A liquidity event is exactly the moment to slow down. For the first time a big chunk of your net worth is cash instead of illiquid equity, and the decisions you make in the next few months matter more than years of small ones. This is often when a fee-only planner earns their fee: helping you set aside the tax you owe on the sale, build an emergency buffer, decide how much to keep safe versus invest, and avoid pouring it all back into risky bets or a bigger lifestyle. You can do this yourself if you are disciplined and read up, but many founders value a calm outside voice here. Secondaries and ESOP sales have real tax consequences in India, and rules change, so confirm your exact liability with a CA before you spend or reinvest anything. Treat this as general education, not a plan for your specific windfall.
4 resources, 3 India-specific, 2 link-checked.
The India-specific piece: perquisite tax at exercise, capital gains at sale, and the startup deferral, with worked examples in rupees.
From ClearTax by ClearTax
Open cleartax.in →The market regulator own free investor-education portal: unbiased basics on investing, mutual funds, and avoiding scams, with nothing to sell you.
From SEBI by SEBI
Open investor.sebi.gov.in →A calm explainer of what a secondary actually is, who has to approve it, and how the price gets set, before you raise it with your board.
From Carta by Carta
Open carta.com →A no-nonsense, ad-light India personal-finance site: plain math and free calculators for emergency funds, goals, and asset allocation, with no product to sell you.
From Freefincal by M. Pattabiraman
Open freefincal.com →
