Etsy acquires Grand St. | Hacker News Reader

Etsy acquires Grand St.

blog.grandst.com

88 pointskrschultz22 comments

One of those company blogs you cannot go to company's website by clicking any visible link from the blog. It's like blog is a separate company on its own.

I feel like every sort of acquisition post is like this and I have to end up typing the URL myself.

Took me a bit to figure out, but you can click on 'store' in the upper right. I would think that 'home' would/should take you there, though.

"Home" is also a link to the blog, sadly.

Sorry about that. Our blog has always been an after thought.

I applaud that honesty. Congrats on the acquisition!

Congrats! My last startup shared office space with Joe and Aaron's last company, and they are great guys and excellent developers. Etsy is lucky to have them and the rest of the team!

Awww. Thanks for the kind words.

Congrats joe! :)

This is disappointing for two reasons.

#1. I have never heard of Grand Street until now even though I am their target demographic. Now I fear I won't be able to get all my purchases in before my other disappointment below.

#2. How long will it be until Grand Street is selling cheap knockoffs like Etsy allows?

*edited to fix typo.

Grand St emails have really interesting stuff. They have things you don't often come across in the real world. Congrats to Amanda and team!

I'd be interested to know what kind of stage / traction / volume Grand St is at and what kind / scale of deal this is.

They seem to be another site in the same vein as Tindie etc, but I've never heard of them despite being right in their target market (aside from not being in the US/Canada, which isn't usually an obstacle to hearing about US-only stuff) and despite following most of the avenues where something like this would usually be mentioned.

Every X acquites Y post should have an HN disclaimer!

Show HN> Who was Y?

The story of Y is never told in these shut-down notices...

not sure how reliable. but 'less than 10m'

http://recode.net/2014/04/23/etsy-paid-less-than-10-million-...

Re: that article, I'm not sure how to reconcile "We can do it with or without you" with the rumored price of several million dollars. Unless the talent alone was worth the price of acquisition.

Amanda here, Grand St. co-founder. Jason's story is factually incorrect on a few things. To be clear: no threats were ever made or implied in deal meetings. Etsy is one of the most genuine and good-natured companies I have ever encountered.

Congrats Amanda!

Cool company, had never heard of them until now. Congrats!

"We have always admired them from afar, especially their dedication to craft and their commitment to their B Corp certification."

We have admired their B-corp certification? Is this a joke? It reads like satire, but I can't imagine anyone actually writing this on an acquisition announcement.

There's an Etsy blog post where they explain what a B Corp is and why they wanted to be certified as one [1]. "It’s like a LEED or Fair Trade certification, but for a business, not just a building or a bag of coffee."

[1] https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation...

You can find their Overall B Score at:

https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy

I had to look it up, but a B-Corp is a 'Benefit Corporation' - it voluntarily takes on a legal obligation to consider social good as well as profit in its decision making process.

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