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They don't appear to have much of a product or much business. Let's call it what it is: a signing bonus, not an acquisition. Perhaps I should use this approach
by jtbigwoo 13y ago
They don't appear to have much of a product or much business. Let's call it what it is: a signing bonus, not an acquisition.
Perhaps I should use this approach the next time I apply for a job. "You're going to have to acquire my side project in order to get me to start working here."
Maybe I could make techcrunch.
- chadwickthebold 13y agoAgreed. I wonder how the folks YC feels about this. Must be pretty embarrassing that an alum has so little confidence in their product that they'll bite at the first acquisition offer that comes around. They probably could have saved everyone the trouble by applying to Pinterest directly. But, like you said, they probably wouldn't have gotten the signing bonus.
- timr 13y ago"Must be pretty embarrassing that an alum has so little confidence in their product that they'll bite at the first acquisition offer that comes around. They probably could have saved everyone the trouble by applying to Pinterest directly." When you're funding dozens of startups a year, this kind of thing is going to happen once in a while. It's an expected outcome. I'm glad the founders had an exit that makes them happy.
- SurfScore 13y agoFrom Ycombinator's "What We Do" page: One concrete consequence is that Y Combinator funding lets you sell early, if you want to. It can sometimes make sense to sell yourself when you're small for a few million, rather than take more funding and roll the dice again. Google likes to do early-stage acquisitions, and we expect them to become increasingly common as other companies learn what Google has. If you take a large amount of money from an investor, you usually give up this option. But we realize (having been there) that an early offer from an acquirer can be very tempting for a group of young hackers. So if you want to sell early, that's ok. We'd make more if you went for an IPO, but we're not going to force anyone to do anything they don't want to.
- jtbigwoo 13y ago>> It can sometimes make sense to sell yourself when you're small for a few million, rather than take more funding and roll the dice again. If they sold hackermeter for "a few million" I'm giving up on capitalism. It was good while it lasted. Snark aside, I assume they didn't get a few million because they didn't disclose the amount. It would have to be an amount that neither side wanted to brag about.
- nostrademons 13y agoYou mean one that neither side sees any benefit to bragging about. Most mature people realize there is about zero personal benefit to letting folks know that you now have a few million in the bank. Similarly, most acquirers realize there is about zero corporate benefit to letting folks know that you just paid a few million for a 2-month old startup. So it is to both sides' advantage to keep the terms of the deal secret. Don't assume that just because you don't know about something, it's inconsequential.
- rfnslyr 13y agoLet's partner up and get rich in a few hours. Got any business models you want to loosely pitch with a game plan drawn in sand? I'm down.
- nwenzel 13y agoOnly if you take the first step. YC S14 applications are still open.
- nostrademons 13y agoIt's W14 I think now, unless I suddenly missed 6 months.
- pg 13y agoWhat a mean-spirited thing to say, and to upvote. It makes me sad to see this kind of snark as the top comment on HN threads.
- frankc 13y agoIt could do without the snark, but it does have a ring of truth to it, doesn't it?
- ghc 13y agoAs went Reddit, so goes Hacker News (albeit far more slowly). With some sadness, I feel that it is just about time for the next refuge for hackers to spring up out of nowhere and captivate us. Even Hacker News, it seems, can't escape becoming too big.
- woah 13y agocmon man... the last jibe about Techcrunch was a bit was a bit snarky, but this post speaks the truth. Product shut down, founders joining as engineers. is there anything mean spirited about stating the obvious?
- pg 13y agoSure there is. Imagine telling a child "your drawings are very clumsy; they don't look at all like what they're drawings of," or telling a very old person "you're probably going to die soon." Mean-spirited comments are rarely completely false. They're mostly nasty ways to use (usually partial) truths.
- foobarqux 13y agoIs the problem with the comment the tone or the content?
- jfoster 13y agoI'm guessing it's more the tone, but probably also the content a little. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to leave some things unsaid even if there could be some truth to them.
- mathattack 13y agoIn this case this was a full time side project that had plenty of deliverables - enough to highlight why these would be a great addition to the team.