Anything You Want

How I knew I was done

I thought I would never sel CD Baby. When National Public Radio did a story

about me in 2004, I said I'd stick it out until the end, and I meant it.

In 2007 I did a ground-up rewrite of the website from scratch. And man, it was

beautiful  code.  The  proudest  achievement  of  my  life  so  far  is  that  rewritten

software.  Wonderful  y  organized,  extensible,  and  efficient:  the  culmination  of

everything I'd learned about programming in ten years.

After a successful re-launch and Christmas rush, I was looking at my plans for

2008 and beyond. Al my plans needed a huge effort for little reward, but were

required for future growth. I had broken the plans into about twenty projects of

two to twelve weeks each, and I wasn't excited about any of them. I'd taken CD

Baby far beyond my goals, and realized I had no big vision for its being much

else.

The next week, I got cal s from three companies, each asking if I'd be interested

in sel ing. I said no, as usual, since I'd been giving the same answer for ten years.

But  just  to  be  open-minded,  that  weekend  I  opened  my  diary  and  started

answering the question, “What if I sold?”

I had done this a few times in previous years, but the answer had always been,

“No  way!  There's  so  much  more  I  want  to  do!  This  is  my  baby.  I  can't  stop

now!”

This time it was different. I thought about how nice it'd be to not have eight-five

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employees and al that responsibility. I wrote about how nice it'd be to get outside

a  bit  and  feel  free  from  al  that.  I  got  excited  about  al  the  cool  new  projects  I

could do instead.

I realized that the bigger learning and growing chal enge for me was letting go,

not staying on.

Surprised by this, I asked Seth Godin's advice. Al he said was, “If you care, sel

.”

(I think his point was that my lack of enthusiastic vision was doing a disservice

to my clients. It'd be better for everyone if I put the company in more motivated

hands that could help them al grow.)

I cal ed Jared Rose, my business coach, and asked him to gril me about this big

decision. “What other ways can you achieve the freedom you want, without sel

ing?” After an hour of questions like this, we both came to the conclusion that I

was real y done.

As with any breakup, graduation, or move, you emotional y disconnect, and it al

feels as if it were in the distant past. I felt like I was already on the highway with

a little box of stuff, moving cross-country, with my old home long gone, never to

be seen again. By the end of that day, I was no longer [e-mail].

Unfortunately, as with a divorce, the paperwork took another seven months. I let

two  companies  bid,  and  ended  up  choosing  the  one  that  bid  the  lowest  but

understood my clients better.

It was never about the money. The decision was done in that one introspective

day  of  writing  in  my  diary  and  talking  with  my  mentors.  Afterwards,  I  was

completely unconflicted and knew it was the right decision.

I went to bed that night (January 18, 2008) and slept longer than I had in months.

Then I woke up ful of detailed ideas for my next company, but that's a different

story.

I've been asked a few times by other entrepreneurs, “How do you know when it's

time to sel ?”

My answer is, “You'l know.” But I hope this detailed story describes how it wil

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feel.