfect time to sell is when you hold all the cards—when the numbers are exploding and buyers are circling. Ironically, that's also when founders least want to. During one of our hypergrowth years, we were scaling faster than our systems could handle. Everything looked great on paper—revenue, engagement, hiring. Behind the scenes, it was chaos.
I hired senior executives through expensive recruiters, thinking their experience would stabilize things. Within two years, none of them were still with us. I'd spent over half a million dollars on hires that didn't stick. In hindsight, what we really needed wasn't more people—it was more structure, the kind you get when you join forces with a bigger, more established company. If I'd recognized that sooner, the next phase of Polarr might have been a lot smoother.
4. When Growth Stops Altogether
After the pandemic, the numbers stopped moving. We had over six million monthly users for our consumer apps, but revenue stubbornly hovered around five million a year. Our enterprise customers cut R&D budgets, and the capital markets cooled. We were stuck in what YC calls a "tarpit"—too successful to quit, too stagnant to excite new investors.
Our employees had grown with the company. They were ready for bigger challenges, but the company wasn't growing fast enough to provide them. We were still profitable, still shipping products, but the spark was gone. In that kind of plateau, an acquisition isn't failure—it's evolution. Sometimes being absorbed by a larger platform is the only way to keep the mission alive.
5. When the Market Turns
In early 2022, while waiting with Charis for another obstetrician appointment—our daughter was due that fall—I sat in the waiting room listening to the nurses talk excitedly about NFTs. A few months later, no one was talking about them anymore. The entire market had collapsed. Terra and Luna had imploded, trading volumes had dropped 90 percent, and the easy-money era was over.
By the time our daughter was born, funding rounds had dried up across tech. Companies that once raised tens of millions were suddenly fighting for survival. Consolidation became the only path. The lesson was simple: when the market turns, pride is expensive. You don't wait for a perfect valuation—you look for a stable partner who can carry your team through the storm.
6. When Your People Need Liquidity
By 2021, my own life looked very different from when I'd started Polarr. I was married, had two kids, a mortgage, and a team of people with families of their own. Many had been with us for years, working below market pay because they believed in what we were building.
We were sitting on paper value but very little real liquidity. The venture market had cooled, and there was no viable path for a secondary sale. If we didn’t find an acquirer, the only “reward” my team would have for years of sacrifice would be more stock certificates that might never convert to cash.
That weighed on me. It wasn't about "getting rich." It was about keeping a promise—that if we built something of value together, everyone would see some return for the time they'd given up. Exploring M&A wasn't a financial decision; it was a moral one.
I've come to believe that there is always a right moment to sell . For me, it was alignment: taking care of our people, honoring our investors, protecting what we'd built, and finding ways to make a bigger impact. The wrong reasons are fear, burnout, ego, or chasing a headline. The right reasons are clarity, responsibility, and timing.
And once you know your reason—once you accept that selling isn’t the end of your story but a continuation of it—the next challenge begins. You have to shift your entire mindset from building to letting go, from offense to endurance.
That’s what I wished I had known: learning how to rewire my brain to survive the emotional roller coaster of actually going through an M&A.