Exit Strategy, Hiring, Leadership, PodcastsPhil Fernandez is a Silicon Valley veteran, with more than 35 years of experience building and leading breakout technology companies. Phil co-founded Marketo in 2006 and led the company as…
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Career Growth & Advice, Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Q&AMuch better the first time than the second. The first time we sold, I had far exceeded any expectations I had as a founder. First, I barely believed I could…
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I was just with a founder who owns 40% of his startup. He just turned down an offer for $500,000,000 to sell his startup to a public company. He is…
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Career Growth & Advice, Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Q&AAt least for me, it felt great for about a day. Big bottles of champagne, recognition “we did it”, etc. IPO’ing truly is one of the most iconic Silicon Valley…
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It seems like a pretty good deal for Recruit Holdings, and market correct. If Glassdoor was at about ~$100m ARR growing 30% a year (suggested by press, but I have…
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Career Growth & Advice, Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Q&AYou’ll know. First, and more importantly, bear in mind good acquisition offers are rare. Most start-ups never get a decent one. So the idea you can wake up one day…
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Career Growth & Advice, Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Q&AAlways hire a banker if you can. Yes, it will seem expensive, especially on a smaller deal. And yes, they almost never will bring a great second offer in with…
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Exactly what you’d expect — the round size, price, or both are cut. It is a bummer. But — it has happened to some very good companies. Like Google: An…
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It’s hard to know. Being CEO is a very, very hard job. It’s constant 24×7 and you never get a break. A chance to sell late stage and make tens…
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Customer Success, Exit Strategy, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Scale, VideosIn this session, Marc Bodnick, former Business and Community Leader at Quora, sits down with longtime friend Tom Chavez, Co-Founder and CEO of Krux, to get the inside story of…
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Blog Posts, Exit, Exit Strategy, FundraisingA few times a week, I am sent a deck or exec summary that includes an “Exit Strategy”. The slide sometimes references a nice acquisition by an adjacent company, or…
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Exit, Exit Strategy, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, PodcastsWelcome to Episode 151! Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO of AppDynamics, backed by the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins, just to name a few, before…
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Blog Posts, Exit, Exit Strategy, LeadershipHaving been through the acquisition process 4x — twice as a founder, twice as a start-up exec, here’s my list of when and if to sell. Don’t take it literally. …
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Blog Posts, Exit, Exit Strategy, LeadershipBusinessInsider had a great story this week on Datto’s $1b reported exit to Vista Private Equity (more on the new role of PE in SaaS here). So much of it…
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Early, Exit Strategy, Fundraising, Leadership, Q&AI think this is a bit misunderstood. A cap is a price, well at least it’s sort of a price. And the market sets the price. It is what it…
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