Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, Q&AWhy do founders leave after their companies are acquired? There are many nuanced answers, but in the short and medium term, it’s incentives. Acquirers use 3 incentives to get founders…
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Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, ScaleThis has been a year of incredible M&A, from Qualtrics $8b acquisition by SAP (wow!) to Github’s $7.5b exit to Microsoft (goodness!) to Mulesoft to Salesforce for $6.5b (wow) to…
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Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, Growth, ScaleWhat’s the value of being a First Mover in SaaS? There’s clearly value there. But exactly how much? How often do first movers just dominate the world? I stumbled onto…
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Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, GrowthA ways back on SaaSr, we wrote that it takes 7-10 years to get anywhere real in SaaS. It’s still true today. It usually takes 1-2 years to get to…
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Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, Growth, Product, Sales StrategyIs it better to create a new market, or enter a large existing one? Or even redefine a smaller one, to make it bigger? All of these can work. But…
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Blog Posts, Exit Strategy, Q&A, ScaleIs Adobe paying $4.75b for Marketo, just 27 months after it was valued at onlu $1.2b … high? Maybe, but 2018 is the Best of Times in SaaS. The price…
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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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