“OK, Papa, but how hard is it really?”
Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow had more questions about the impending of the Ludlow Bubbly, and he expected his grandfather and adoptive father, Capt. R.E. Ludlow, to have answers.
The captain looked with a tender smile on his eldest grandson.
“Explain your question,” he said.
“I mean, it has our name on it,” Andrew said. “You built the company using your mother and grandmother's recipes to make an inheritance for your grandchildren – so how hard is it to just sell it all – just cut the cord and let it all go?”
“Not as hard as you might think,” he said, “because first, I'm not selling the recipes. I'm leasing them, just like in the Ludlow Winery, my father obtained the leases from a cousin who needed money, which is why when Cousin Astor got mad that the Ludlow Bubbly out-competed the Ludlow Winery and threatened me, I shut the Ludlow Winery down in two hours and eventually acquired it.”
“Oh,” Andrew said.
“Never sell foundational creativity if you don't have to; lease it to businesses that can use it if you can,” the captain said gently. “The other thing, Andrew: I would never sell off the right to make you some Ludlow Bubbly right here at the house any time you want some.”
“Thank you,” Andrew said. “It would be too weird to have to buy our own soda.”
“Well, sometimes we might want to support the brand we are selling to the workers who make it now, and, over time they may well develop their own recipes and the company will, by the time you are my age, be producing more kinds of soda that you and your grandchildren may want to sample. But, as my heirs, there are founders' clauses on discount prices, in perpetuity, for you and your siblings.”
“Good, because it would also be too weird to be paying for markup,” Andrew said.
“But by that time, you will be able to run the carbonator by yourself, too,” the captain said.
“Oh yeah,” Andrew said.
“But the main thing, my grandson, and my son: I built the company to provide you a certain inheritance, and sometimes you can build a business to exit it when its real goals have been achieved. I did not expect to exit quite this soon, but, the workers are willing to come together to keep this and make it work for all of them and their families long-term, and I can get your inheritance done before I get too much older. Mission accomplished all the way around. I will not even miss being Mr. Big-Time Businessman. My favorite title is Papa.”
“Yeah, we like that one too, Papa,” Andrew said, and grinned in his (grand)father's embrace.