A liquidity event turns a founder’s paper wealth into cash and ends the structure the company provided. A New Orleans tax attorney lays out a twenty-four-month roadmap for building coordination habits after a sale, with California’s estimated top 1% line of $987,325 and current IRS figures for context.
By Dr. Tamara Patzer
On Monday a founder runs a company. On Tuesday, after a closing, the same founder has cash, no company and a calendar that nobody else is managing. For years the business provided structure: a board, a finance team, outside counsel and a rhythm of reporting. After the sale all of that disappears at once. Todd M. Villarrubia, a New Orleans attorney who focuses on tax and estate planning, wrote Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™ partly for this moment. His advice is that the founder must now build the structure the company used to supply.
What changes on the day after closing?
The nature of the wealth. Before the sale, most of it was equity in a company the founder understood. After the sale, it is a portfolio of assets that may be unfamiliar, with new questions of tax, risk and purpose. The book puts the earlier state bluntly: “It isn’t until a liquidity event that their wealth is fully realized; until then, it’s largely paper value.” The event realizes the value, and it also removes the framework that held it.
It also changes the founder’s tax position. SmartAsset’s 2026 estimate, projected from IRS data and counting filers and not households, puts the income needed to reach the top 1% in California at $987,3251. A founder with a modest salary may cross that line in the sale year, which brings different thresholds into play.
What belongs in the first ninety days?
Calm, a pause and a team. Avoid large decisions about spending, giving or investing until the advisers have met. Park the proceeds somewhere simple while the plan is made. Write down what the sale was supposed to achieve for the founder and the family.
The IRS says the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax applies once modified adjusted gross income passes $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers2. Whether any part of a sale triggers it depends on the structure of the deal, and the founder’s tax professional should model it. The point for the first ninety days is to know which questions to ask.
This is also the time to assemble the advisory team, or to reassemble it. The author argues that the people matter more than the products. In his words, “the quality of your advisors determines the ceiling on your legacy”. The founder who spent years working with company counsel may now need advisers whose focus is personal and family planning.
What belongs in months four through nine?
The map and the plan. List every asset, where it sits and who holds it. Settle the question of liquidity: how much the family needs in the next year, the next five years and beyond. Update the estate documents, which may have been drafted when the founder’s wealth was tied up in the company. Decide how the proceeds will be managed and by whom.
Estate rules enter the picture here. The IRS lists $15,000,000 per person as the federal basic exclusion amount for people who die in 20263. A sale can lift an estate toward or past that figure, or leave it well below, and the founder should learn which before making gifts or setting up trusts.
What belongs in months ten through eighteen?
Governance and habits. The founder has spent years making quick decisions alone. A family with newly liquid wealth benefits from a slower, shared process: an annual meeting, a calendar of decisions, a written statement of purpose. The founder’s spouse or partner should be in the room. If there are adult children, they should hear the plan.
This is the stage at which some families decide to build a coordinating structure. It might be a lead adviser with a standing meeting, a part-time coordinator or a family office. The author is clear that not every family needs a full office, but every family with new complexity needs someone responsible for the whole picture.
What belongs in the last six months?
Review and refinement. By now the founder has lived with the new structure for a year and a half. Which parts work? Which advisers are earning their keep? Which decisions have been delayed? The founder meets with the team, writes down what has changed and adjusts. This is also the time to ask the hardest question: what does the founder want to do next?
The book reminds the reader that the work does not stop at the closing. “Exit planning doesn’t conclude with the sale.” The twenty-four-month plan is a way of continuing the exit, from an event to a life.
What are the common mistakes?
Spending too fast. Investing in friends’ companies without terms. Letting estate documents stay frozen at their pre-sale form. Staying with advisers who knew the company but not the family. And going it alone, because the founder is used to being the one who decides. Each is easy to avoid with a plan and a team.
What does a good month twelve look like?
Quiet, mostly. The founder knows what the family owns, who manages each piece and when the next meeting is. The estate documents match the new balance sheet. The family has talked about what the money is for, and the answers are written down. Nobody is scrambling to find a document, and no adviser is surprised by what another has done. That calm is the result of dozens of small habits, and it is the clearest sign that the system around the new wealth is working.
What should a founder do this week?
Write three lists. What do I own now? Who helps me manage it? What am I trying to accomplish? Then put a meeting on the calendar with the lawyer, the tax professional and the financial adviser, at the same time. The first conversation will be rough. It will still be better than the alternative.
Common questions
Is twenty-four months a fixed schedule? No. It is a framework, and the pace depends on the founder’s situation.
Do I need a family office? Possibly not. A coordinator and a calendar may be enough, and an attorney can help decide.
Should I wait to make decisions until the tax picture is clear? Usually, for the large ones. Seek legal advice and tax advice before acting.
Sources
- SmartAsset, Income Needed to Be in the Top 1% in Every State (2026)
- Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 559, Net Investment Income Tax
- Internal Revenue Service, What’s New: Estate and Gift Tax
About the author. Dr. Tamara Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor. She was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its Hurricane Charley coverage.
About the source. Todd M. Villarrubia is an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation and a Juris Doctorate. He is an Accredited Estate Planner, a Board Certified Expert in Estate Planning and Administration, and a Fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative. He is the author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™. Wealth Planning Law Group, 101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd., Ste 404, New Orleans, LA 70124. Phone: 504-982-8207; email: todd@lawealthplan.com; website: https://lawealthplan.com/?utm_source=newsanchored&utm_medium=san-francisco-post&utm_campaign=family-office
Attorney advertising. Sponsored feature written on behalf of Todd M. Villarrubia. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Results vary.
