
Ask HN: Taking a bad acquihire offer vs. taking a good job offer - pizzaburrito
My startup, of which I&#x27;m a cofounder, has been approached by another startup that wants to acquire our product and also wants to hire us to continue working on our product under their umbrella.<p>At the same time, we, the founders, had already started to consider shutting the company down, for different reasons. So, this offer couldn&#x27;t have come at a better time.<p>However, the offer is not that good and we think we could get better jobs, pay and a more exciting role  if we just looked for a job somewhere else.<p>So, getting to my question, what would be the advantages of taking an bad acquisition offer? Is it worth taking, regardless of how low it is, if I want to do another startup or look for a role of more responsibility in the future?
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relaunched
Taking a bad offer starts everyone off on the wrong foot. Additionally, the
founders are such an important part of an early product's success or failure,
you should have some upside that you are excited about and so should your
team, to a lesser degree.

Additionally, it's really hard to go from founder to working for someone else.
REALLY HARD! REALLY REALLY HARD! The acquirer knows that and so should you. If
they really want the founders, they'll craft an attractive retention plan.

Negotiate. If they don't know that you're considering shutting down, use that
to your advantage. Depending on your situation, product and team size, as well
as the situation of your acquirer, get help. Do you have advisors / investors?
They'll know the players and the game or will be able to point you towards
someone who does. If someone wants what you have, someone else probably does
too; creating demand will help ensure you get the best value.

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mswen
Another possibility is to counter-offer with an offer like the following.

We will sell you the IP for $XXX,XXX (USD) and 2 months of PT work from each
of the founders to ease the transition. Founders will stay on 3 days a week
for the first month (at a rate of $2400 a week) and then down to 2 days a week
for the second month (at a rate of $1800 a week). Primary purpose will be to
do finish out in-progress features, update documentation and work with
employees of the acquiring firm to do hand-offs.

This type of arrangement helps you hand if off and be able to put on your
resume that you sold your start-up as compared to just saying that you shut it
down. Second, it helps the acquiring firm to have a chance at a successful
hand-off. Third, it gives you and your co-founders a transition time to look
for other jobs without immediately going to zero income.

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tedmiston
IMO there are a few factors to think about:

\- Is it a substantial amount of money to you and the other founders? The
signal to me is no based on referring to it as "bad acquihire".

\- Are you still hyped to continue working on your product?

\- How long do you have to stay...? Anyone can tough out a few months, but
what if it's a year or more? Is that what your team wants to do? Is there a
team consensus?

\- One that's less important but still matters from an optics perspective for
your CVs, your accelerator, etc is that you can call this a small acquisition
or acquihire in the books, which doesn't have the same stigma as "failed".

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shoo
do you have employees? are there other people depending on the success or
otherwise of your startup? if so, what is the right thing to do by them?

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rajacombinator
Do you have investors? Pretty vital detail...

