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Everyone is saying no. I'm going to speculate in opposite in case someone qualified reads the comment to tell us if it makes any sense. :) My idea is to, eithe

Everyone is saying no. I'm going to speculate in opposite in case someone qualified reads the comment to tell us if it makes any sense. :) My idea is to, either as terms of the sale or in a contract with a 3rd party, guarantee the company will continue doing a specific thing. If it's a contract, the company should be able to do with without much cost and get benefit in return for consideration. After the sale, they're still obligated to do what they said they would do. At the least, they could be sued. Maybe put the amount in the contract to be whatever profit they made for every year they were in violation so controlling company knows ahead of time non-compliance might cost them a lot of money. So, this is a person that just took a college class in business law a long time ago brainstorming a solution. Needs peer review by more qualified people but that's how I'd at least attempt to do it. Probably in charter, contracts, and terms of sale altogether if I can get away with it.

gm-conspiracy 9y ago
So, you would sue the company you just sold, using the proceeds of the sale to pay attorneys?
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  The customers could sue it in that model.
PeterisP 9y ago
Yes, you can put all kinds of encumbering conditions on your sale. However, the hard part is getting the buyers/investors to agree to that - especially if they are VCs with an explicit goal of getting an exit, i.e., re-selling the company somehow. At best, adding such conditions will mean you getting less money for more dilution in every funding round. At worst, at some point near the end of a runway you'll get an ultimatum to drop the condition or not get the next funding round at all.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  This is true. One would have to convince them the restriction would have minimal to no impact on their bottom line. An example of selling open software is Red Hat or SUSE where they continue to make lots of money off enterprise sales despite distros like CentOS.

gm-conspiracy 9y ago

So, you would sue the company you just sold, using the proceeds of the sale to pay attorneys?

nickpsecurity 9y ago
The customers could sue it in that model.

PeterisP 9y ago

Yes, you can put all kinds of encumbering conditions on your sale. However, the hard part is getting the buyers/investors to agree to that - especially if they are VCs with an explicit goal of getting an exit, i.e., re-selling the company somehow. At best, adding such conditions will mean you getting less money for more dilution in every funding round. At worst, at some point near the end of a runway you'll get an ultimatum to drop the condition or not get the next funding round at all.

nickpsecurity 9y ago
This is true. One would have to convince them the restriction would have minimal to no impact on their bottom line. An example of selling open software is Red Hat or SUSE where they continue to make lots of money off enterprise sales despite distros like CentOS.