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You should never be in a position where you depend on getting bought. Why not? Not that I disagree, but just for the sake of discussion. You may sell things,

by mojuba 19y ago

You should never be in a position where you depend on getting bought. Why not? Not that I disagree, but just for the sake of discussion. You may sell things, services or ideas, as well as you may sell entire companies. Is there a fundamental difference?

Kaizyn 19y ago
Consider relative bargaining power when you enter into acquisition negotiations. If you NEED to sell, then you will most likely accept any offer, no matter how bad, from the buyer. When you can take or leave any offer put on the table, you're in a much better position to bargain from.
- mojuba 19y ago
  Valid point, although same applies to any type of bargain, be it selling a mass product or closing a one-off deal. Any business depends on a need to sell, and there's nothing wrong about it, except you may want to pretend you are doing Ok. Acquisition is generally the same game, except it's meta-business. After all, doesn't everybody know YC depends on a need to sell?
run4yourlives 19y ago
In addition to Kaizyn's excellent point, making acquisition your corporate strategy is basically admitting you have a product that can't survive on its own. That's a problem - why can't it work without acquisition?
- mojuba 19y ago
  Acquisition as a strategy means the founder(s) want to move on and build new stuff. Why can't a company viewed as another product?
  - run4yourlives 19y ago
    Because a large majority of consumers using your product do not want to commit to something that unstable.
    - mojuba 19y ago
      When ownership of a popular company changes, it doesn't immediately make consumers dump the product. They rather wait and they can give up basically when the new owner is doing terribly wrong. In general, consumers don't care that much about ownership. What if Steve Jobs sells his shares and leaves the company? You can't even tell for sure if Apple would become better or worse after that.
      - run4yourlives 19y ago
        You're not Steve Jobs and your company isn't Apple, it's a piece of paper. When the first thing you say is "I'm looking to sell this company", myself as a customer thinks: "The guy running it is only in for a quick payday, I think I'll try someone else." Acquisition is not a bad thing, planning on acquisition prior to you even building something worth acquiring is something that probably won't work out too well. If you instead build something lasting, finding people to give you money so you can retire won't be that big of a deal, really.
        mojuba 19y ago
        I think that's just a cliche and reality proves the opposite. A lot of acquisitions are going on constantly in all industries, and there is no or very little correlation between that and sales.
        run4yourlives 19y ago
        Do you have anything to prove that? I don't have anything to prove my assertion (other than personal opinion) so I'd be interested if you had something.
        19y ago
pg 19y ago
The market for startups is so illiquid that it's qualitatively different from buying and selling most other things. You're doing a single big sale, instead of a flow large enough to generate a smooth curve in response to demand. And the buyers are extremely fickle-- so much so that needing to get bought makes you way less likely to get bought.

by mojuba 19y ago

Kaizyn 19y ago

Consider relative bargaining power when you enter into acquisition negotiations. If you NEED to sell, then you will most likely accept any offer, no matter how bad, from the buyer. When you can take or leave any offer put on the table, you're in a much better position to bargain from.

mojuba 19y ago
Valid point, although same applies to any type of bargain, be it selling a mass product or closing a one-off deal. Any business depends on a need to sell, and there's nothing wrong about it, except you may want to pretend you are doing Ok. Acquisition is generally the same game, except it's meta-business. After all, doesn't everybody know YC depends on a need to sell?

run4yourlives 19y ago

In addition to Kaizyn's excellent point, making acquisition your corporate strategy is basically admitting you have a product that can't survive on its own. That's a problem - why can't it work without acquisition?

mojuba 19y ago
Acquisition as a strategy means the founder(s) want to move on and build new stuff. Why can't a company viewed as another product?
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  Because a large majority of consumers using your product do not want to commit to something that unstable.
  - mojuba 19y ago
    When ownership of a popular company changes, it doesn't immediately make consumers dump the product. They rather wait and they can give up basically when the new owner is doing terribly wrong. In general, consumers don't care that much about ownership. What if Steve Jobs sells his shares and leaves the company? You can't even tell for sure if Apple would become better or worse after that.
    - run4yourlives 19y ago
      You're not Steve Jobs and your company isn't Apple, it's a piece of paper. When the first thing you say is "I'm looking to sell this company", myself as a customer thinks: "The guy running it is only in for a quick payday, I think I'll try someone else." Acquisition is not a bad thing, planning on acquisition prior to you even building something worth acquiring is something that probably won't work out too well. If you instead build something lasting, finding people to give you money so you can retire won't be that big of a deal, really.
      - mojuba 19y ago
        I think that's just a cliche and reality proves the opposite. A lot of acquisitions are going on constantly in all industries, and there is no or very little correlation between that and sales.
        run4yourlives 19y ago
        Do you have anything to prove that? I don't have anything to prove my assertion (other than personal opinion) so I'd be interested if you had something.
        19y ago

pg 19y ago

The market for startups is so illiquid that it's qualitatively different from buying and selling most other things. You're doing a single big sale, instead of a flow large enough to generate a smooth curve in response to demand. And the buyers are extremely fickle-- so much so that needing to get bought makes you way less likely to get bought.