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Both of those companies have raised >$100M. After that success, the prospect of continuing to run a middling company in the shadow of Retool isn't very appealing.
> To me and others, it seemed like the CEO was tired of the startup grind and simply giving up. Ever since his fellow co-founder quit, he’d been running both the technical and go-to-market sides of the company, and it was clearly very draining. We felt that he wanted a less stressful position with a lower risk payday, and this kind of deal was the best way to achieve that. Where was the board? Why not hire in a new C…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if Airplane had been cash flow positive, slowing growth and a demotivated CEO and departure of key employees at an early stage is a tough pill for investors to swallow. See my other comment, but I find it highly likely that your investors were pushing for a way to wind things down and return as much of their cash as they could get, and an acquihire is a fairly employee-friendly way to do that.
The disappointing part was we didn't even get to see the experiment take place before shutting down prematurely. Our sales numbers were still quite solid and there were many paths for us to push forward. As a fraction of our investors' portfolio, Airplane's investment was small. I imagine they would have much more preferred us to continue working hard than to return the bit of capital. In the end, only a few employee…
You imagine incorrectly, as revealed by your lead investors' decision to allow an acquihire by another one of their portfolio companies.
One factor that no one seems to have noticed is that both cofounders, Ravi and Joshua, have already built fairly big companies. Ravi was the co-founder at Heap (he took over my co-founder spot after I left), and Joshua was the CTO at Benchling. Both of those companies have raised >$100M. After that success, the prospect of continuing to run a middling company in the shadow of Retool isn't very appealing.
Company burned more money than it made and winded down, impact on customers have been ultimately negative.
Where's the success?
> These colleagues had all been at the company for a while and all had legitimate reasons for resigning unrelated to the revenue slowdown Obviously not familiar with the particulars, but people don't always say why they are moving on. There is not much of an upside to revealing any negative issues, so it's usually presented as "really wanted to stay, but just found a new exciting opportunity". If all of the sudden 4…
Legitimate excuses for leaving. 99% chance what caused them to leave was they saw the writing on the wall and took on a better opportunity.
"Everyone has to re-interview for their job" is a terrible thing to do to people, IMHO.
You could instead have deal clauses about retaining the employees for some period, and how the leveling and compensation maps. If the acquiring company isn't willing to do that, then I think that tells you that you're selling out the employees to a worse environment.
Re-interviewing is one reason I wouldn't sell to Google, at least not without checking with the employees first. "So, uh, if we were to get acquired, how would people feel about having to do especially jerky re-interviews for their jobs, if, uh, it paid really well?"
One factor that no one seems to have noticed is that both cofounders, Ravi and Joshua, have already built fairly big companies. Ravi was the co-founder at Heap (he took over my co-founder spot after I left), and Joshua was the CTO at Benchling. Both of those companies have raised >$100M. After that success, the prospect of continuing to run a middling company in the shadow of Retool isn't very appealing.
Quite baffling that success is measured in how much you raise. Company burned more money than it made and winded down, impact on customers have been ultimately negative. Where's the success?
The subsequent execution might or might be another success.
If there actually was an acquisition brewing at that time, and it's true that the CEO denied to employees that there was, that's one way to spoil any existing culture of honesty and goodwill.