How much would it take to sell your company?

A question I’ve been asking myself since Google bought YouTube for $1.65B.  Now make no mistake – that is a LOT of money, and it’s hard for me to envision a time when I’d turn that down.  But it begs the question:  if you GET that offer, how can your company not be WORTH that much – and therefore MORE in the long term?

At my last job, the owner and founder made a HUGE mistake when he took the company public for absolutely the wrong reason – he needed money to pay the bills.  It wasn’t a good business model, and it really COULDN’T make money at that point.  If he had any idea how lucky he was to have the management team he had, maybe he’d still be leading he company today.

But what happens when I get an offer for someone to buy my software company when it is really profitable?

I think the answer is this:  the money I’m potentially going to make pales in comparison to the legacy I can build, the people i can employ, and the businesses I can help to become successful.  I picture user group meetings where people bring product improvement ideas to us by the boatload, and we work to implement them all.  Making goo-gobs of money will be a lovely side effect of all of those things.

So would i sell?  Maybe – but it sure would have to involve more than just money.