A good time to hold’em

Ev’s “knowing when to hold’em” post has some great observations about the pluses and minuses of selling your small company to a larger one.

A couple posts later he talks about smaller purchased companies forming a separate identity inside a larger company.

I like that people say they work “at Flickr,” rather than at Yahoo!, their actual employer. Blogger people do that to.

Biz Stone ran with the connection... and didn’t shy away from the negative influences that help create these identities.

When you are acquired, ignored, and desperate for more resources what do you do? You form a tribe, hang on to your identity, and rock the indie corporate vibe.

Which makes me think that the most important resource to consider when selling a small company is buy-in.

The really tricky part is that a company offering to buy you does not equate to buy-in.

Consultants run into this all the time. If you know any, I’m sure you’ve heard at least one story about about finishing jobs without reaching the potential everyone envisioned before starting.

Adaptive Path has often pushed that one of the first things UX consultants should do is find out who the true stakeholders are in a company and talk directly to them.

I think the same is true when it comes to selling. Get away from the business guy whose job it is to do the deal. Find out who has the ability to definitively say Yes or No on your project. Talk to them. Over and over. Set solid goals with them that can be measured. Then discuss what happens if those goals aren’t getting met.

Figuring those things out from the outside is hard work. It’s easy to decide they’re better left to later… but you have much more momentum while they’re trying to bring you in. Once inside, inertia is always towards the status quo. As a new acquisition, you are as far from status quo as it gets. If you can’t get real tangible buy-in before you are bought, it’s a very strong sign that you should continue to build on your own.