Dark Side of Acquisition
dennismv
Registered Users Posts: 5 Beginner grinner
It took me a while to zero in on the right forum for the following due to creative forum naming. I hope posted to the right place. As such, let's see what is to follow.
SmugMug says that it will never get acquired. I respect this decision. I myself have been a part of a site that was very popular. Later it has been acquired, changed a few things and subsequently went down the tubes, lost its fan base and eventually became pretty much abandoned. There could have been more going on behind the scenes, but acquisition probably didn't help.
However, there have been sites that were acquired and are perhaps better off. I am thinking of hotmail here, as original owners of hotmail got quite a hefty sum to sell their business, and now hotmail ranks #7 on alexa and is probably racking in large sums of money... or maybe not, I don't know.
As I've mentioned .. I respect and understand the decision to not get acquired, but I have to ask -- some offers SmugMug probably gets must be mind-boggling. A shrewd/savvy businessman's motto is usually "sell it while it's hot and make a new one". I mean that if the offer is 500% of the site's worth, it may make sense to sell the site and then create a new one. I'm sure that with mad skills like that of creators of SmugMug, it will be relatively easy to go ahead with a new site idea or maybe even the very same idea, but altered (to avoid being sued by acquiring company for failing non-compete clause).
That said, is SmugMug in it NOT for the money ? Or maybe it's getting enough already. What if someone comes up with an incredible offer ? Some folks say that everything has its price . . .
While I am talking about SmugMug in this case, for me it is also a bigger question. A question to any company that cares about its customers in such dedicated way. I wonder what kind of motivation is involved into a site like that.
SmugMug says that it will never get acquired. I respect this decision. I myself have been a part of a site that was very popular. Later it has been acquired, changed a few things and subsequently went down the tubes, lost its fan base and eventually became pretty much abandoned. There could have been more going on behind the scenes, but acquisition probably didn't help.
However, there have been sites that were acquired and are perhaps better off. I am thinking of hotmail here, as original owners of hotmail got quite a hefty sum to sell their business, and now hotmail ranks #7 on alexa and is probably racking in large sums of money... or maybe not, I don't know.
As I've mentioned .. I respect and understand the decision to not get acquired, but I have to ask -- some offers SmugMug probably gets must be mind-boggling. A shrewd/savvy businessman's motto is usually "sell it while it's hot and make a new one". I mean that if the offer is 500% of the site's worth, it may make sense to sell the site and then create a new one. I'm sure that with mad skills like that of creators of SmugMug, it will be relatively easy to go ahead with a new site idea or maybe even the very same idea, but altered (to avoid being sued by acquiring company for failing non-compete clause).
That said, is SmugMug in it NOT for the money ? Or maybe it's getting enough already. What if someone comes up with an incredible offer ? Some folks say that everything has its price . . .
While I am talking about SmugMug in this case, for me it is also a bigger question. A question to any company that cares about its customers in such dedicated way. I wonder what kind of motivation is involved into a site like that.
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Comments
As you might imagine, this question has come up before. Look at Baldy's response here to gain some insight.
Regards,
Thanks.