>The only correct response when a company reaches out to you for something like this is "cool, let me set up a meeting with my lawyer."
Or alternatively, choose not to respond at all as per PG's January 2015 essay "Don't Talk to Corporate Dev" [0]
>Distractions are the thing you can least afford in a startup. And conversations with corp dev are the worst sort of distraction, because as well as consuming your attention they undermine your morale. One of the tricks to surviving a grueling process is not to stop and think how tired you are. Instead you get into a sort of flow. Imagine what it would do to you if at mile 20 of a marathon, someone ran up beside you and said "You must feel really tired. Would you like to stop and take a rest?" Conversations with corp dev are like that but worse, because the suggestion of stopping gets combined in your mind with the imaginary high price you think they'll offer.
Being PG, he's focussed on startups, but it applies to any small business that might be the target of an acqui-hire.
Or alternatively, choose not to respond at all as per PG's January 2015 essay "Don't Talk to Corporate Dev" [0]
>Distractions are the thing you can least afford in a startup. And conversations with corp dev are the worst sort of distraction, because as well as consuming your attention they undermine your morale. One of the tricks to surviving a grueling process is not to stop and think how tired you are. Instead you get into a sort of flow. Imagine what it would do to you if at mile 20 of a marathon, someone ran up beside you and said "You must feel really tired. Would you like to stop and take a rest?" Conversations with corp dev are like that but worse, because the suggestion of stopping gets combined in your mind with the imaginary high price you think they'll offer.
Being PG, he's focussed on startups, but it applies to any small business that might be the target of an acqui-hire.
[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html