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Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

derekyan.com

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Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#11

Post by dangero »

einarvollset wrote: post #2

Great content and perspective. I would say (and fair warning, this is obviously biased as I run one of the investment banks that specialize in B2B SaaS M&A between $2-20M ARR - Discretion Capital), this: "Now should you hire a banker when there is no actionable inbound interest and you have no prior relationships? I would recommend no, as in such a case bankers would typically rely on their network of Corp Devs and p…

The problem I’ve heard about small deals is that the bankers want a larger percentage. Can you comment on that aspect?

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#13

Post by dewey »

nerdsniper wrote: post #10

Does anyone know of any other resources like this for new founders to understand the experiences of experienced founders? This seemed very candid and earnest - it's rare that these don't sound like personal branding pieces. I'd love to build a collection. This one was superb.

I enjoyed this book: https://zerotosold.com/

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#14

Post by pieterhg »

jasonshen wrote: post #6

Really appreciate the deep dive here. M&A is the final boss of startups and so rarely do we get any credible, detailed information about how things go down from the founder's perspective, especially at the 9+ figure deal size. Having written a book about pivots, I know how hard it can be to then distill a grueling experience into something digestible. Thank you Derek!

What was the sales price? $100,000,000?

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#15

Post by nubg »

> Every inbound deserves respect, even if you think you’re not ready. Because the truth is, readiness in M&A isn’t a moment—it’s a mindset.

Dear ChatGPT, please rephrase these bulletpoints into a chapter of my book: ...

Pray tell why may we not just read the bulletpoints instead?

Sold your own company, but unable to use your own words?

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#17

Post by HPsquared »

nubg wrote: post #15

> Every inbound deserves respect, even if you think you’re not ready. Because the truth is, readiness in M&A isn’t a moment—it’s a mindset. Dear ChatGPT, please rephrase these bulletpoints into a chapter of my book: ... Pray tell why may we not just read the bulletpoints instead? Sold your own company, but unable to use your own words?

When I see "it's not X, it's Y" I think of the music criticism of P. Bateman: "...it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself. Hey, Paul..."

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#18

Post by gbnwl »

I really enjoy the actual content of the few chapters I read so far, but the styling is 100% LLM, and it's so hard to get through multiple pages of the same exact mannerisms repeated over and over and over.

It kind of feels like reading the world's longest LinkedIn post. I really wish this wasn't the case because I really want to take in the story and lessons, but it's literally too fatiguing to get through much in one sitting.

Re: Show HN: It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it

#19

Post by sebastiennight »

jacob_rezi wrote: post #4

Any place to download as a PDF? I think this might be a timely resource

So... the book is released under a Creative Commons license that does not authorize sharing derived works...

BUT...

If you use this tool I just vibe-coded with our good friend Claude: https://onetake-ai.github.io/html-ebooks/

And point it at the repository: https://github.com/yan7109/yan7109.github.io/tree/main/ma-bo...

It will give you an ePub with all the chapters, including a bit of styling etc.

The code is MIT licensed, so do with it as you wish.

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