A few years ago I did a presentation to a VC firm. At the end of the presentation (to a senior group of 4 or 5 from that firm), there was the question of what to do with the share holding of an ex-employee with a substantial remaining stake in our business.

One of the group laughed that 'we could make that go away'. Years of his work could, it seems, be evaporated. It was not a comforting remark (and we had nothing more to do with them).

The one thing I learned selling our business was that there is a massive mis-match between the expertise (huge) and emotional involvement (very low) of the buyer and the expertise (effectively zero in this domain) and the emotional involvement (almost total) of the seller.

As the seller this puts you at an enormous disadvantage so you have to expect to have a really horrid time for many, many months.