idea to acquisition can be very short flipmeat: companies built with acquisition as the strategy if lacking customers and revenue, it's probably not a good acquisition for the big svcs The magic numbers: at least 100k users established at least 1.5 years sold $20-30M the problems very few potential buyers 1.5 years from now is big unknown everyone is going the same direction better to hit where they ain't what you need fit the story the acquirer tells be good at something aren't (complimentary services add value) prove that what you've built isn't easy have friends nearby think of the acquisition as a (potentially big) signing bonus company stories bloglines * had 70% market share * operated as one guy (Mark Fletcher) for a long time * very few employees at time of acquisition * focused on what people wanted * purchased for the user community del.icio.us feedburner * feed usage statistics * at the control point * once people sign on for the feedburner proposition, it's hard for them to leave * core group of 3 or 4 founders who have worked on multiple startups together flickr * Canadian govt subsidy * pro accounts * acquisition indico resume database Leon Chism has better notes than me :) jotspot former Excite founders commercialization of a free story (open source/service) that's succeeding adapting their strategy (shared spread sheets) koders source code search three models: * public search with ads * enterprise -- helping companies with license compliance * third secret model having too many models better to tell an investor that here's one type of customer that we can servce and we can lucratively serve them odeo former blogger founders podcast directory easier to go to an investor with "I succeeded there, I can succeed here too" project placesite services for cafe hotspots mini social networks within a cafe installs on the WAP sales model scales poorly * most cafes are independently owned and operated spike source Ray Lane Kim Polese other repeat offenders joe six pack entrepreneur won't compete against Ray Lane on a sales call splunk we're the google for log files not a good proposition to frame yourself as "the XXX of YYY" upcoming.org nobody had quit their day job to bootstrap upcoming before they were acquired zimbra ajax mail client that competes against MS Exchange best demo at web 2.0 conference enterprise software is too much about golf and not about product Case Study the idea: create a collective bargaining site for consumers hit with bad customer svc A call center app for the other side of the phone a way for consumers to keep track of their complains and learn from other's successes using the web and voip to bring together isolated complaints the good: decreasing costst of outsourced callcenters leave customers in the lurch everyone has bad experiences, no good solution at hand cheap to develop selfish consumer action benefits the bad: very high manual effort frustration and willingness to pay are disjoined tested price point very low probably doesn solve the problem for people all the biggest complainers will be biggest complainers conclusion: no-go learning more Brad Feld "the torturous pain of ppt" feld.com/blog ventureblog joelonsoftware.com Eric Sink (into micro-ISV's) software.ericsink.com/bos/Business_of_Software.html Read "the 10 Day MBA" by Steven Silbiger bizplans for dummies Getting Real from 37 Signals What the numbers say " Kerrick Niederman" "The product marketing handbook for software" Merrill Chapman The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki (Marc hates it but recommends it anyway) take the VC process as a way to talk to a lot of really smart people about your ideas work with VCs you really want to work with, not for their money alone VC's usually come in one of two cases: * they bring capital and major help OR * they bring capital and bring major damage They can provide: advice contacts They can provide: distraction board of advisors can give you a halo effect, lends credibility the value might be in their rolodex, in their product domain expertise may have to give up some stock to get a "big name" on the advisors the best position to be in is one where competing VCs are interested in the company and not be desparate for the money