On Friday, the e-commerce giant confirmed the acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Distressed retailers-- la Nordstrom, or the Gap--are likely to be next. E-commerce MORE
22 
Food business and traditional grocery are never going to be the same. Pivot: Reinvention Central MORE
25 Why Microsoft wanted this deal to happen, and why LinkedIn users could all stand to benefit MORE
26 
I received the following question from a reader: I was wondering if you had any thoughts on cost of customer acquisition for freemium businesses. quite hard, but I don’t think paid acquisition could possibly work here. Have you seen paid acquisition work for freemium businesses? MORE
More often than not the results of these acquisitions are disappointing. The goal is to get a corporate investment or an outright acquisition of the startup. The common mistake acquirers make is treating all acquisitions the same. Predicting Success or Failure of an Acquisition. MORE
Jake Lodwick wrote an article on PandoDaily entitled “An acquisition is always a failure.” Sure not all acquisitions go that way. Do you think Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick or YouTube was really bad for everyone there? MORE
In a recent discussion with the CEO of a private company, an acquisition became the dominate topic. Will a workout be part of the acquisition strategy? · strategy entrepreneur business plan acquisition Startup agreements leadership Merger MORE
Many of formerly rich acquirers like AOL and Yahoo have long since faded past their heyday, and their appetite for acquisitions has subsided along with it. MORE
The unicorn acquisition is alive and well in 2014. Here are the most significant deals of the year past, and some insight into how they happened MORE
Acquisitions can tell us a lot about the state of the startup world. 2016 has been quite a year, and has spared no one its many, many surprises. So too in tech we’ve seen some pretty surprising deals take place. MORE
Three aspects Marcus typically looks for when he evaluates the health and growth potential of a small business. Icons of Entrepreneurship MORE
There are three types of technology acquisitions: - Talent. As a rule of thumb, these acquisitions are priced at approximately $1M/engineer. Generally the prices for these acquisitions are significantly higher than talent acquisitions. As large companies mature they move from doing just talent acquisitions to doing talent and tech acquisitions to eventually doing all three types of acquisitions. MORE
Stories about the growth of "hot" startups such as Facebook, Instagram, AirBNB, and others have created a belief that if you build the right product, customer acquisition will be easy. Finding scalable acquisition channels is a time consuming and strategic effort. MORE
But given that planning for an eventual startup exit is something founders should address from day one, and since most exits are through acquisitions, it makes sense to keep that possibility in mind and to avoid any screamingly obvious blunders that could close off one route to exit. How to think about startup acquisition 1. Target one that has significant growth prospects in a field that has existing … Continue reading → Acquisition MORE
By properly vetting the cybersecurity of potential business acquisitions, buyers can prevent data breaches and other post-sale catastrophes MORE
Startup Help freemium Harvesting demand versus creating demand Hubspot Inbound Marketing JBoss Lean startup Mirror42 Optimize customer acquisition funnel Remove blockage points in sales funnel Sales funnel sales process optimization SysomosAlmost every sales and marketing funnel has blockage points where the conversion rates are lower than hoped, or the process cannot be scaled. MORE
Most corporate acquisitions fail to deliver shareholder value. Here's how to avoid becoming a depressing statistic MORE
In its first acquisition, Bigcommerce announced Tuesday its purchase of Zing, an Austin-based startup that provides mobile retail technologies. Zing moved to Austin three years ago and has raised less than […] The post Bigcommerce’s First Acquisition is in Austin: Zing appeared first on SiliconHills. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Zing’s team of five employees will join Bigcommerce. The company has also acquired Zing’s intellectual property. MORE
But, sadly, most acquisitions don't play out as expected. The liquidity event - Acquisition or IPO is the financial reward every startup is working towards. Most acquisition failures can be tied directly to the founders leaving too soon. MORE
As the name suggests, acquisition is all about driving new users, readers or buyers depending on whether you’re running a SaaS, media or e-commerce business respectively. Instead it’s about the math behind acquisition. MORE
One of my basic strategies as an investor is to use targeted small acquisitions throughout the life of a company. Cobook is a perfect acquisition for us. The post FullContact Makes Its First Acquisition – Acquires Cobook appeared first on Feld Thoughts. MORE
This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Actively pursue mergers and acquisitions. Partial acquisition. MORE
How to minimize customer acquisition costs written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. However, if you are able to minimize Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), you’ll have a sustainable business that does more than stay afloat. MORE
The acquisition closed about six weeks ago and the Followerwonk product has been fully integrated into SEOmoz. I think it’s incredibly powerful to accelerate the growth of a company via targeted acquisitions. Another recent example from my world just to see what I mean is Rally Software’s acquisition of Agile Advantage. And I learned the basis of everything I know about acquisitions from Len Fassler and Jerry Poch, who acquired my first company. MORE
David Cohen has a great post on his blog titled “You have Acquisition interest – now what?&# Ironically, we have been approached by a number of companies interested in talking to us about selling ShopSavvy. Only recently did I start taking this ‘interest’ seriously. To be honest, only after reviewing David’s post did I realize I could MORE
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Finance Grow acquisition business brokers merger mergers and acquisitions moneyEither way, you will have closure and have finally moved beyond the dreaded M&A friend zone. MORE
This acquisition is a long story, but if you have a few minutes let me tell you the best parts. If you’re interested you can read about one of my acquisitions from a few years back in a post titled The Inside Story of a Small Software Acquisition. Photo by psiaki. MORE
Or perhaps the acquired business seeks an acquisition deal to gain access to a wider marketplace. No matter what the reason, an acquisition tends to shake things up at both businesses. So how do you preserve your company culture after an acquisition? MORE
Recently I wrote about how I think about private company acquisition strategies using FullContact as the example of one where it is working well. Last week I was at a board meeting for a different company which did an acquisition a month ago. Usually, the first three months post acquisition are up and down. I know a lot of companies that have a very well defined post-acquisition process. Management acquisitions MORE
OutboundEngine, which makes an online marketing platform for small business owners, on Monday announced it has completed its acquisition of Toronto-based ReadyChat, a web-based live chat service for real estate and mortgage companies. OutboundEngine focuses on real estate, mortgage […] The post OutboundEngine Completes Acquisition of ReadyChat appeared first on SiliconHills. MORE
They are slow to grasp new opportunities to rethink customer relationships, to revolutionize products and services, marketing, advertising, acquisition, and to deliver delight and make people happy. Customer acquisition. Re-think Customer Acquisition, Brand Engagement. MORE
Finance Grow investors mergers and acquisitions moneyThere are many horror stories in the startup space associated with failed mergers and the theft of intellectual property. MORE
In the current economic landscape, it’s common for startups and businesses to seek a buyout or acquisition — in fact, it’s frequently the goal from the start. Whether your company is generating profits or operating at a loss, taxes are a significant risk area in any acquisition. MORE
The bigger you get, the higher your customer acquisition costs go. Hubspot : Hubspot is a great example of several powerful customer acquisition tactics. The post Creative ways to scale SMB customer acquisition appeared first on StartupCFO : Mark MacLeod. MORE
Comparatively little, however, has been written about the important transaction at the other end many startups’ life, acquisitions. Here are some things I’ve learned about the acquisition process over the years. But for product and tech acquisitions especially, it is often about getting the attention of the right people at the acquirer. As with financings, acquisitions take a long time and involve lots of meetings and difficult decisions. MORE
The big news in tech yesterday was Linkedin’s acquisition of Lynda.com for $1.5B. This is by far their largest acquisition to date. So, I thought it might be useful to dig into Linkedin’s acquisition activity to date to see what we can learn. MORE
At a conference last week Autodesk CEO Carl Bass said that he thinks about acquisitions in three buckets: companies that are really people who have a technology that Autodesk wants to build up (acquihires). large scale acquisitions. He wants to make lots of acquisitions in the first category, a handful in the second, and only rarely in the third. Also very important to note is that the number of acquisitions declines precipitously as the valuation rises. MORE
The Deal: Acquisition: Endurance buying all of Constant Contact’s outstanding shares. Strategic Rationale : Endurance has done 40 acquisition since inception; M&A is a core competency for Endurance. MORE
In pure web businesses where the headcount doesn’t need to grow as customer acquisition scales, it is also very useful to look customer acquisition costs without the headcount costs.) Metrics on all aspects of the customer acquisition process to find out what can be improved. MORE
Grow Marketing & Sales branding client acquisition customer customer acquisition marketing personal brandWhen it comes to acquiring more clients, many service-based business owners are playing “the game” the wrong way. Get more clients with these tips. MORE
Yet, even though our team had experience with several previous successful acquisitions, after the initial rush of excitement, the hard reality of bringing together two separate entities set in. By Ron Faith, president and CEO of Datacastle. MORE
That’s why we’ve seen example after example of “acqui-hires” in the past few years as well as some very large acquisitions where a big driver was the talent behind a start-up (e.g. However, only a few big companies have truly figured out how to keep founders around after the acquisition. In most cases, as Bloomberg detailed with Zynga , the founder leaves 1-2 years after acquisition. MORE
If you want to sell your company – or simply understand acquisitions you read about in the press – it is important to understand how they think about these calculations. There’s been a lot of speculation lately about why big companies spend millions of dollars acquiring startups for their technology or talent. The answer lies in the economic logic that big companies use to make major project decisions. Here is a really simplified example. MORE
Acquisition Related Topics Feld Thoughts
JANUARY 15, 2014
One of my basic strategies as an investor is to use targeted small acquisitions throughout the life of a company. Cobook is a perfect acquisition for us. The post FullContact Makes Its First Acquisition – Acquires Cobook appeared first on Feld Thoughts.
Feld Thoughts
AUGUST 30, 2016
Recently I wrote about how I think about private company acquisition strategies using FullContact as the example of one where it is working well. Last week I was at a board meeting for a different company which did an acquisition a month ago. Usually, the first three months post acquisition are up and down. I know a lot of companies that have a very well defined post-acquisition process. Management acquisitions
StartupCFO
APRIL 22, 2016
The bigger you get, the higher your customer acquisition costs go. Hubspot : Hubspot is a great example of several powerful customer acquisition tactics. The post Creative ways to scale SMB customer acquisition appeared first on StartupCFO : Mark MacLeod.
Steve Blank
APRIL 23, 2014
More often than not the results of these acquisitions are disappointing. The goal is to get a corporate investment or an outright acquisition of the startup. The common mistake acquirers make is treating all acquisitions the same. Predicting Success or Failure of an Acquisition.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
SEPTEMBER 29, 2015
Jake Lodwick wrote an article on PandoDaily entitled “An acquisition is always a failure.” Sure not all acquisitions go that way. Do you think Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick or YouTube was really bad for everyone there?
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Yet, even though our team had experience with several previous successful acquisitions, after the initial rush of excitement, the hard reality of bringing together two separate entities set in. By Ron Faith, president and CEO of Datacastle.
Duct Tape Marketing
JUNE 2, 2017
How to minimize customer acquisition costs written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. However, if you are able to minimize Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), you’ll have a sustainable business that does more than stay afloat.
Occam's Razor
SEPTEMBER 4, 2012
They are slow to grasp new opportunities to rethink customer relationships, to revolutionize products and services, marketing, advertising, acquisition, and to deliver delight and make people happy. Customer acquisition. Re-think Customer Acquisition, Brand Engagement.
For Entrepreneurs
JULY 15, 2010
Startup Help freemium Harvesting demand versus creating demand Hubspot Inbound Marketing JBoss Lean startup Mirror42 Optimize customer acquisition funnel Remove blockage points in sales funnel Sales funnel sales process optimization SysomosAlmost every sales and marketing funnel has blockage points where the conversion rates are lower than hoped, or the process cannot be scaled.
StartupCFO
APRIL 10, 2015
The big news in tech yesterday was Linkedin’s acquisition of Lynda.com for $1.5B. This is by far their largest acquisition to date. So, I thought it might be useful to dig into Linkedin’s acquisition activity to date to see what we can learn.
Inc Startups
JUNE 16, 2017
On Friday, the e-commerce giant confirmed the acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Distressed retailers-- la Nordstrom, or the Gap--are likely to be next. E-commerce
Early Growth Financial Services
MARCH 5, 2015
But given that planning for an eventual startup exit is something founders should address from day one, and since most exits are through acquisitions, it makes sense to keep that possibility in mind and to avoid any screamingly obvious blunders that could close off one route to exit. How to think about startup acquisition 1. Target one that has significant growth prospects in a field that has existing … Continue reading → Acquisition
SiliconHills
MARCH 20, 2017
OutboundEngine, which makes an online marketing platform for small business owners, on Monday announced it has completed its acquisition of Toronto-based ReadyChat, a web-based live chat service for real estate and mortgage companies. OutboundEngine focuses on real estate, mortgage […] The post OutboundEngine Completes Acquisition of ReadyChat appeared first on SiliconHills.
Inc Startups
MARCH 22, 2017
Most corporate acquisitions fail to deliver shareholder value. Here's how to avoid becoming a depressing statistic
Texas Startup Blog
JUNE 19, 2010
David Cohen has a great post on his blog titled “You have Acquisition interest – now what?&# Ironically, we have been approached by a number of companies interested in talking to us about selling ShopSavvy. Only recently did I start taking this ‘interest’ seriously. To be honest, only after reviewing David’s post did I realize I could
Chris Dixon
SEPTEMBER 10, 2012
Comparatively little, however, has been written about the important transaction at the other end many startups’ life, acquisitions. Here are some things I’ve learned about the acquisition process over the years. But for product and tech acquisitions especially, it is often about getting the attention of the right people at the acquirer. As with financings, acquisitions take a long time and involve lots of meetings and difficult decisions.
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing
SEPTEMBER 6, 2011
But, sadly, most acquisitions don't play out as expected. The liquidity event - Acquisition or IPO is the financial reward every startup is working towards. Most acquisition failures can be tied directly to the founders leaving too soon.
The Next Web
DECEMBER 22, 2016
Acquisitions can tell us a lot about the state of the startup world. 2016 has been quite a year, and has spared no one its many, many surprises. So too in tech we’ve seen some pretty surprising deals take place.
Genuine VC
MARCH 26, 2012
Many of formerly rich acquirers like AOL and Yahoo have long since faded past their heyday, and their appetite for acquisitions has subsided along with it.
Inc Startups
DECEMBER 29, 2014
The unicorn acquisition is alive and well in 2014. Here are the most significant deals of the year past, and some insight into how they happened
Taffy Williams
AUGUST 15, 2012
In a recent discussion with the CEO of a private company, an acquisition became the dominate topic. Will a workout be part of the acquisition strategy? · strategy entrepreneur business plan acquisition Startup agreements leadership Merger
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 8, 2013
This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Actively pursue mergers and acquisitions. Partial acquisition.
YFS Magazine
MARCH 15, 2016
Finance Grow investors mergers and acquisitions moneyThere are many horror stories in the startup space associated with failed mergers and the theft of intellectual property.
Inc Startups
JANUARY 13, 2017
By properly vetting the cybersecurity of potential business acquisitions, buyers can prevent data breaches and other post-sale catastrophes
StartupCFO
SEPTEMBER 23, 2011
As the name suggests, acquisition is all about driving new users, readers or buyers depending on whether you’re running a SaaS, media or e-commerce business respectively. Instead it’s about the math behind acquisition.
The Equity Kicker
MARCH 7, 2016
At a conference last week Autodesk CEO Carl Bass said that he thinks about acquisitions in three buckets: companies that are really people who have a technology that Autodesk wants to build up (acquihires). large scale acquisitions. He wants to make lots of acquisitions in the first category, a handful in the second, and only rarely in the third. Also very important to note is that the number of acquisitions declines precipitously as the valuation rises.
SiliconHills
APRIL 28, 2015
In its first acquisition, Bigcommerce announced Tuesday its purchase of Zing, an Austin-based startup that provides mobile retail technologies. Zing moved to Austin three years ago and has raised less than […] The post Bigcommerce’s First Acquisition is in Austin: Zing appeared first on SiliconHills. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Zing’s team of five employees will join Bigcommerce. The company has also acquired Zing’s intellectual property.
Inc Startups
JUNE 20, 2017
Food business and traditional grocery are never going to be the same. Pivot: Reinvention Central
www.forentrepreneurs.com
FEBRUARY 2, 2010
In pure web businesses where the headcount doesn’t need to grow as customer acquisition scales, it is also very useful to look customer acquisition costs without the headcount costs.) Metrics on all aspects of the customer acquisition process to find out what can be improved.
Inc Startups
MAY 3, 2017
Three aspects Marcus typically looks for when he evaluates the health and growth potential of a small business. Icons of Entrepreneurship
OnStartups
MAY 2, 2012
Stories about the growth of "hot" startups such as Facebook, Instagram, AirBNB, and others have created a belief that if you build the right product, customer acquisition will be easy. Finding scalable acquisition channels is a time consuming and strategic effort.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 29, 2015
Or perhaps the acquired business seeks an acquisition deal to gain access to a wider marketplace. No matter what the reason, an acquisition tends to shake things up at both businesses. So how do you preserve your company culture after an acquisition?
YoungUpstarts
DECEMBER 14, 2016
In the current economic landscape, it’s common for startups and businesses to seek a buyout or acquisition — in fact, it’s frequently the goal from the start. Whether your company is generating profits or operating at a loss, taxes are a significant risk area in any acquisition.
Feld Thoughts
AUGUST 16, 2012
The acquisition closed about six weeks ago and the Followerwonk product has been fully integrated into SEOmoz. I think it’s incredibly powerful to accelerate the growth of a company via targeted acquisitions. Another recent example from my world just to see what I mean is Rally Software’s acquisition of Agile Advantage. And I learned the basis of everything I know about acquisitions from Len Fassler and Jerry Poch, who acquired my first company.
Chris Dixon
OCTOBER 18, 2012
If you want to sell your company – or simply understand acquisitions you read about in the press – it is important to understand how they think about these calculations. There’s been a lot of speculation lately about why big companies spend millions of dollars acquiring startups for their technology or talent. The answer lies in the economic logic that big companies use to make major project decisions. Here is a really simplified example.
YFS Magazine
MARCH 11, 2017
Grow Marketing & Sales branding client acquisition customer customer acquisition marketing personal brandWhen it comes to acquiring more clients, many service-based business owners are playing “the game” the wrong way. Get more clients with these tips.
Version One Ventures
JULY 28, 2014
That’s why we’ve seen example after example of “acqui-hires” in the past few years as well as some very large acquisitions where a big driver was the talent behind a start-up (e.g. However, only a few big companies have truly figured out how to keep founders around after the acquisition. In most cases, as Bloomberg detailed with Zynga , the founder leaves 1-2 years after acquisition.
Software By Rob
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
I received the following question from a reader: I was wondering if you had any thoughts on cost of customer acquisition for freemium businesses. quite hard, but I don’t think paid acquisition could possibly work here. Have you seen paid acquisition work for freemium businesses?
Software By Rob
JANUARY 25, 2012
This acquisition is a long story, but if you have a few minutes let me tell you the best parts. If you’re interested you can read about one of my acquisitions from a few years back in a post titled The Inside Story of a Small Software Acquisition. Photo by psiaki.
Inc Startups
JUNE 14, 2016
Why Microsoft wanted this deal to happen, and why LinkedIn users could all stand to benefit
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