Is this a full buyout? Do they want a majority stake and have you continue to grow the business? An ~8x multiplier at your size is a serious offer. I would have expected something closer to 4x.

Ignore it and keep executing to best of your ability. The fact that competition is worried about you is an indication that you’re successful, They feel threatened and are lashing out.

If they post fake reviews, dispute them up to the limit. But as much as it hurts emotionally, people like this are mostly just noise. It sounds like you are running the actual customer-facing portion of your business well. Why change? Why go out of your way and waste your limited energy on actual haters? TBH, if this is how the competition responds, you probably dont need to worry about them in the long run. I would be more concerned by the competitor that tries to improve their product or service.

Part of the purchase and sale docs should be an employment agreement. It needs to describe the length of time, rate of pay, benefits, etc that you will be compensated for your time. Unless it is a very short period of time (30 days), I would not just bake it into the sale price.

Every commercial lease I have signed has provisions for what will happen when the lease is over and how much everything costs, including overstaying the term. They also have personal guarantees which allow the landlord to go after personal assets in the event the business doesn’t pay what they owe. Get a lawyer and act on the lease. If the lease doesn’t have any provisions, get a lawyer and start the eviction process

If the tenant trashes the place, get quotes for remedies and bill the tenant, using the personal guarantee if needed.

This is both a huge opportunity but also a big risk. For starters, you need to look at all of the critical business documents. Profit and Loss statements, balance sheet, leases, bank statements, and on. If you don’t know what any of those are, start doing research. Ideally, you know a competent business owner who can help you with this.

Things to watch out for: debt on the company, expensive leases that have a personal guarantee, relatives of the owner having an interest in the business.

Also, you will need a partner agreement with the current owner. You are going to be ‘business married’ to them and you need to document exactly how the relationship is going to work. Who owns what? How are you paid? What if you want out? For this, you will want some of a lawyers time to draw up a fair one.

Good luck!