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Exploding Offers Suck

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#71

Post by nedwin »

larrys wrote: post #48
malgorithms wrote: post #9

A dear friend and excellent negotiator told me that when he gets any kind of short-term exploding offer, the first thing he does is verbally reject the deadline. And the second thing he does is ignore the deadline and offer feedback only after it has passed. I've seen him employ this many times in practice and it has always worked out. I don't want to be responsible for anyone losing a deal, but remember: when someon…

"A dear friend and excellent negotiator told me that when he gets any kind of short-term exploding offer, the first thing he does" As someone who considers himself an excellent negotiator (and gets paid to do negotiating) [1] I'd really caution someone from employing a technique that someone else uses that you don't have experience with. Negotiating is all nuance it's not engineering or an exact science. Go try and r…

I'd love to hear more about your experience in negotiation. What resources do you recommend? Has this mostly come from experience or elsewhere?

If you want to take it off list: dwyer.ed@gmail.com :)

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#72

Post by tptacek »

larrys wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately waiting until the offer ostensibly expires seems like an advanced technique, but simply disregarding the time frame seems pretty safe. Exploding offers are incredibly weak; they're a way of slapping your negotiating floor on the table before your counterparty says a word. There's something to be said for the idea that losing a seed funding deal to term explosion is a dodged bullet, too.

"but simply disregarding the time frame seems pretty safe" All depends. Once again you could be right but I could also argue under the theory that "once you make a sale you close and get your ass out of dodge". Because things can and do change. Keep in mind that an open offer not taken can be withdrawn. Or new information can come up which makes it less attractive or gives someone a reason to change their mind. I off…

When a deal dies like that, it's sometimes hard to tell whether it died because of how you negotiated, or whether it died because it started out dead, and your negotiating tactics just qualified it quickly.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#73

Post by edmccard »

wycats wrote: post #37
tieTYT wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when someone offers you an exploding offer, it's because they really, really want you to take it. Couldn't it be because they've got a lot on their plate and after a certain period of time they want to free up their brain cycles and stop wondering if you're going to accept that deal? Couldn't it be that you're barely preferred and making the deadline shows them that you're excited about the offer? Missing the deadl…

Whenever I've offered an exploding offer in the past, it's because I had several candidates: an extremely strong candidate and several strong but somewhat weaker candidates. In general, all of the candidates have a limited timeframe to make a decision, and there's a risk of losing all candidates if I waited for an indefinite time on the strongest candidate. In other words, candidates sometimes also need an answer wit…

>Whenever I've offered an exploding offer in the past, it's because I had several candidates: an extremely strong candidate and several strong but somewhat weaker candidates.

If you had several candidates of equal ability, would you still use an exploding offer? Otherwise, it seems to be less about "giving candidates an answer within a certain timeframe" and more about putting pressure on the candidate you really want.

>there's a risk of losing all candidates if I waited for an indefinite time on the strongest candidate.

Is there nothing in between an exploding short-term offer and an indefinite open-ended offer?

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#74

Post by mathattack »

A couple observations...

1 - If you're good enough to be accepted by one incubator, you have an incubator-worthy idea and team. If they go away, another will arrive.

2 - The person forcing your hand is trying to use their temporary leverage over you until you have leverage over them. It sets the tone of the relationship on leverage.

3 - That said, people with lower acceptance rates (whether it's accelerators, colleges, etc) have to play yield games. Harvard yields ~80% of admits so they can wait their time because they are confident of admits, and it won't impact their capacity. Amherst accepts ~40%, so they have to play the waiting-list game. The 2nd tier accelerators have to play waiting list games, and that's what drives this behavior. 48 hours is unreasonable, but a few weeks isn't. (Or having a formalized waiting list too)

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#75

Post by dmourati »

fecak wrote: post #61
mrfusion wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a normal period for exploding employment offers? Is 2 days a lot or a little?

In my experience two days is low. 5-10 days is more common, and most companies are fairly willing to negotiate beyond that given some circumstances. It's not common to see candidates rejected if they try to accept an offer after it explodes.

Mine was two days (Friday-Sunday). First last and only time I'd seen that hence my reaction.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#77

Post by sanjayparekh »

calpaterson wrote: post #23

Cool change of policy. Brian Chesky says in this video that Y Combinator gave AirBNB an exploding offer back in 2009: http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE?t=53m6s

When I was reading this I thought to myself "wait, didn't YC have exploding offers before"? Glad you dug this up. It was widely known back then that PG viewed it as a "intelligence test" if you didn't accept on the spot. If you didn't, he didn't want you. So I guess now the tide has turned.

That all said, I'm very much against exploding offers. The person offering the deal may have a reason to do so but you should resist the urge to rush to a decision.

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#78

Post by haliax »

larrys wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately waiting until the offer ostensibly expires seems like an advanced technique, but simply disregarding the time frame seems pretty safe. Exploding offers are incredibly weak; they're a way of slapping your negotiating floor on the table before your counterparty says a word. There's something to be said for the idea that losing a seed funding deal to term explosion is a dodged bullet, too.

"but simply disregarding the time frame seems pretty safe" All depends. Once again you could be right but I could also argue under the theory that "once you make a sale you close and get your ass out of dodge". Because things can and do change. Keep in mind that an open offer not taken can be withdrawn. Or new information can come up which makes it less attractive or gives someone a reason to change their mind. I off…

How would you advise someone to learn how to negotiate and get better at negotiation?

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#79

Post by diminish »

sama wrote: post #3
ivankirigin wrote: post #2

Is this a change for YC? YC previously required getting an answer the day you're accepted because "you have all the information". So this is an update to allow people time to decide, right? I always found the justification of having all the information a bit self centered. Founders have all the information... about YC, but not about other options. That said, as a YC alum, I think you should almost certainly say yes i…

only in the early years of YC did we require an answer right away. as much time as the founders want has been the unofficial policy for awhile, but i thought it was time to share it.

I think it's a good opportunity for YC to improve the acceptance process. Why don't you review the applications in a FIFO basis and give an immediate green light to invitations? If they are ready for an interview why not have weekly interviews till the deadline? Clearly the waiting isn't founder-friendly neither..

Re: Exploding Offers Suck

#80

Post by jacquesm »

It's simple: if you're being pressured just say 'no'. There is no upside to negotiations under pressure, only downsides. Likely the pressure is there because if you thought about it long enough you'd refuse the deal anyway, so you might as well refuse it right off the bat and tell the counterparty the time-limit is what caused you to refuse.

If you have no other options then likely you already made a series of mistakes. Exceptions exist but don't happen often enough to go and make a series of qualifications here, adding pressure is similar to being blackmailed, the only reasonable course is to refuse to play.

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