There's nothing wrong with selling to the right suitor but completely shutting down the product?
Is anybody building a company for the long-haul these days, or has the home flipping bubble just moved over to the startup world?
We need to start a trend / honor system for startups to sign so users know they won't be shafted down the road.
I'm going to start a startup that has some standard legal docs that says you won't shut the company/product down even if acquired (disregarding business failure). You get a quality-mark type badge for your site.
Honestly, I doubt almost any of the aqui-hire deals happened because the team didn't care about or want the product to work out. I assume this is more often a soft-landing for failure.. companies that aren't working out, finding their model, or gaining enough traction.. so the team ends up taking a signing bonus to jump somewhere together.
Is there much evidence people are really starting shops just to prove their team is worth hiring?
Another note: a reasonable sign that you're at risk of getting 'shafted' as a user is that the company is relatively new, definitely not profitable, and you're not paying for the product.
Comments
There's nothing wrong with selling to the right suitor but completely shutting down the product?
Is anybody building a company for the long-haul these days, or has the home flipping bubble just moved over to the startup world?
We need to start a trend / honor system for startups to sign so users know they won't be shafted down the road.
I'm going to start a startup that has some standard legal docs that says you won't shut the company/product down even if acquired (disregarding business failure). You get a quality-mark type badge for your site.
Honestly, I doubt almost any of the aqui-hire deals happened because the team didn't care about or want the product to work out. I assume this is more often a soft-landing for failure.. companies that aren't working out, finding their model, or gaining enough traction.. so the team ends up taking a signing bonus to jump somewhere together.
Is there much evidence people are really starting shops just to prove their team is worth hiring?
Another note: a reasonable sign that you're at risk of getting 'shafted' as a user is that the company is relatively new, definitely not profitable, and you're not paying for the product.
> has the home flipping bubble just moved over to the startup world?
If this is "flipping" anything, it's flipping the team. I doubt there was much of a pay out for this.