Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA®Enterprise Value Revenue Systems for B2B founders who want to break through revenue roadblocks, Modern Revenue Strategies · Agent Evers - Mark Osborne's agentic tool for building Enterprise Value Revenue Systems for B2B companies from $2M to $20M

The 15% I Almost Walked Away From

26 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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This content was created by Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA®. This content was uploaded by Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA®. This is a YouTube clip titled "The 15% I Almost Walked Away From" (uploaded 2026-01-26). The excerpt is a first-person monologue in English where the speaker recounts selling their company and negotiating an earnout—choosing an 85% up-front deal and leaving 15% as earnout. The speaker describes post-sale conversations with the buyer-turned-friend who regretted not capping the earnout, and reflects on how sellers and their clients understand the value they bring. The content is business-focused, covering deal terms, negotiation dynamics, and personal anecdotes about the sale.

Chapters

At the time, I was thinking, you know what? I'm gonna take 85%. It's good enough. The 15%, I end up making more. And the reason, and that's something I talk a lot with my clients, is they know stuff you don't. And the main thing they know that you don't is they know the value they bring. And that it's not in your business plan. And they know it's not. So I became like, the guy who actually bought my company became a very close friend. So we had many, many super fun conversations. Conversation after that, because he would say, "Fuck, I should have capped the earnout." Would you have signed if you if I had capped the earnout? I say, "You're kidding. I didn't even take that into consideration." Of course, I was. And he said, "Ah," and I said, "By the way, you cannot blame me if I play better at a game. You set the rules." So we laughed. He was actually super happy, obviously, because and yeah, so they helped us so much.