Thursday, August 25, 2005

Jack and I are going to meet for lunch tomorrow to discuss my leaving, what I want, etc., so I'm trying to work up some specific terms tonight. Unfortunately David can't make it, which is a real shame, because he's a real calming influence for us.

The biggest thing is trying to figure out what the company is worth without me. We've had the business on the market for several years now, and haven't been successful trying to sell it. We had one offer for $1.4M (and some really bad business buyout terms, such as staying with the company for several years after the buyout), so "fair market value" for the business is clearly less than that, at least in terms of what the market is willing to pay.

As we've talked about selling shares of the company to additional Class B members lately I floated the idea of $12K per share, and while everyone said that seemed reasonable based on our historical return on investment, they thought a price of $10K was more reasonable.

Some factors that make my shares less valuable are (a) me leaving the company, and (b) me wanting to leave no later than next June, which is roughly nine to ten months from now.

I don't really know how to judge how far down to go. I know Jack will argue that the company is worth less without me, but since we don't do much selling or marketing lately (mostly just responding to incoming phone calls and servicing existing clients), so that argument doesn't hold too much for me. That being said, we've clearly gotten several deals because of my relationships and work in previous sales meetings, and George seems to have pissed off several customers now, so my being here is worth something.

I'll just talk to Jack about this tomorrow, and see what he thinks. I won't say that $12K/share is exactly what I want, just that it clearly seems to be the high end, and we need to figure out where to go from there.

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