
How to Sell Your Company - DanielRibeiro
http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/How+To+Sell+Your+Company
======
buro9
I'm currently in this position and for me the article (though I read it a
while ago) has been bumped at a time that makes it a nice reminder.

I suspect in my case that the purchaser has three motives:

1) The acquisition of a stable and profitable media business, with continued
growth in an area that they are not present.

2) The acquisition of modifications and code that enabled my forum to grow as
it has, and would give the potential for their existing forums to grow
similarly.

3) As #1 and #2 aren't worth the kind of offer in consideration, that they
wish to acquire me.

I'd love to see the article updated with reference to the third point... the
acqui-hire.

The offer being discussed is attractive, but I'm very wary of the acqui-hire
as what matters to me most isn't this particular website but the technology
piece I'm building separately. That's the real startup, and that's why I care
deeply about.

From my point of view, the offer I have is being reduced to: If I accept it,
it may prove to be a distraction of such size that I end up killing the
project I care about the most, my technology startup (rather than the forum
which is more lifestyle business).

Anyhow... Jacques, if you were considering an update or 2nd article,
considering whether to sell in the face of what appears to be an acqui-hire
offer would be something I would love to see.

~~~
davros
In many cases the value of your business is based on a combination of your
talent with the other business assets especially market share and revenue
prospects. So many small businesses are acquired in a way that the founder(s)
are retained and strongly incentivised to keep growing the business.

One way to understand what the offerer wants is to look at the deal structure
on offer to infer what they want from you. If there is a lot of emphasis on
future profits then they want you to keep growing your business, if there is
shares in the parent business then thats where they'll want you to focus, etc.

Finally, as per Jacques article, consider other sale options - can you find
other buyers and get a competitive process going, etc.

~~~
buro9
The verbal offers (and emails) have thus far put an emphasis on shares in the
parent business, above market salary and a non-trivial purchase price.

From this I felt that the emphasis is towards working for the parent company
over any continued growth in the community sites that I run.

As the web sites continue to pay me a very modest (read: barely but just about
liveable) wage. I'm of the opinion that I shouldn't really consider the sale
at all.

Right now: I don't need the money.

And, right now: I have the freedom to work on the startup and to being the
idea alive.

That's worth far more to me than any monetary offer is. Mostly I'm trying to
rationalise all of this so that when I explain to my girl why we continue to
eat dry pasta and I turned down an offer of wealth that she doesn't thump me
over the head.

I'm prepared to sell a successful, profitable and growing community website.
But only if doing so helps increase the chances that my startup will be a
success (by giving me funds to get an extra pair of hands and a good runway
with no distractions). I'm not willing to sell if it in any way jeopardises
the potential of the startup. And as the startup is barely mentioned but I'm
expected to be full-time, then it undoubtedly would do that.

------
atirip
Ok, I risk here massive downvotes, but I really like to know why HN worships
Jacques Mattheij. It's third writing in last three days on frontpage. I must
admit he is very good writer I really enjoy to read his posts, but still. If
every single blogpost he writes must find his place on the frontpage of HN,
shouldnt we just add his feed on our RSS readers and be done.

~~~
lionhearted
Well, first, he's a got ton of really interesting and crazy experiences, and
translates into it practical knowledge... second, he goes on writing tears
every now and then and cranks out a lot of quality content, then gets quieter
for a while.

I actually dislike him on a personal level and think he's a jerk, and disagree
with many of his philosophical stances, but despite that it's hard not to
respect the guy and his writings and desire to give back / share his
knowledge.

------
jedc
Why was the original thread deleted? ("Good reasons" were mentioned, but not
explained)

~~~
hobbyhacker
Because if the sellers would have found out about the HN thread it might have
negatively impacted their ability to negotiate a good deal, they showed quite
clearly how weak their negotiation position was.

~~~
clarky07
anyone know how it turned out? Did they sell?

------
makmanalp
> In this case the solution for that (and any M&A lawyer worth their salt
> would include something to this effect) would be to do part of the deal in
> cash and an acceleration clause that states that if the buyer terminates one
> of the original founders before the stock vests that their stock vests
> immediately. That way the problem simply goes away. If the buyer would not
> accept a clause like that then that’s an excellent reason to suspect that
> they actually will fire you on day #3, and if they have no problem with such
> a clause that will increase the goodwill between both parties.

Wait. Isn't the whole point of vesting to make sure that the founder _will_
add value and not leave on the first day?

A clause like this means that a founder can stick around, do nothing of use,
get their vesting period out and then leave. They can't be fired or they leave
with _all_ the stock. Exactly the opposite of what the vesting intended,
right?

~~~
jdbernard
I think a founder is unlikely to be the kind of person who _can_ sit around
all day doing nothing. I used to have a job where I had literally nothing to
do four days of the week and it almost drove me crazy. I could not sit idle
all day on purpose.

~~~
makmanalp
Well, nothing of _use_. I could not show up. I could show up and work on my
new cool project instead of the one I sold. And they can't fire me because
they would have to give me all the stock.

------
powertower
I'm guessing this is the deleted thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154106>

(*the process is over, so there's no point in hiding it anymore).

Also, this is the previous discussion (210 points) of this blog post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2254069>

------
tagawa
There's a wonderful book about this, Built to Sell, written as a story but
based on a business seller's experiences:

<http://www.builttosell.com/>

It's a good read even if you're not thinking of selling because it covers
creating efficient processes, delegation and general streamlining. (No
affiliation, by the way)

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TamDenholm
Its worth noting that this is an old post.

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quintin
Is there a cache on the "original thread"?

------
tzaman
Thank you for the insights, but this post is way too long, you might want to
split it into series :)

Congratz on the effort though

~~~
DanielRibeiro
I'm just the submitter. The author of this amazing piece is actually one of
the top 10 HN contributors: <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm>

Some of the best startup options/acquisitions info I've read from HN
community, along with the comments on this[1] thread, and ChuckMcM's
comments[2]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623182>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4425364>

