
Ask HN: Should I Not Be Sad About White-Labeling My Product to a Fortune-50? - throwaway201601
Some context: I started a company over a year ago and having been busting my ass (along with my team of course!) to build and sell. I&#x27;m not the CEO, because I absolutely hate meetings. Along the way, a fortune 50 company came to us and after a series of meetings our CEO decided it would be best to white label to them. This company is absolutely stoked and is promising to turn this into a billion dollar a year revenue stream over the next 5-6 years. Seems good, right?<p>Wrong. With this deal comes the inability to sell to anyone else. We also are not allowed to place our logo on the product anymore. Essentially, our company disappears in the eyes of the public, only to exist to serve this larger company. They have already begun dictating features and designs of the product since they will now be taking &quot;ownership&quot; of it worldwide.<p>From a business POV, I know this is a smart idea because it gives my company the leverage it needs to break into the global market and actually compete. From an entrepreneurs POV, I&#x27;m fucking sad. Our vision, our brand, our name...all gone. I feel like we sold out. But I can&#x27;t say no, because I&#x27;d be an idiot to say no to this deal.<p>Anyone else have experience in this area? Can anyone else relate?
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traviswingo
This sounds to me like a situation you need to really figure out for yourself.
You've probably been promised millions of dollars in exchange for this deal -
but you need to ask yourself: is that really going to happen?

These large companies aren't always what they seem to be. Sometimes these
deals are great for the business, sometimes they burry it. You'll need to be
able to read between the lines to figure out if you're giving everything you
worked for up or not.

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sharemywin
I would make sure they have performance guarantees. what's to stop them from
just white labeling your product then doing nothing with it. while they build
out there own product or something.

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SixSigma
> I feel like we sold out.

Because you have.

But come on, they could just have copied it and killed you instead. Add
another product !

