After closing day
What you still owe the buyer after you sell
Acquire.com's help for sellers puts it plainly: closing day seldom means saying goodbye to the business. What a founder owes after it runs on separate clocks, and the longest one is usually the non-compete.
The transition
Transition help is written into the purchase agreement as services, usually with an end date. Acquire's examples of what goes in: answering questions, maintaining or updating the code, joining calls with customers or staff, training the buyer's team.
Andrew Gazdecki, who founded Acquire, expects buyers to want you for a few months at least. Your staying lowers their risk, and that raises the price.
Every exit story ends on a boat somewhere. Leaving for it on closing day has a price.
Three to six months of help, at minimum, keeps the valuation high.
Who wants you to stay
It depends on how the buyer runs apps. In RevenueCat's buyer interviews, Leadtech said it "absolutely" wants founders to stay, and some buyers said a founder who wants to stay can lift the valuation. AppNation, a studio with its own teams, does not expect founders to stay, and may ask for a few months in the rare case the product depends on them.
The non-compete
If you could compete with the buyer later, the non-compete goes into the letter of intent. Acquire's help describes it as a ban on running a similar business in the same industry for 12 months or more, and its guide to the clause puts the usual range at two to five years, rarely longer for a seller.
In California, where the law voids most contracts that stop someone from working in their trade, a seller's non-compete is one of the exceptions. Section 16601 lets a person who sells the goodwill of a business agree not to compete in the area where it operated, as long as the buyer carries on the same business there.
One more clock runs alongside: the warranties you gave about the business survive six months to a year, by Acquire's count.
Three clocks that start at closing
Years after closing day, as Acquire.com describes the usual range for each obligation. The solid block on the last line is where most non-competes land.
We ask founders how long they want to stay before the first buyer call, since the answer changes which buyers fit. Deals Tonic sells apps and SaaS from $20K a month off-market, and the transition terms are negotiated with the price, not after it.
Sources: Acquire.com Help, "What happens after acquisition?" and "How to sell your business on Acquire.com". Acquire.com blog: "What Is a Non-Competition Clause?", 2023, and Andrew Gazdecki's recap of the webinar "How to Properly Prepare for an Acquisition", December 2023. RevenueCat, "What app buyers really want in 2026: insights from 10 acquirers", updated 11 September 2026. California Business and Professions Code, sections 16600 and 16601. None of this is legal advice. Checked 24 September 2026.
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Andrew Levenko
I run off-market M&A for online businesses: fintech, martech and consumer apps. Operator before that, scaled payments to $50M GMV. Based in the UAE.