Idea: Self-acquiring feature startups

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15163

by madanella • 19 years ago

3 7 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

madanella3• 19 years ago

So many of the new services being created and offered online are accused of being features only. Wouldn't there be an opportunity in combining a set of these feature-startup companies into a very interesting acquisition target or a company with more potential for going public?

I'm not proposing that VCs or some company act as the acquirer. I'm proposing that these companies merge their teams and traffic and resources 'equitably' and keep working toward the goal but with greater momentum. Kind of a 'hackers co-op'.

__2• 19 years ago

It seems if several startups merged into one, it wouldn't be an attractive acquisition. An acquirer might only want one subcompany, but has to buy the whole thing at a greatly increased price. Acquirers like the a-la-carte aspect of startups.

Startups do too. The founders started their company precisely because they didn't want their product to be averaged together with a bunch of others.

madanella3• 19 years ago

"The founders started their company precisely because they didn't want their product to be averaged together with a bunch of others."

I have never heard that as a reason someone started a company. People start companies because they want to have control and impact and work on interesting things and have more ownership.

I just wonder if it might be interesting to combine a team that's working on online collaboration, for instance, with another that's working on video sharing and a third that is building a community of some sort. Think 37Signals but from the bottom up.

akkartik2• 19 years ago

Ah, but you get to control who you merge with. On a small scale this might be useful. I suspect the biggest problem will be negotiating equity partitions. It's much harder to do so with strangers than with friends.

Hmm, that might be one of the key skills of VCs..

Idea: Self-acquiring feature startups

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