How do you sell a 100% remote startup?

[SkyMarshal]

When a startup sells to another company, they sell their cash flow, customer/client base, products & services, IP, equipment, and employee contracts, among other things.

But is there a still a general expectation that the employees be working together in the same office, that remote organizations are too 'fragile' to risk purchasing outright?

What problems or disadvantages might companies comprised mainly of remote workforces, like 37 Signals and StackOverflow (not that either would ever sell), incur should they try to sell to another company (since most companies these days are non-remote)?

[cctelco]

You can count on a calculated rejection from your inherited employees in this case. They'll take paychecks from the company that bought them only until they find something suitable to replace that source of cash flow. In my opinion, taking away remote working opportunities is par with taking away medical benefits wholesale. i.e. there are plenty of people that have a job mainly for medical benefits and if they were to be taken away, that person no long has the incentive to stay. same goes with telecommuting: you take away that and, unless you're giving them quite a hefty raise and contributing to their relocation if required, you'll see a very swift exodus once they have their ducks in a row.

[SkyMarshal → cctelco]

Interesting, I guess the buying company has to have a plan in place to get their own staff up to speed and able to run the purchased company without the purchased employees.

Have you ever seen a non-remote company purchase a remote one? I'd be curious to hear how that went down from an insiders point of view.

[cctelco → SkyMarshal]

Sure, don't want to name the companies involved, however what happened was exactly what i touched upon: those that could afford to leave once remote working ended did so, all the while the time the others were supposed to be working, they were going to job interviews. in the end, the unskilled workers with salaries stayed, the skilled employees who needed to properly make the transition to a paid job left in droves once they did so (within 2 weeks of remote working ending). One person went off and started a company. they shot themselves in the foot for sticking to the notion that one can only do real work in an office setting despite that the company they bought barely had an office presence and did what they couldn't do with quite a larger budget.