Mark Bao's startup Atomplan acquired. Congratulations! | Hacker News Reader

Mark Bao's startup Atomplan acquired. Congratulations!

avecora.com

64 pointskirubakaran27 comments

I really do not intend to take away from the awesomeness of this announcement, but I am curious. How big are these companies?

Bing Search (3,150 results) http://www.bing.com/search?q=avecora&go=&form=QBLH&#... Google (30,000): http://www.google.com/search?q=avecora

That doesn't seem like a lot of hits to me.

Googling "Avecora Ondemand" only has 708 hits: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=avecora+ondemand...

I guess, I'm just trying to understand how "big" this news really is.

Additional "data":

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/avecora.com+avecoraondemand...

disclosure: I used to work for leadlogsys.com

Check out this ad for buying Avecora OnDemand - http://www.dealasite.com/buy-sell-website-16385.html

Interesting quote: I'm selling a startup of mine, Avecora OnDemand. We currently have no customers, so this is purely a technology sale. It is the result of hundreds of hours of work.

Considering it's got a listing price of $10K, and that this deal is announced as "cash and equity", I think it's safe to assume that the acquisition was for <$10K. I'm also curious what Mark will do staying on as CEO - if it's solely a tech sale (as the listing suggests) and there are no customers, his role will be...transitioning the new developer(s) onto the system?

Not to diminish Mark's work, but this sure sounds like a small payment to buy some technology, and a press release to make both parties sound like much larger entities than they are.

That's actually pretty funny-- nice find.

@markbao, no one can deny that you are on the right path for success... but it's important to realize that transparency and modesty are more important than talent. save the TC post* for your first 7 figure sale =)

*http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/26/branchr-advertising-acq...

I'd say TC got hoodwinked on this one. Must have been a really slow news day. +1 on getting press, though :).

It all comes back to this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=756529

Mark Bao, you've got to stop this. You're making all of us 20 and 30something entrepreneurs look bad!

Firstly, awesome for Mark. That man is an inspiration.

Secondly, I'm confused about something. If you check the Atomplan's Company page, two people are listed under Management: Mark and Christian Owens. If you check Christian Owens' personal page, the first post you see starts with: 'Branchr, My advertising startup ...'

Does that mean this acquisition was just a change in legal definitions or was it an actual acquisition?

edit: unless this was edited post-acquisition?

I'm thinking its more of a faux acquisition, honestly. But shrug.

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:6XIR1glduqEJ:avecoraonde...

Here's the old site. Only Bao is mentioned.

Its also a weird combination from a core business perspective. Why does an ad network need/want a small business organization tool?

Edited post-acquisition. I thought it was a good idea to edit the page quickly after it happened. However, Christian wanted me to keep my position and run Atomplan (under Branchr), so I did.

Wow, it was quite nice to wake up to this. Thank you all. And thanks, kirubakaran :)

Congrats. Can you please give us more details on the acquisition and the relationship between the companies (partnership, distribution etc...) prior to the offer?

Sure. I can't give you much more information than I told TechCrunch or that is in our pr about the acquisition (cash+equity deal, I stay CEO, etc. -- b/c of nda) Christian and I are relatively new friends, and we both had and currently have advertising companies. Avecora OnDemand was a property that I was looking to move to a bit of new management, since Avecora is moving into consumer electronics, and Christian inquired and made an offer, which after negotiations I accepted.

Shortly thereafter, I moved it to Atomplan and made a bunch of fixes, and got the ball rolling. Paperwork and whatnot later, we finally released. Fun experience, if not stressful.

Mark Bao is getting into college. :)

One thing that I have tried understanding in the past is why is there secrecy around financials as far as acquisitions are concerned. I mean, what could be possible negatives associated with revealing that information?

Maybe they only paid $50,000 for it or something. When people see "Acquires, yada yada..." they expect it is for millions. If someone sees 5 figures there or even 6, they are disappointed.

In some cases, acquisition might be a better and cheaper PR than going directly to newspapers, as it signals that acquirer has money, is aggressive and allows to use, at least for a while, acquired company's PR karma.

What could be the possible positives with revealing that information?

Perspective on what the prevailing market rates are for startups of this scale and scope.

Maybe I should clarify - what are the positives for the involved parties? In other words, what do they gain from posting that information?

These kind of sales don't meet the definition of a market.

For an entrepreneur, it could be pretty awkward to have everyone in your life know exactly how much money you've just acquired, especially if it's a lot.

For a VC, on the other hand, it's pretty good business to let everyone know how much one of your companies was just acquired for, especially if it's a lot. I wonder, when we do hear about the amounts paid, whether that's a condition inserted by the VCs, (or whether there's some law requiring it when, say, the acquiring entity is a public company).

TC link if you prefer that : http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/26/branchr-advertising-acq...

Congrats Mark!

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