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

151–160 of 244 posts

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#151

Post by trentnix »

ikeboy wrote: post #56
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…

Business brokers? Fe international, quiet light brokerage, empire flippers. They don't do all of this but they do filter buyers.

The world of business brokers is 75% charlatans and 24% outright frauds. Good ones do exist, but bad ones are abundant. If you need a broker, find one via a referral from someone that has sold their business via a broker.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#152

Post by sowbug »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #138

Sounds like there needs to be a way for the buyer to put some skin in the game. Maybe asking for a $50k non-refundable deposit to kick things off. Sounds harsh? Well non-refundable deposits are a thing in real estate. For example in my country it is common to put 0.25% down to take the property off the market, non refundable, allowing you to do due diligence and then 19.75% deposit within 5 days non-refundable, with…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_fee

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#154

Post by knodi123 »

tptacek wrote: post #73
salimmadjd wrote: post #71

Jay Jamison (when he was a VC) gave me a great advice once. "Companies are bought not sold"

This is a hoary old chestnut; my dad told me this back in the 1990s.

> This is a hoary old chestnut

As is the phrase "hoary old chestnut"

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#155

Post by war1025 »

zyang wrote: post #45
socalnate1 wrote: post #3

Two quick thoughts on this. 1) The amount of transparency that this company shows is insane. I have a hard time imagining any one else in this situation sharing the way they do. I hope it works out for them long term. 2) The due diligence work they did for this deal was absolutely not a waste (even if they never sell the company). Having gone through this process once will make it orders of magnitude easier if they s…

It wouldn't feel great seeing this as an employee of the company. The only reason you are not sold to the highest bidder was because the ceo got played.

> The only reason you are not sold to the highest bidder was because the ceo got played.

The truth is that the only reason you aren't sold to the highest bidder is that there was no highest bidder interested in buying. Just people motivated enough to do the courting rituals required to get a peek beneath the sheets.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#156

Post by sheeshkebab »

sowbug wrote: post #152
quickthrower2 wrote: post #138

Sounds like there needs to be a way for the buyer to put some skin in the game. Maybe asking for a $50k non-refundable deposit to kick things off. Sounds harsh? Well non-refundable deposits are a thing in real estate. For example in my country it is common to put 0.25% down to take the property off the market, non refundable, allowing you to do due diligence and then 19.75% deposit within 5 days non-refundable, with…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_fee

Breakup fee is opposite of what I think you mean

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#157

Post by ikeboy »

trentnix wrote: post #151
ikeboy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business brokers? Fe international, quiet light brokerage, empire flippers. They don't do all of this but they do filter buyers.

The world of business brokers is 75% charlatans and 24% outright frauds. Good ones do exist, but bad ones are abundant. If you need a broker, find one via a referral from someone that has sold their business via a broker.

The three I named are all big players in the field.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#158

Post by david_shaw »

okr wrote: post #148
david_shaw wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think this is an underrated (but very accurate) opinion. While I'm not the founder of a company, I do have the tendency to shield my team from much of the insanity I deal with on a daily basis. I've made active, conscious efforts to stop doing this. When you shield your team from…

Are we talking about business decisions? My experience is, that developers are only interested in taking that risk, if they also get a share in the company and get access to internals. "Your house, your decision, your money. We are just the hired gun to do the carpenting."

Agreed.

However, granting visibility to decisions (and the information that leads to them), when possible, is a great tool.

A generic example might be that a major client will sign onboard if a new API feature is implemented. Just asking a development team to build the feature will get it done, but in my experience, teams will feel significantly more included (and important) if they have the context of why it needs to be built.

The decision to pull resources off of already-planned tasks to build the new feature shouldn't be made by the developers, but understanding that they're helping the business in a major way can really help cohesion, inclusion, and perceived impact. Those are things that make people feel fulfilled and important at work.

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#159

Post by unlinked_dll »

tuesday20 wrote: post #146
unlinked_dll wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fucking wish some of the companies I've been at sold to the highest bidder when they had the chance. Exits are better than layoffs.

There is always a non insignificant chance that exits will be followed by layoffs

True, but layoff + severance < layoff + severance + liquidity event

Re: I almost sold Baremetrics for $5M

#160

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #138

Sounds like there needs to be a way for the buyer to put some skin in the game. Maybe asking for a $50k non-refundable deposit to kick things off. Sounds harsh? Well non-refundable deposits are a thing in real estate. For example in my country it is common to put 0.25% down to take the property off the market, non refundable, allowing you to do due diligence and then 19.75% deposit within 5 days non-refundable, with…

Or just have the buyer pay both sides' acquisition related fees from the get go (legal, accounting, etc).
Post reply on HN