I sold my startup, Stacks, to EBSCO. It is one of the experiences that shapes how I build products today, for myself and for the founders I work with.

I want to be careful here. Every exit is different, and mine is one data point. But much of what I learned has nothing to do with the deal itself. It is about the years before it, and what makes a technology business something a larger company wants to own.

A buyer is buying a product, not an idea

By the time a larger company is seriously interested, it has seen plenty of ideas. What it pays for is something that works: a product people use, solving a problem the buyer cares about, in a form it can take over.

That changes how you should think about focus long before anyone mentions an exit.

  • Do one thing clearly. A product that solves one problem well is easier to understand, easier to value and easier to fit into a bigger company than one that does many things halfway.
  • Know who it is for. "Everyone" is not a customer. A buyer wants to know exactly which users it is getting and why they stay.
  • Measure what matters. Usage, retention and the problem you remove. Vanity numbers do not survive a serious conversation.

Documentation is part of the product

This is the lesson most founders underestimate.

When a larger company looks at your product, it is not only asking whether it works. It is asking whether its own people can understand it, run it and change it without you. Every undocumented decision, every system only one person understands, becomes a question, and every question becomes a risk.

So I treat documentation as part of the work, not something to do at the end:

  • A written spec that explains what the product does and why.
  • Architecture notes that explain how it fits together.
  • Decisions recorded with the reasoning behind them, including the options we rejected.
  • Setup instructions a new engineer can follow on their first day.

It sounds tedious. It is also exactly what makes a product feel trustworthy to someone seeing it for the first time, whether that is a buyer, an investor or the next person you hire.

Own your IP, cleanly

A buyer needs to know that the company actually owns what it is selling. That means the code, the designs, the content and the data, without loose ends.

Loose ends are common in early companies: a contractor who never signed an IP assignment, a design done by a friend as a favor, a core library with a license nobody checked. Each one is easy to fix early and painful to fix late.

That is why, in every engagement I do, the code, documentation and IP live in the client's own repository and accounts, and ownership is explicit in writing. It is the boring kind of protection that only matters when it really matters.

Build so someone else can run it

Clean architecture is not about elegance for its own sake. It is about making the product easy to understand, secure and safe to change.

  • Keep it simple. Fewer moving parts, well-known tools, clear boundaries between the pieces.
  • Take security seriously from day one. Adding security to a finished product is far harder than building it in, and it is one of the first things a careful buyer checks. It is also why I have kept up more than 50 security certifications.
  • Test the important paths. Not everything, but the flows that would hurt users or the business if they broke.
  • Avoid depending on one person. Including me. If the product only works because one person knows its secrets, it is fragile.

A product that someone else can understand, run and improve without you is worth more than one that only works because you are still there.

Relationships matter more than the pitch

There is a quieter lesson in all of this. Larger companies rarely buy from strangers. They buy from people they have watched deliver over time: as partners, as vendors, as people who show up and do what they said they would.

That is not something you can rush when the moment comes. It is built in the years before, one honest conversation and one delivered promise at a time. The same thing is true of every client relationship I have had since.

What I do differently now

Selling a company did not convince me that every startup should aim to be acquired. Plenty of great businesses never sell, and should not. But building as if someone else might one day need to understand and run your product makes almost every decision better. It pushes you toward focus, clarity and ownership, which are good for users, good for the team and good for any outcome.

It is also part of why I offer build partnerships, part cash and part equity. Having been through an exit, I know what the long road looks like, and I build with that road in mind.

If you are a founder building something you want to last, whether or not it ever sells, email me with what you are building and where it is today. I am happy to share what I have learned.