Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What I learned selling my company

harryglaser.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 104 posts

Re: What I learned selling my company

#21

Post by heads »

caseysoftware wrote: post #15
heads wrote: post #11

> Deciders on M&A [do] not include the VP corp dev or the corp dev managers. Those are good relationships to have, but they don’t initiate large offers. What is corp dev’s role then? Maybe they like an in house recruiter: they conduct negotiations and ease the process by meeting with both parties, but the yay/nay decisions are made by the hiring manager?

No, they're less recruiters or negotiators and more as scouts. They are supposed to go out and find interesting things in (or adjacent to) your space, get to know them, understand how they measure up among their peers and competitors, and bring all that information back to the company. They're all waiting for the company - usually the CEO, CPO, or CRO - to say something like "we have a need for X." Background: I was…

Thank you, that’s a useful explanation. I suppose, in that sense, the way corp dev operates between businesses is the same way that diplomats and business envoys operate between nations. The public role is about developing new opportunities but there’s a good amount of intelligence work (spying) going on at the same time.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#22

Post by koolba »

gumby wrote: post #16
fairity wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One major disadvantage of 2-4 is that other people tend to hear about it I don’t doubt this, but I’m curious: why do you see the publicity as a disadvantage?

Why on earth would you want to let someone know that you had a big payout? It's none of anybody else's business how much money I have and if nobody knows you can walk downtown in peace, go to restaurants, hang out with your same friends, and still have lovely ski or yacht holidays in peace. The Bay Area and Seattle have quite a few "unknown" billionares. For example if you had less than 5% of Microsoft when it IPOd y…

> … if you hung on by the mid 90s you could have been worth 8-9 figures.

To not diversify a concentrated wealth of 8+ figures takes some serious diamond hands.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#23

Post by argiopetech »

aidos wrote: post #20
cj wrote: post #9

> I was advised that 50% of signed LOIs actually close. I bet it’s less. You will see the LOI and dream of trading stress for riches. Remember: Less than 50% chance of closing. 100% Which is why I hate that exclusivity is industry standard. It feels exploitative that acquirers can demand exclusivity in a deal when the chances of it closing are less than 80%. Imagine selling a house and taking it off the market becaus…

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

That's how it works de facto in the US as well. Agents don't show houses under contract, and a significant percentage of contracts fall through.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#24

Post by [deleted] »

argiopetech wrote: post #23
aidos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

That's how it works de facto in the US as well. Agents don't show houses under contract, and a significant percentage of contracts fall through.

[deleted]

Re: What I learned selling my company

#25

Post by zik »

aidos wrote: post #20
cj wrote: post #9

> I was advised that 50% of signed LOIs actually close. I bet it’s less. You will see the LOI and dream of trading stress for riches. Remember: Less than 50% chance of closing. 100% Which is why I hate that exclusivity is industry standard. It feels exploitative that acquirers can demand exclusivity in a deal when the chances of it closing are less than 80%. Imagine selling a house and taking it off the market becaus…

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

Coming from Australia the way London house sales work seems like such a complete disaster. It seems like you can make your buy contingent on selling your old house, which creates chains of buys and sells which fail the instant anyone pulls out. I can't imagine how anyone can operate in that environment.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#26

Post by [deleted] »

argiopetech wrote: post #23
aidos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

That's how it works de facto in the US as well. Agents don't show houses under contract, and a significant percentage of contracts fall through.

[deleted]

Re: What I learned selling my company

#27

Post by cj »

aidos wrote: post #20
cj wrote: post #9

> I was advised that 50% of signed LOIs actually close. I bet it’s less. You will see the LOI and dream of trading stress for riches. Remember: Less than 50% chance of closing. 100% Which is why I hate that exclusivity is industry standard. It feels exploitative that acquirers can demand exclusivity in a deal when the chances of it closing are less than 80%. Imagine selling a house and taking it off the market becaus…

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

Sounds like the US and UK housing markets, as well as startup M&A, suffer from similar problems.

In a free market, you should be able to market what you’re selling until the moment it’s officially sold.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#28

Post by tptacek »

cj wrote: post #9

> I was advised that 50% of signed LOIs actually close. I bet it’s less. You will see the LOI and dream of trading stress for riches. Remember: Less than 50% chance of closing. 100% Which is why I hate that exclusivity is industry standard. It feels exploitative that acquirers can demand exclusivity in a deal when the chances of it closing are less than 80%. Imagine selling a house and taking it off the market becaus…

These are definitionally the most sophisticated buyers and sellers in the entire economy. Organic market norms dictate what the industry standard is; it doesn't make much sense to think about protections. If you're selling, and you want some kind of protection, structure the dealmaking or negotiate the deal to get what you want.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#29

Post by mcmcmc »

gumby wrote: post #14
throwup238 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A parasite’s best chance of survival is to avoid discovery.

Running a profitable business with happy customers is parasitical? I thought that was for PE and hedge fund clowns.

The concept of profit itself means you are beating the market by taking advantage of someone else or extracting value through arbitrage. In a perfectly competitive market with zero barriers to entry, profit margins will converge on zero as new entrants capture market share or competitors leave overcrowded markets.

Edit: this is classical economic philosophy, not my personal opinion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_(economics)

Re: What I learned selling my company

#30

Post by dboreham »

zik wrote: post #25
aidos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish your point, but you’ve described the UK housing market where that’s exactly how it works.

Coming from Australia the way London house sales work seems like such a complete disaster. It seems like you can make your buy contingent on selling your old house, which creates chains of buys and sells which fail the instant anyone pulls out. I can't imagine how anyone can operate in that environment.

Perhaps different today, but back when I lived in the auld country it was totally different in Scotland (still in the UK, I believe).
Post reply on HN