Advice after Your Exit

Original post on Medium.

Exactly 2 years ago, I sold my main business to Qualcomm.

Throughout my career, I witnessed many cases where successful founders with successful exits wasted their money within a few years, buying items like yachts, causing them to lose their wealth and start from scratch.

So right after the exit, I decided to follow these rules:

1. Don’t touch money for at least 1 year. After the exit, forget about the money in your bank account and don’t touch it for at least 6 months. In my case, if I had invested in public stock right after the exit (March 2022), I would have lost 50% of my wealth. No rush.
2. Don’t change your lifestyle. Maintain the same lifestyle you had before the acquisition. You will understand that most of what is called “luxury” is just nonsense for people without goals and purpose.
3. No rush with investments. Do not invest in anything for the next year (except maybe public stocks — but wait 6 months). 99% of the offers you receive will be worthless. Do not invest outside your expertise; you will lose in 99% of cases. It’s hard to earn money through an exit, and very easy to lose it through wrong investments.
4. No dumb purchases. Don’t buy yachts, airplanes, expensive cars. In a year you’ll realize it’s better to rent. No rush buying a house either.
5. Avoid new “friends”. Many people will try to be your new best friends just to sell you something. Spend time with your old friends.
6. No loans. Don’t give significant loans to anyone; refer them to banks.
7. Invest in your education. Spend a year doing nothing to understand what you want to do next, where your “next passion” lies.
8. Invest in your and your relatives’ health. Improve your lifestyle. Exclude toxic people. Now you can afford to communicate with people you like.
9. Load your brain with a “new luxury”: access to more advanced intellectual products, more interesting people with unique experiences, better education, a healthy lifestyle.
10. Charity. It is important, but too many people use it just to earn money; there are many fake organizations and very low efficiency. Try first to find how you can help this world with your knowledge and skills — and only then put in some money.
11. Bargain. Once people learn you are rich, they will offer you everything at a higher price. Don’t be stupid — bargain for each dollar; you will save 30–40% of your spending. 🙂
12. Relatives. Improve the lives of your closest relatives, but for the rest, the maximum is help with healthcare and/or education. Otherwise you will spoil them and feel guilty for not funding their “new lifestyle” forever.
13. New business. After M&A you might think you’re a business guru; people who immediately start new businesses on passion alone usually fail. Business is a good business model first and passion second. Verify your ideas with investors and advisors.
14. People from your past. Many will try to resume relations. Usually it’s not because of you — it’s about your new status. Better to leave people from the past in the past.

Hopefully, these pieces of advice could be useful to you soon. 🙂

Best regards,
Vitaliy Goncharuk
LinkedIn