Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

baremetrics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 244 posts

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#81

Post by teruakohatu »

Exuma wrote: post #38

This is very painful to hear. I've tried selling my main company to 4 different buyers now... every single time we get past the LOI phase, they see all our financials in plain sight, and there's always some stupid hangup/ghosting/sketchiness exactly like in this article. Very disappointing, considering how transparent we are up front sending every financial, and there's no real 'discoveries' later that would change t…

I am sorry to hear that you experienced that. I am curious to know why you did not run the business as a profitable going concern instead of selling?

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#82

Post by fludlight »

kerng wrote: post #47

A friend of mine who sold his company told me that it's common to get approached and if the buyer is serious things move very fast. Most of the time though it's just a game of delay to keep competition in control and get more insights. So, if buyer is interested they will make an offer quickly (initially maybe too low), but they show they are serious by doing so. Dont get dragged in meetings or fly around to meet buy…

What software/service do you use for your data room?

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#83

Post by rb808 »

athiercelin wrote: post #4

"In many ways, I feel like my job as CEO and Founder is to absorb all of the insane parts of running a business so my team can focus on building, learning and enjoying their jobs." This is spot on. I would extend to senior leadership in general.

I've heard this too, except it got really annoying to be working crazy hours doing annoying crap while you have a team of devs working 40 hrs working on interesting tech with not much pressure. I burnt out, now I delegate lots of crap work and it works better for me and I think the team as well as they get a wider perspective.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#84

Post by throwaway5752 »

Exuma wrote: post #38

This is very painful to hear. I've tried selling my main company to 4 different buyers now... every single time we get past the LOI phase, they see all our financials in plain sight, and there's always some stupid hangup/ghosting/sketchiness exactly like in this article. Very disappointing, considering how transparent we are up front sending every financial, and there's no real 'discoveries' later that would change t…

I'm very sorry for your circumstances, but are the "every buyer ghosted me when they saw our financials" and "our accountant had dementia" elements of this related? How could millions of dollars of net income go to insolvent so quickly?

There are two sides to this general issue, and while there are bad buyers there are people dishonestly presenting their companies. Not that you are, but it seems like a very low-trust business environment in both directions. More lately than it used to be.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#85

Post by disintegore »

metanoia wrote: post #77
bcrosby95 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way I've heard the role of product manager described as is a "shit umbrella".

Unfortunately, in my experience, I've had my fair share of "shit funnels" or "shit multipliers." That applies to any manager role, really. As a former product manager, I think of it as being at the bottom of a canyon and shit rolling in from both edges of the canyon (business and technical). It's a hard job to do well and keep everyone happy.

You are a creative fellow

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#86

Post by alias_neo »

geebee wrote: post #61
cletus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is applied to managers in general: - Good managers are shit umbrellas - Bad managers are shit funnels

beautiful metaphor. anyway, I quasi-agree, though I've become suspicious of managers who claims to be an umbrella protecting their team from the rain. Half the time, they're really just trying to make sure their team doesn't see the forecast and quit.

I guess umbrellas also keep the sun out.

What you need are those clear plastic umbrellas, no rain, but all the sun.

Transparency.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#87

Post by fludlight »

paxys wrote: post #22
jakozaur wrote: post #2

Hearing many horror stories over backing out at last minute, I wonder why breakup fees and escrow are not more popular in startup world. E.g. if you would like to acquire for $5mln you need to deposit $100k. If you walk out, this is a breakup fee. If startup bails it also have to pay same amount to the acquire.

It is standard in bigger corporate M&As, but a tiny startup isn't going to have the leverage to pull it off.

A contract is only worth as much as you are willing to pay to enforce it. It makes sense to pay an army of lawyers for years to pursue a $100m breakup fee. For $100k, not so much.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#89

Post by icelancer »

ngngngng wrote: post #60
meritt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Amazon does it all the time to small startups. They fly you into Seattle, setup a fancy meeting with strategy teams and M&A, make you run through a pitch deck, explain every aspect of your business. They take diligent notes until they fully understand your inner workings, they tell you thanks, you'll hear from us soon. And nothing happens, 6 months later AWS launches your exact product. Founders need to be extr…

Why don't companies go in with something akin to an NDA saying you can't use any of this information to directly compete with us for x years? Seems like this would be standard if it's common practice to steal businesses while feigning interesting in acquisition.

Two things:

1) Good luck getting $BIGCORP to sign that.

2) If you get #1 done, good luck enforcing it.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#90

Post by icelancer »

ngngngng wrote: post #51

There's got to be a business in here somewhere. A company that acts as a middleman that sorts through all your financials for you, does all the communicating, drafts all legal paperwork and just gives you quick regular updates through the process. That way you can keep running your company during all of this madness. I wish I knew more about selling and acquiring companies since it seems like a business well worth la…

If you have internal accounting and general counsel, they usually do a shitload of the heavy lifting (they outsource it to paralegals and associates most of the time). I've been through it before. It's still very painful, but this type of thing does exist... kinda.
Post reply on HN