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Re:Why We Said “No” to a $40M Round by bkanber on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:34PM (#14974376)
Modern guidelines for valuing a tech company in an M&A:

- The technology asset is worth $3-5M, no matter what it is.

- Higher AWS bill = better product.

- EBITDA is not important, you can ignore that.

- What's the QoQ revenue growth for the last 8 quarters? Doesn't matter if margins are going down. Only revenue growth matters.

- More employees = better company. Obviously.

- Valuation should be directly proportional to venture capital raised.

- You have a remote engineering team in the US? Why not go offshore or nearshore?

- Make sure it's an asset deal, not a stock deal, so that you can write it off but the founders get double-taxed.

- Design earnouts such that they are unachievable.

Re:Why We Said “No” to a $40M Round by nunez on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:10PM (#14974627)
Here's something I've always been confused about. How does employee headcount get factored into an acquisition or public offering? Why is having so many more employees than needed a "good thing" in these situations?
Re:Why We Said “No” to a $40M Round by moxious on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:32PM (#14974769)
The poster is a bit making fun of this mindset; more employees isn't obviously better. But the "growth at all costs" mindset is real, and in that worldview rapid growth is a sign of success because you're building capacity to capture the market.

In reality the plan is everything because without a great plan more people means just more burn, and hitting the wall sooner.

Re:Why We Said “No” to a $40M Round by murbard2 on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:28PM (#14974741)
Hiring people is expensive, a large team of people used to working together is a valuable asset in and of itself.