As a former M&A guy and later a founder - It's not just that your interests aren't aligned in terms of financials or IP, your timelines aren't aligned and your desired outcomes aren't aligned.
There is ZERO hurry with a lot of BigCo acquisitions - there are layers and layers of board approvals, analysis, opportunity costs, competitor research, etc.
There may not be any actual interest in an acquisition of people or technology, but rather a curiosity about the space - e.g. "what are smart and hungry people in X space capable of actually building?" or "what does technology Y in the wild actually look like?"
It's all fun and games for the BigCo but can absolutely kill a startup with delays and 180 degree turns on the product roadmap.
@mblevin completely agree with you. Bigco will take its own sweat time to close, so better focus on product launch and have parallel discussion on acquisition.
@ryanhuff ya, can understand. then 1 person can focus the discussion and other 2 can be on product. I know easy to tell, but really difficult to practice. :(
There is ZERO hurry with a lot of BigCo acquisitions - there are layers and layers of board approvals, analysis, opportunity costs, competitor research, etc.
There may not be any actual interest in an acquisition of people or technology, but rather a curiosity about the space - e.g. "what are smart and hungry people in X space capable of actually building?" or "what does technology Y in the wild actually look like?"
It's all fun and games for the BigCo but can absolutely kill a startup with delays and 180 degree turns on the product roadmap.