Is it considered expected, permitted conduct for founders to lie about reasons to sell and personal emergencies to deceive and pressure acquirers?
Can someone who lacks that mindset or skillset perhaps, still successfully sell their startup?
Can someone who lacks that mindset or skillset perhaps, still successfully sell their startup?
Are you talking about the partnership first strategy? That's pretty standard and how companies get to know each other.
> personal emergencies to deceive and pressure acquirers
There's plenty of gamesmanship during an acquisition - particularly a large company swallowing a small company. The big company can get bogged down, requiring the small company to stay the squeaky wheel to get the deal done. In this case the acquirer could have easily waited until Monday.
The partnership thing was more holding their cards close rather than laying them out on the table. A sell is a form of partnership.
Of course I don't know exactly hat was said or how it was said or the circumstances, but the article does not indicate that either of these things were necessarily lies.
No different than a b2b SaaS salesperson saying they need to close a deal by x date to receive a "special" discount. It's all made up, it's just part of the game
I was curious as well and most sources I found point to a similar structure above. Basically the more money they get, the bigger the fee, and then there is some sort of retainer to cover their costs.
Enjoying business means being ok dealing with ordinary bullshit.
With the caveat that ordinary bullshit means different things in different contexts. Haggling is ok in the casbah. Not in the Apple Store.