Of course this company is for sale
danshapiro.com
Of course this company is for sale
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Re: Of course this company is for sale
#2I've had a lot of recent discussions about this. My Dad always says one of the worst decisions he made when he was running his first company was not to sell it. The price was right, but he could see was the turnover and the potential to earn more later. Little did he know the 90's recession was just around the corner.
I often wonder what I'd do now if faced with a similar situation.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#3Many people start companies to make money. Other people start companies to build dreams.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#4Some companies are started to make money. Some to build dreams.
But it's much easier to build dreams on top of a multimillion euro cash-out.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#5> "Not everyone thinks about their company this way. I have a good friend who is running a very successful startup with a fantastic future ahead. He told me – and I quite believe him – that he would sell the company for a billion dollars over his dead body."
I don't think this friend is really different from Eric. Both companies are for sale, just at different price points. A startup that isn't for sale is one where you'd have to physically threaten the founder to acquire it.
Of course, the number of founders that have breathlessly pitched me their company that will be "a multi-billion dollar business in 5 years" are uncountable. So I'd argue Eric has a more pragmatic and realistic view of his possible outcomes.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#6I think this article applies directly to people who have not sold a company before, or "reached the shore".
Talk to some guys who have sold a company for more than 10 million and are now working on their next one. In some cases its about the cash, but mostly its because they love doing what they do.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#7[deleted]
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#8I've had a lot of recent discussions about this. My Dad always says one of the worst decisions he made when he was running his first company was not to sell it. The price was right, but he could see was the turnover and the potential to earn more later. Little did he know the 90's recession was just around the corner. I often wonder what I'd do now if faced with a similar situation.
It can be dangerous to do path-not-taken analysis like that. If he sold it to idiots who ran it into the ground, he might now be saying, "I can't believe I sold my company to those assholes. Worst decision I ever made."
Some years back, The Economist covered a study that showed that half of all mergers destroyed value. And that was in pure dollar terms. A lot of acquirers do things that are financially profitable but still horrific to entrepreneurs.
I was recently talking to somebody who now suspects their company was bought mainly for negotiating leverage with some other companies who wanted the startup destroyed. I'm sure the acquirer came out ahead, but no matter how much I got paid it would have made me sad to see 5 years' labor destroyed. It might be economically more rational to sell my sick dog to a lab, but I'd still rather have it put down and bury it myself.
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#9He was extremely clear that anything less than a multibillion dollar IPO was a pathetic failure, and he’d resign before he’d let such an abomination happen. So his startup is not actually for sale.
An IPO is essentially a partial sale. But, really, if someone came and offered him $30bn right now, would he sell? If so, it's for sale (and, yep, there are certainly people who would never sell certain things at any price so it's not just an academic exercise).
There's an old joke along these lines:
"If I gave you a million dollars, would you sleep with me?" .. "A million dollars is a lot of money, and you don’t look that bad, so I guess I would consider it." .. "Ok, since I don’t have a million dollars, would you sleep with me for $100?" .. "What kind of woman/guy do you think I am?!" .. "We’ve already established the answer to that question. Now we’re just negotiating the price."
Re: Of course this company is for sale
#10The morale is that everything is for sale. Of course you would not sell a person, a pet, or something you LOVE - and some people are passionate about their startup but the bottom line is that it is just a business. But the story does not say what happened next? Did the company receive an offer? Did some people leave because they heard a rumor and were afraid of their jobs or perhaps lost some passion for the startup?