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Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

troyhunt.com

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Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#11

Post by ska »

saagarjha wrote: post #10
malyonsus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He explained a little bit about his thoughts on this in a previous blog post: https://www.troyhunt.com/project-svalbard-the-future-of-have...

I didn't find that very satisfying, unfortunately. He mentions that he's overloaded with trying to maintain the service, but then jumps immediately to looking for someone to acquire Have I Been Pwned. Couldn't he just get a few more people to help him out?

You say that like it's a simple thing.

I don't know the details of his particular situation, but it's entirely possible to grow a small company to the point where you either need to radically change your role, or find someone to do it for you. Acquisition is one way to do the latter, although it's not always going to be appropriate.

Sometimes you can't add a few people and have the same organization.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#12

Post by saagarjha »

ska wrote: post #11
saagarjha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find that very satisfying, unfortunately. He mentions that he's overloaded with trying to maintain the service, but then jumps immediately to looking for someone to acquire Have I Been Pwned. Couldn't he just get a few more people to help him out?

You say that like it's a simple thing. I don't know the details of his particular situation, but it's entirely possible to grow a small company to the point where you either need to radically change your role, or find someone to do it for you. Acquisition is one way to do the latter, although it's not always going to be appropriate. Sometimes you can't add a few people and have the same organization.

Right, but the link provided doesn't shed any light on the situation.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#13

Post by irjustin »

Thanks to Troy for HIBP and the story here.

It may be because he cannot speak towards the specifics of the deal, but I truly hope there was a breakup clause.

For those un-aware, M&A deals eventually go exclusive which, as this post points out, is very very time consuming, which means expensive. Those who are involved in the deal itself, very little work gets done that runs the business.

So to protect against the downside for the company getting purchased, a break up clause to give them cash if the purchasing company does not follow through.

Only companies with in great negotiating positions can command these things, but sounds like Troy was in a great position when looking at the initial 43 buyers.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#14

Post by zelon88 »

ska wrote: post #11
saagarjha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find that very satisfying, unfortunately. He mentions that he's overloaded with trying to maintain the service, but then jumps immediately to looking for someone to acquire Have I Been Pwned. Couldn't he just get a few more people to help him out?

You say that like it's a simple thing. I don't know the details of his particular situation, but it's entirely possible to grow a small company to the point where you either need to radically change your role, or find someone to do it for you. Acquisition is one way to do the latter, although it's not always going to be appropriate. Sometimes you can't add a few people and have the same organization.

My takeaway is it kinda seems Troy wants to add A TON of people and still keep the same organization and responsibility.

Sounds to me like he's window shopping for an investor that will basically replace his engineering role with a team, pay that team, give Troy a paycheck for work he's done in the past, and let him show up every couple weeks between jetsetting to bark his vision at the new team.

I'm not shocked that it's not going well so far. HIBP is one of those unique cult-of-personality type platforms where it cannot exist in it's current form without Troy, and Troy cannot continue in his current form without HIBP. If I'm looking to buy HIBP I want to know that it's not just going to be the Troy Show 2.0 with my money instead of his.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#15

Post by cynusx »

I think that's good that he doesn't sell, having built a enormous marketing presence and gained market trust is only a minor step away from actually monetizing that. Selling what he has right now does indeed come with golden handcuffs (sucks), but also any purchase price would come in vastly under the projects' potential.

He could easily leverage this marketing presence to build a security SaaS company, create a huge conference, launch a big consultancy,...

If you value independence then running your own profitable balance sheet is the best thing you can do.

Hell, it wouldn't even be hard to attract talent to the cause at the point he's at.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#17

Post by TheFiend7 »

zelon88 wrote: post #14
ska wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like it's a simple thing. I don't know the details of his particular situation, but it's entirely possible to grow a small company to the point where you either need to radically change your role, or find someone to do it for you. Acquisition is one way to do the latter, although it's not always going to be appropriate. Sometimes you can't add a few people and have the same organization.

My takeaway is it kinda seems Troy wants to add A TON of people and still keep the same organization and responsibility. Sounds to me like he's window shopping for an investor that will basically replace his engineering role with a team, pay that team, give Troy a paycheck for work he's done in the past, and let him show up every couple weeks between jetsetting to bark his vision at the new team. I'm not shocked that…

I get the same impression to some extent, but I'd be hardpressed to say I wouldn't cave and do the same thing to be completely honest.

Who wants to work a 9-5 their entire life? I personally don't.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#18

Post by huebomont »

lmeyerov wrote: post #2

Thank you for sharing... 43 sounds super painful, and super tricky to safely share! For others here: part of "companies are bought, not sold" is not just price difference, but whether the deal happens at all. Your startup needs to be solving something critical for an executive , eg, cuts red tape on internal politics, and enough so that they'll push the deal through because they need it. Good signal is inbound, but n…

"good signal is inbound" - mhm yep definitely english

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#19

Post by airstrike »

hahla wrote: post #16

I'm surprised the author contacted KMPG to run M&A for a small independently run website..? Not sure what I'm missing here.

I'm surprised anyone would contact KPMG for M&A at all, in that they're primarily an accountant / auditor, not an M&A shop.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#20

Post by airstrike »

> Apparently, the way these M&A processes run is that as you really get down to the wire with the final bidders, eventually someone will ask for exclusivity. This grants them a window of time in which they can do extensive due diligence to the exclusion of all other bidders.

This is not always the case, and it's certainly not a requirement to get a deal across the finish line. More frequently, you'll select from the list of buyers who provided credible non-binding offers – presumably those with good strategic fit / rationale for the acquisition and that can provide certainty that they have the funds available to do the deal (e.g. they have the pile of cash and their board has already approved the acquisition.

Then you give that select list of final bidders more access to management, including below C-suite (i.e. the opportunity to ask technical questions to engineers and middle managers to really understand what makes the business what it is) and set a deadline for final, binding offers, of which you will choose that which creates the highest value to shareholders.

Exclusivity means betting all your money on one horse, and it can make sense in some instances, but preferably conditional on someone making a huge offer that you believe is bona fide and hopefully before you launch the broad process (140+ buyers, in this case) i.e. they are trying to preempt the process and are willing to pay up, and in return for sparing you the publicity / distraction / exhaustion from running the sale process, you grant them exclusivity.

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