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What I learned selling my company

harryglaser.com · 1,577 words · saved by 1 readers

At my first company, I internalized the standard advice to never think about M&A. The consensus was, and is, to just keep growing the business and good things will come. I did that, and I was lucky that good things did come in the form of a $130M acquisition that was mostly good news for the founders and employees, and pretty-solid-given-the-reality news for our investors. Having lived it, and having close friends who’ve lived it, I think the usual advice does founders a disservice. People often get into startups because of the chance for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. M&A is one of two ways a pot of gold happens. So rather than ignoring it, I think it’s worth understanding how it happens, and avoiding the dumb mistakes that make it not happen when you need it. To be clear, this post is not about acqui-hires, which are usually about saving face and don’t usually include a pot of gold for anyone. It’s also not about multi-billion-dollar mergers of public or could-be-public-if-

At my first company, I internalized the standard advice to never think about M&A. The consensus was, and is, to just keep growing the business and good things will come. I did that, and I was lucky that good things did come in the form of a $130M acquisition that was mostly good news for the founders and employees, and pretty-solid-given-the-reality news for our investors. Having lived it, and having close friends who’ve lived it, I think the usual advice does founders a disservice. People often get into startups because of the chance for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. M&A is one of

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