
Andrew Wilkinson and Tiny Capital - colinkeeley
https://colinkeeley.com/blog/andrew-wilkinson-tiny-capital-operating-manual
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meredydd
These two threads seem contradictory to me:

 _1 > For the employees, [post-acquisition] is business as usual for the most
part. The goal is for the employees to not even notice. _

_2 > You can buy companies and replace expensive people with a global remote
workforce that is just as good (or better) and cheaper._

Can someone with more knowledge or experience of Tiny acquisitions explain
which of these is true? Are they a holding company for SaaS companies with
extra best practices, or a cuddly face on traditional PE cost-cutting tactics?
The article itself doesn't seem sure. (And, oddly, appears not to notice the
contradiction.)

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Sevii
I’ve experienced something similar where after the acquisition nothing really
changed for current employees but most new hires were in the Mexico office.

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jjoonathan
Inflated self-image? Check.

> Tiny is positioned as the good guys of private equity. The Berkshire Hathway
> of internet businesses.

Usual PE shenanigans? Check.

> A challenge with this model is that it is difficult to acquire tech
> companies at reasonable prices.

> Often Tiny buys product or designer-led startups that have grown
> organically. They will raise prices and put standard best-practice marketing
> and sales processes in place.

> Canadian arbitrage includes lower salaries, not needing to pay medical
> benefits, SRED, and cheaper currency.

> “Let someone else run the marathon and incentivize them.”

~~~
nothal
>good guys

If you're laying off good workers who ostensibly helped build a company you
run from the ground up, you're actually a vulture and I think most people
would probably agree your job is immoral.

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drchiu
Andrew Wilkinson is someone I've heard of (see his tweets across my timeline
every few days), and so his signal gets boosted a lot in trendier tech
circles.

Another Canadian company ("Berkshire Hathaway" of software) is Constellation
Software. $3.1 billion in revenue in 2019 and is publicly traded [1]. They too
are interested in buying SAAS companies and internet properties. I didn't hear
about them until I came across it randomly (again on Twitter).

Does anyone know if there's a compiled list of these kinds of operations
(software holding co's / Berkshires of SAAS type of thing)?

[1]
[https://web.tmxmoney.com/quote.php?locale=en&qm_symbol=CSU](https://web.tmxmoney.com/quote.php?locale=en&qm_symbol=CSU)

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porter
The Constellation CEO also writes an annual letter that is packed with useful
information, just like Buffet except for SaaS.

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evek
I remember visiting designernews often, a community from their portfolio, for
robust and interesting discussions, before the acquisition. Through time it
became stale, now it looks empty. I wonder what's the success rate for this
kind of investment strategy.

~~~
dang
Sort of interesting to look back:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5091763)

There were a few other threads:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E3%20%22designer%20news%22&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none)

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jakozaur
Tiny Capital seems to take advantage of three principles:

1\. Market of VC chasing next unicorns is very comoetitive. Chasing smaller
opportunities is underserved.

2\. Selling smaller companies is tough. A lot of founders enjoy freedom more
than maximizing financial outcome.

3\. There are efficiencies at scale that can be applied across portfolio. E.g.
remote hiring.

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troughway
Speaking of.. there's also this twitter roll -
[https://twitter.com/awilkinson/status/1258424937716436992](https://twitter.com/awilkinson/status/1258424937716436992)

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seibelj
I agree that delegation is the key to scale. Letting go of things and trusting
other people is very hard to do, and the flip side is knowing when things are
going wrong and making the decision to step back in. An art form.

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guytpearson1
Edited for clarity: I disagree with this model. There.

~~~
dang
> I’ll be downvoted into oblivion but Andrew is so cringe.

Yeah, please don't post comments that break the site guidelines. You did that
twice in ten words here, and there's nothing else in the comment.

Maybe you don't owe the person who is "so cringe" better, but you owe this
community better if you're posting to it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

