They are giving 10% of the sum to all employees, based on tenure. They didn’t have to do that as the article mentions as they never had employee stock options. So I guess a great bonus for employees? Not sure if this works out the same as having an option pool from the start?
Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
11–20 of 68 posts
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#12I love Postmark and wish them well with this (especially since I'm a customer) but as a Sendgrid customer (also) who experienced things after they were acquired, I'm bracing myself(!) But if I owned a company like this, would I be looking for a nice way to take some money off the table right now? Absolutely. So congratulations!
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#13Of the SaaS services my own SaaS service depends on, Postmark has given me the least (zero) problems, and I'm genuinely concerned about what will happen now.
Their deliverability has always been absolutely stellar.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#14Extremely mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, it's awesome Wildbit was able to sell Postmark on their terms. To be able to build something, make money, and then walk away when you want is a huge accomplishment. Hats off to them. On the other hand, the reason I always chose Postmark over Sendgrid, MailChimp, et cetera, even though they were much smaller, is because they seriously cared about their customers. Supp…
Hey there, Rian here (Head of Product at Postmark). We definitely understand the "mixed feelings" response for an acquisition like this. A couple things I want to reiterate: * The entire Postmark team is joining ActiveCampaign, and we are going to continue to operate the way we have always operated for the foreseeable future. That includes the support team you love! * We definitely don't plan to change any of the thi…
History has shown, over and over again, that all these sorts of pledges are utterly worthless.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#15Extremely mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, it's awesome Wildbit was able to sell Postmark on their terms. To be able to build something, make money, and then walk away when you want is a huge accomplishment. Hats off to them. On the other hand, the reason I always chose Postmark over Sendgrid, MailChimp, et cetera, even though they were much smaller, is because they seriously cared about their customers. Supp…
I agree with you, such a bittersweet taste in the mouth. I don't think that a Marketing company is the right type of company to run Postmark. Postmark care about deliverability not about "engagement". Everything is about being sure your mail get to your clients not about how to craft marketing campaign from their product. How much do you bet ActiveCampaign is going to add some email editor and campaign management fea…
> How much do you bet ActiveCampaign is going to add some email editor and campaign management feature to Postmark ?
Seems unlikely given AC is already incredibly cheap and a simple email sender won't be sophisticated enough to convince marketing teams to move over from a full featured ESP to something simpler.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#16Extremely mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, it's awesome Wildbit was able to sell Postmark on their terms. To be able to build something, make money, and then walk away when you want is a huge accomplishment. Hats off to them. On the other hand, the reason I always chose Postmark over Sendgrid, MailChimp, et cetera, even though they were much smaller, is because they seriously cared about their customers. Supp…
Hey there, Rian here (Head of Product at Postmark). We definitely understand the "mixed feelings" response for an acquisition like this. A couple things I want to reiterate: * The entire Postmark team is joining ActiveCampaign, and we are going to continue to operate the way we have always operated for the foreseeable future. That includes the support team you love! * We definitely don't plan to change any of the thi…
> The entire Postmark team is joining ActiveCampaign, and we are going to continue to operate the way we have always operated for the foreseeable future. That includes the support team you love!
While I appreciate you saying this, you have to have in mind that just some 6 months down the line it won't be you calling the shots. The business priorities will be determined by other people and they can and will command you to shift your policies as they see fit.
I want to believe but history has shown, time and again, that these pledges never materialize.
It's OK, you are feeling relief because you likely received a huge sum of money. Who wouldn't be happy!
There's a proverb: "Never promise anything when you are feeling happy".
Maybe let's talk again in 6 months.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#17This makes me sad (even as I wish them the best). Postmark may be one of my favorite services 1) to actually use and 2) as a company. Their product is actually fun to use and powerful. As a company, Wildbit is one I've always had high respect for. Their "People-First" approach says it all, and they seem like a company that truly acted on that.
I understand the reasons for the acquisition, and I hear the message that product continuity is the goal, but I can't think of an example of a product acquisition that hasn't resulted in a worse experience (at least with a product as good as this one). I'd love to hear examples if anyone has any.
I'm happy for Postmark overall though, and I want to express gratitude for creating a great product and company.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#18Wildbit has sold the family business work-for-other-reasons-than-monetary-renumeration trope for a couple of decades. They've had some great products like Beanstalk and Deploybot and some total follies like Converyor.
Employees had no ownership, products were often sold or put up for sale, and my understand is that compensation was middle of the road at best. It was 37Signals-lite.
They seem like good people, but if you sell your employees and customers on a moralized construction then you do have a moral obligation. The great irony is that there is no good way for something like this to end unless the owners are ready to hand off their business to new leadership on terms that set it up to remain independent. A power of the capital class is that it eats succession for lunch.
I wonder why there was no employee buyout. I suspect it wasn't the most attractive offer from the perspective of the current owners.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#19They are giving 10% of the sum to all employees, based on tenure. They didn’t have to do that as the article mentions as they never had employee stock options. So I guess a great bonus for employees? Not sure if this works out the same as having an option pool from the start?
options are so often unevenly distributed and eventually diluted to basically nothing that this is probably a better outcome for employees who’ve remained with the business.
They only have ~40 employees so if the sale price is ~150m, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars per employee — much better than most people make out of the sale of their employer.
Re: Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
#20Wildbit has sold the family business work-for-other-reasons-than-monetary-renumeration trope for a couple of decades. They've had some great products like Beanstalk and Deploybot and some total follies like Converyor. Employees had no ownership, products were often sold or put up for sale, and my understand is that compensation was middle of the road at best. It was 37Signals-lite. They seem like good people, but if…
> Wildbit has sold the family business work-for-other-reasons-than-monetary-renumeration trope for a couple of decades.
I didn't realize this was a pattern with them before now (selling out). I was using Postmark specifically because it was (I thought) a sort of mom and pop type business. There are cheaper and better options, but sending emails was always such a small expense for me that I didn't care.
I don't mean to sound anti-capitalist or anything. I just prefer spending my money on the small guys when possible.