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What I learned selling my company

harryglaser.com

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Re: What I learned selling my company

#61

Post by donor20 »

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.

They do take backup offers. We got our place that way. We didn’t want to beat the winning bid, but had a no contingency offer. We let them know if first fell through we’d still be interested at our price with a quick close. Someone missed some deadline and they were quick to call.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#62

Post by donor20 »

didgetmaster wrote: post #39

>People often get into startups because of the chance for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Few people will take the chance to join a risky venture if the didn't see some kind of payout down the road. I once left my stable job to join a startup. I took a salary cut and even loaned them money to make paroll. But I got some founders stock and had confidence in the product we were building. It payed off years lat…

Startup stock can get diluted to hell during a non amazing acquisition. So founders and key staff (3-4) sometimes get a deal structure that rewards them for doing a year or two at buyer

Re: What I learned selling my company

#63

Post by tombert »

bmitc wrote: post #19

> People often get into startups because of the chance for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. At least someone's finally honest about it. Startup culture is in general a blight.

Yeah, I'm a bit burnt out on startups personally. They tend to give somewhat mediocre compensation, and they give you a bunch of shares with some bloated arbitrary value number to make up for it.

Obviously it would be awesome if those shares end up being as valuable as they claim it is, but honestly it just kind of feels like lottery tickets. Most startups don't end up becoming the next Amazon or Apple, and as such those shares end up not being worth anything.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#64

Post by guappa »

didgetmaster wrote: post #39

>People often get into startups because of the chance for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Few people will take the chance to join a risky venture if the didn't see some kind of payout down the road. I once left my stable job to join a startup. I took a salary cut and even loaned them money to make paroll. But I got some founders stock and had confidence in the product we were building. It payed off years lat…

You can contribute amazingly and the company can still fail.

Equity might be worth 0. You were lucky… but it's not a fault to not want to bet years of work and just sticking to the paid hours.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#67

Post by matsemann »

ramraj07 wrote: post #47
jahewson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t sell your company for less than your investors have agreed it’s worth.

I don’t understand how it’s a hard floor though. Is there a contractual limit when you get a funding round?

Yes, there can be limits in the contract, making it not possible to sell for less than X in the next Y years. So if you want to do that, you then need to convince your investors this is the best deal they will get.

Also, the investor also often have liquidity preferences. So if they invested at a valuation at $100, and you want to sell at $50, they might get all their money back before previous investors and yourself get a single cent. Then it might not be worth it for you to sell at all.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#69

Post by xnorswap »

dboreham wrote: post #30
zik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

As I suspect you know, Scotland has a distinct legal system from England & Wales, and large differences to England in laws around house buying & selling in particular.

Re: What I learned selling my company

#70

Post by mythhabit »

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.

That is quite normal in Denmark as well. Part of the reason is that the bank cannot approve of the deal, if you have not sold your old house. So either you sell your house and move into a rented apartment, or you commit to buy a house if you can get your old sold in some specified timeframe. Usually the sellers realtor advice the seller if the house is likely to sell or not at a given price.
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