
How I sold my company to Google ($80million) - sinzone
http://thenextweb.com/video/2011/01/19/silicon-valley-startup-how-i-sold-my-company-to-google-80million/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheNextWeb+(The+Next+Web+All+Stories)
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bmcmanus
Tell HN: Don't waste your time watching this like I did. It's a two-minute
video with a sexy headline and no insight.

Can anyone recommend a few useful post-acquisition interviews? Thanks.

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jimboyoungblood
What would make an interview "useful" in your opinion?

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treelovinhippie
Substance. Whatever that may involve, but it won't fit into a 2min video.

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jimboyoungblood
Fair enough.

But in their defense, neither of them were expecting to do this interview.
Hermione was there (i/o ventures in SF) filming some other interviews, and
Scott just happened to be in the building at the same time.

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ThePinion
I'll save you some time. This guy made a company that helps businesses with
advertisements. Since Google sells ads he makes them a lot of money and they
took notice and bought his company. In the future he plans to start more
companies.

That's literally about all the information you'll get from the two minute
video.

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gyardley
Here's how they really sold their company to Google: they raised less money
than their competitors (just $4MM, I believe) from VCs who'd be happier with
smaller exits (like First Round) so when Google decided they needed a DSP,
Invite Media was the best option that could actually sell for less than
$100MM. Everyone else was targeting mammoth Right-Media-style exits, on the
assumption that they'd happen when the market was a little more mature.

More interesting to me is how a couple of college students started a company
doing pretty leading-edge things in ad technology, when most people have to
work in the industry for a few years just to figure out what the hell's going
on. As I heard it (perhaps distorted), they initially had an experienced
mentor who spent a lot of time with them, only to later compete aggressively
with the same mentor when their business was off the ground.

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il
This interview lacks substance, but you can still learn from it if you read
between the lines. A few takeaways:

-Google is investing continuously in the display ad marketplace -A sure way to get acquired is to build relationships with businesses that want to give your potential acquirer money (see also Groupon) -Unique technology(like their predictive algorithms) may be more important to an acquirer than market share

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moses1400
worthless interview - as you say no substance, 2 minutes and not one question
really about the title

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kevruger
eh... the blonde was cute

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Aetius
Oh, but Mr. Kevruger, we're not allowed to say such things!

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code_duck
When the topic is a lost cause, we make do with what we can.

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jayair
It looks like the interview was at the Summit (780 Valencia).

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blantonl
I would like to read what they did... a story doesn't need video to be
conveyed. This story would certainly be interesting in an article format.

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OoTheNigerian
Probably the title raised a lot of expectations about learning the 'how'. So
people expected a long and detailed video.

I would say for a 2 min video, it was good. Hey, TC did not cover an $80
million exit by a 23yr old.

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prs
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/02/google-reportedly-
acquiring...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/02/google-reportedly-acquiring-
invite-media-for-approximately-70-million/)

