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I doubt all (or even most) founders are passionate visionaries. If the product in question was a life changing invention, then yes, I am sure the founders would
by Sagat 13y ago
I doubt all (or even most) founders are passionate visionaries. If the product in question was a life changing invention, then yes, I am sure the founders would be more than happy to have their whole existence and sense of identity revolve around it.
Here we are talking about a URL shortener that made revenue from ads: hardly an original or inspiring project. The guy's stated goal is "to help social media influencers and publishers better monetize their online content." Not exactly dream material here.
Let's be honest here, being bought for a substantial sum and maybe getting a job was exactly what the founder was looking for.
- notahacker 13y agoIn a way, though, aren't people whose idea is to get acquired for a substantial sum of money even worse targets for an acqui-hire? At least with passionate visionaries whose current idea is unprofitable, you're presumably buying them with the idea that their rare interest in X can be redirected to offering unique insights into a somewhat-related project your internal team is working on, and the hope they'll be so enthused with that they stay beyond their earnout period. Otherwise, you're just overpaying for commodity engineering talent, and it's engineering talent that prefers startup environments that you're overpaying for.
- bosky101 13y ago(momentumOfStartup > momentumOfAcquirer) ? "acquire" : (passionOfAcquirer > passionOfStartup) ? "acqhire" : (moneyInTheBank || scalableRevenue) ? "ship" : "pivot";