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Agreed. 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

Agreed. 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 ago
From 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 ago
    You 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.

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 ago

From 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 ago
  You 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.