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Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers co

Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers come knocking. Most startup/bootstrapped companies are not in that position. Most end up failing and winding up with nothing, but there are some that will end up with these talent acquisition situations. Remember, both sides (the acquirers and the acquirees) have to agree to the deal. Google doesn't just come along and say "we want to acquire you for your talent" and the other side has no say in the matter. In this situation you are faced with a choice. Talent acqs happen because a) the acquire target is not really doing that well, and b) they have a group of people that work well together that the acquiring company wants to keep together to do great things under their umbrella. Given the choice between: keep working on your low-to-modest traction product which isn't producing a lot of revenue and wonder how you might pay rent next month OR a multi-million dollar check/stock offer at a large, successful company... which would you choose? I would take the check in that situation. Sometimes you can't achieve your world-changing vision before your investor and personal money are gone. The goal of a company should be to succeed and be self-sustaining, of course. But sometimes that doesn't happen, and these talent acqs happen for a reason.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
I read this slightly differently. I don't think this was a plea to developers to not sell up, I think it was a plea to people to support small companies to make not selling up a more appealing option.
- jazzychad 14y ago
  Ehh, maybe the last sentence implied that (though it could be read both ways), but most of the article read like a humble brag about Instapaper being successful enough that it doesn't have to bother with this type of situation. That's all well and good, but it sort of rubbed me the wrong way.
jmduke 14y ago
I obviously can't speak for Marco, but I think what I take umbrage with is when developers plan this out from the beginning -- create a product/company that drives just enough attention to ensure an acquihire. The result ends up being pretty detrimental to the community. Given the choice between: keep working on your low-to-modest traction product which isn't producing a lot of revenue and wonder how you might pay rent next month OR a multi-million dollar check/stock offer at a large, successful company... which would you choose? I would also choose the latter. I'll be the first to admit I'm not trying to change the world or 'disrupt and industry' or anything lofty like that. But I think there are quite a few people who would eschew the big check for the opportunity to do something tremendous, and they deserve to be lauded.
- jazzychad 14y ago
  Yes, of course. Each situation is different, and making a build-and-flip company from the start is another thing entirely. Usually they have free products and no business plan. In this situation, though, the two companies that are being bought today both had paid products and paying customers. My 100% speculative guess is that they didn't have enough traction or revenue to keep it up at their current rates.
- justauser 14y ago
  Maybe it is to the point now where it is disingenuous for a company NOT to have a banner on every page stating if they are open to investments or acquihire? At least users would know there is an intention/desire/dream to head for greener pastures if given the chance. It is quite alright to disclose as a small business owner that things are slow or somethings are not quite going to plan. If you've got a userbase that loves your product, it is amazing what goodwill can do to help find a solution. You guys go realize that it is ok to dissolve a company and in the case of a software company, release or open-source the code right? If the service was popular, someone will pick up the torch and carry on with it.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    Shouldn't that banner just be implied? Yes, company X is open to investments or being acquired if the right offer comes along. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Should we require employees to wear a sign to work everyday saying that they will leave their job for a better one if the right offer comes along?
terhechte 14y ago
In Sparrow's case, though, one has to say that it looks as if they had a sustainable business. After all, they were always in the top 30 of the App Stores. That should equivalent to a lot of money.
- jarek 14y ago
  Apparently it wasn't enough lot of money to not make Google's offer interesting.
  - terhechte 14y ago
    Or, maybe, the chance to have a huge influence on one of the major Google products.
tptacek 14y ago
I didn't get that from Marco's post at all. I heard a developer saying "stop blaming indie developers for accepting generous offers from companies and start supporting their products instead".
- joshstrange 14y ago
  I got a similar vibe. Also I DID support sparrow. I told absolutely every person I know with a mac that they should use sparrow. Every computer I setup at work and for friends I installed sparrow by default. I have tweeted about loving sparrow. I'm really not sure what more I could have done other than wear a sandwich board around with their logo on it. That STILL didn't stop them from being bought out...
  - petercooper 14y ago
    That STILL didn't stop them from being bought out... I wonder how the poo-pooing of anything that isn't a $10m+ funding or $1bn+ market cap business on sites like HN encourages people to think "well, hey, perhaps I should go join a business like that if mine can't be."
    - Domenic_S 14y ago
      Pooh-poohing is showing scorn or disdain. Poo-pooing is what babies do in their diapers. On second thought, maybe you did have it right ;)
      - petercooper 14y ago
        Haha, thanks. I'm going to keep it as-is merely for the entertainment value now.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    The market price for their desktop app was $9.99. How much support do you think you were really offering them?
radley 14y ago
Erm, no. Talent acquisitions happens when you have big potential to compete and are willing to cash out early instead. Otherwise it's just giving up and getting a job.
- jazzychad 14y ago
  That's another type of talent acquisition, yes... There are many flavors.
  - radley 14y ago
    That's actually two ...and there's not much else.
podperson 14y ago
Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print). The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of creating, in the long term, a public good. Without the source code, we never get the public good. Under this proposed law, Sparrow (and other, similar, products) would have to become open source once it was unsupported, or would not be protected by copyright in the first place.
- bcbrown 14y ago
  I don't think that would work. You don't need copyright protection for closed-source code, because it's closed; no one can see it anyway.
  - wmf 14y ago
    I think podperson is talking about copyright protection for closed-source binaries.
    - podperson 14y ago
      Exactly. Closed source binaries are protected by "copyright" the way written works are. But written works are useful in and of themselves, whereas closed source binaries really aren't. It's the useful part -- the source code and algorithms -- that we want to become a public good, not the incomprehensible black box. To get copyright protection you should be forced, eventually, to give away the good stuff. Interestingly, in the early days of software development a lot of programmers didn't quite know what they needed to do to protect their software under copyright, and some I know personally went so far as to print out their code as books and deposit them with national libraries.
- rmc 14y ago
  I really really like the idea of non-commercial use of a copyrighted work being legal 1 year (or so) after a copyrighted work is no longer commercially available. If it's not commercially viable, then copying it isn't going to lead to a loss sale, and it means that a work isn't locked away for 50 years.
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stevenwei 14y ago
In this specific case though, Sparrow was far from a low-to-modest traction product. Judging from their ranking history, they've been consistently in the Top 50 grossing overall on the Mac App Store[1], and Top 20 grossing utilities on the iPhone[2]. That's likely worth $2000-3000/day in revenue. Those numbers are sustainable if you have a small team (1-3 people), but I'm not sure how big Sparrow's team was. Either way, I would say that they were in a very similar position to Instapaper, except the only difference being they had raised some VC funding (with all that implies regarding needing an exit in the future). [1] http://www.appannie.com/app/mac/sparrow/ranking/history/#view=grossing-ranks&start_date=2011-01-01&end_date=2012-07-20 http://www.appannie.com/app/mac/sparrow/ranking/history/#vie... [2] http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/492573565/ranking/history/#view=grossing-ranks&start_date=2012-03-15&end_date=2012-07-20 http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/492573565/ranking/history/#v...

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago

I read this slightly differently. I don't think this was a plea to developers to not sell up, I think it was a plea to people to support small companies to make not selling up a more appealing option.

jazzychad 14y ago
Ehh, maybe the last sentence implied that (though it could be read both ways), but most of the article read like a humble brag about Instapaper being successful enough that it doesn't have to bother with this type of situation. That's all well and good, but it sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

jmduke 14y ago

I obviously can't speak for Marco, but I think what I take umbrage with is when developers plan this out from the beginning -- create a product/company that drives just enough attention to ensure an acquihire. The result ends up being pretty detrimental to the community. Given the choice between: keep working on your low-to-modest traction product which isn't producing a lot of revenue and wonder how you might pay rent next month OR a multi-million dollar check/stock offer at a large, successful company... which would you choose? I would also choose the latter. I'll be the first to admit I'm not trying to change the world or 'disrupt and industry' or anything lofty like that. But I think there are quite a few people who would eschew the big check for the opportunity to do something tremendous, and they deserve to be lauded.

jazzychad 14y ago
Yes, of course. Each situation is different, and making a build-and-flip company from the start is another thing entirely. Usually they have free products and no business plan. In this situation, though, the two companies that are being bought today both had paid products and paying customers. My 100% speculative guess is that they didn't have enough traction or revenue to keep it up at their current rates.
justauser 14y ago
Maybe it is to the point now where it is disingenuous for a company NOT to have a banner on every page stating if they are open to investments or acquihire? At least users would know there is an intention/desire/dream to head for greener pastures if given the chance. It is quite alright to disclose as a small business owner that things are slow or somethings are not quite going to plan. If you've got a userbase that loves your product, it is amazing what goodwill can do to help find a solution. You guys go realize that it is ok to dissolve a company and in the case of a software company, release or open-source the code right? If the service was popular, someone will pick up the torch and carry on with it.
- mikeash 14y ago
  Shouldn't that banner just be implied? Yes, company X is open to investments or being acquired if the right offer comes along. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Should we require employees to wear a sign to work everyday saying that they will leave their job for a better one if the right offer comes along?

terhechte 14y ago

In Sparrow's case, though, one has to say that it looks as if they had a sustainable business. After all, they were always in the top 30 of the App Stores. That should equivalent to a lot of money.

jarek 14y ago
Apparently it wasn't enough lot of money to not make Google's offer interesting.
- terhechte 14y ago
  Or, maybe, the chance to have a huge influence on one of the major Google products.

tptacek 14y ago

I didn't get that from Marco's post at all. I heard a developer saying "stop blaming indie developers for accepting generous offers from companies and start supporting their products instead".

joshstrange 14y ago
I got a similar vibe. Also I DID support sparrow. I told absolutely every person I know with a mac that they should use sparrow. Every computer I setup at work and for friends I installed sparrow by default. I have tweeted about loving sparrow. I'm really not sure what more I could have done other than wear a sandwich board around with their logo on it. That STILL didn't stop them from being bought out...
- petercooper 14y ago
  That STILL didn't stop them from being bought out... I wonder how the poo-pooing of anything that isn't a $10m+ funding or $1bn+ market cap business on sites like HN encourages people to think "well, hey, perhaps I should go join a business like that if mine can't be."
  - Domenic_S 14y ago
    Pooh-poohing is showing scorn or disdain. Poo-pooing is what babies do in their diapers. On second thought, maybe you did have it right ;)
    - petercooper 14y ago
      Haha, thanks. I'm going to keep it as-is merely for the entertainment value now.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The market price for their desktop app was $9.99. How much support do you think you were really offering them?

radley 14y ago

Erm, no. Talent acquisitions happens when you have big potential to compete and are willing to cash out early instead. Otherwise it's just giving up and getting a job.

jazzychad 14y ago
That's another type of talent acquisition, yes... There are many flavors.
- radley 14y ago
  That's actually two ...and there's not much else.

podperson 14y ago

Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print). The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of creating, in the long term, a public good. Without the source code, we never get the public good. Under this proposed law, Sparrow (and other, similar, products) would have to become open source once it was unsupported, or would not be protected by copyright in the first place.

bcbrown 14y ago
I don't think that would work. You don't need copyright protection for closed-source code, because it's closed; no one can see it anyway.
- wmf 14y ago
  I think podperson is talking about copyright protection for closed-source binaries.
  - podperson 14y ago
    Exactly. Closed source binaries are protected by "copyright" the way written works are. But written works are useful in and of themselves, whereas closed source binaries really aren't. It's the useful part -- the source code and algorithms -- that we want to become a public good, not the incomprehensible black box. To get copyright protection you should be forced, eventually, to give away the good stuff. Interestingly, in the early days of software development a lot of programmers didn't quite know what they needed to do to protect their software under copyright, and some I know personally went so far as to print out their code as books and deposit them with national libraries.
rmc 14y ago
I really really like the idea of non-commercial use of a copyrighted work being legal 1 year (or so) after a copyrighted work is no longer commercially available. If it's not commercially viable, then copying it isn't going to lead to a loss sale, and it means that a work isn't locked away for 50 years.

deleted 14y ago

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deleted 14y ago

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stevenwei 14y ago

In this specific case though, Sparrow was far from a low-to-modest traction product. Judging from their ranking history, they've been consistently in the Top 50 grossing overall on the Mac App Store[1], and Top 20 grossing utilities on the iPhone[2]. That's likely worth $2000-3000/day in revenue. Those numbers are sustainable if you have a small team (1-3 people), but I'm not sure how big Sparrow's team was. Either way, I would say that they were in a very similar position to Instapaper, except the only difference being they had raised some VC funding (with all that implies regarding needing an exit in the future). [1] http://www.appannie.com/app/mac/sparrow/ranking/history/#view=grossing-ranks&start_date=2011-01-01&end_date=2012-07-20 http://www.appannie.com/app/mac/sparrow/ranking/history/#vie... [2] http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/492573565/ranking/history/#view=grossing-ranks&start_date=2012-03-15&end_date=2012-07-20 http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/492573565/ranking/history/#v...