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Field guide

What happens after the sale.

The agreement is signed and the money has moved. For customers and the people who run the product, the important part starts now.

Email a short overviewHow the process works
Contents10.1What happens to the product?1 / 4

§ 10.1

What happens to the product?It depends on the buyer’s plan.

Fig. 10.1Short answer

A good handover keeps the product running for customers, moves knowledge from the founder to the new owner and makes a small number of planned changes. A poor one changes too much, too soon, without a plan.

  • Ask for the transition plan before you sign.
  • Expect stability first, then a few measured changes.
  • Agree your own role and its end date.

§ 10.2

The first 100 days.How we plan to run them.

Fig. 10.2aThe first 100 days, then the reviews

  1. 10.2.1Days 1–30

    Keep it stable

    Accounts, billing and support move as planned. We reconcile the numbers and read the support queue.

  2. 10.2.2Days 30–60

    Understand

    We talk to customers, review reliability and confirm the baseline for revenue, retention and costs.

  3. 10.2.3Days 60–100

    Choose a few changes

    We choose a small number of improvements, each with a problem, an owner, a measure and a cost.

§ 10.3

What usually stays.And what usually changes.

Usually stays

  • The product name and the customer accounts.
  • The core features that customers rely on.
  • Customer data, under the existing terms.

Usually changes

  • Who answers support and who deploys changes.
  • Vendor accounts, billing accounts and tools.
  • Onboarding, reliability and documentation, over time.

§ 10.4

Founder questions.Short answers.

What happens to customers?

We protect the product they depend on. We agree customer continuity before ownership changes, and we improve reliability, clarity and support before we add complexity.

What happens to contractors and staff?

Agree each person’s role in the transition plan before ownership changes. Do not leave it for later.

Will the buyer review how it went?

Ask. We plan to review each business at about 30, 60 and 100 days, then at six and twelve months, and to compare the results with our original case.

  1. 1This guide is general information. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. Talk to your own advisers before you sign anything. ↩

End of guide 10

Next guideFounder transition after a saleThe three common founder paths after selling a software business, and what to settle before you sign.