How I sold my company to Google ($80million) | Hacker News Reader

How I sold my company to Google ($80million)

thenextweb.com

54 pointssinzone18 comments

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Tell HN: Don't waste your time watching this like I did. It's a two-minute video with a sexy headline and no insight.

Can anyone recommend a few useful post-acquisition interviews? Thanks.

What would make an interview "useful" in your opinion?

Substance. Whatever that may involve, but it won't fit into a 2min video.

Fair enough.

But in their defense, neither of them were expecting to do this interview. Hermione was there (i/o ventures in SF) filming some other interviews, and Scott just happened to be in the building at the same time.

That title would have been much more accurate without the "how".

I'll save you some time. This guy made a company that helps businesses with advertisements. Since Google sells ads he makes them a lot of money and they took notice and bought his company. In the future he plans to start more companies.

That's literally about all the information you'll get from the two minute video.

Here's how they really sold their company to Google: they raised less money than their competitors (just $4MM, I believe) from VCs who'd be happier with smaller exits (like First Round) so when Google decided they needed a DSP, Invite Media was the best option that could actually sell for less than $100MM. Everyone else was targeting mammoth Right-Media-style exits, on the assumption that they'd happen when the market was a little more mature.

More interesting to me is how a couple of college students started a company doing pretty leading-edge things in ad technology, when most people have to work in the industry for a few years just to figure out what the hell's going on. As I heard it (perhaps distorted), they initially had an experienced mentor who spent a lot of time with them, only to later compete aggressively with the same mentor when their business was off the ground.

This interview lacks substance, but you can still learn from it if you read between the lines. A few takeaways:

-Google is investing continuously in the display ad marketplace -A sure way to get acquired is to build relationships with businesses that want to give your potential acquirer money (see also Groupon) -Unique technology(like their predictive algorithms) may be more important to an acquirer than market share

worthless interview - as you say no substance, 2 minutes and not one question really about the title

eh... the blonde was cute

Oh, but Mr. Kevruger, we're not allowed to say such things!

ahhh really? i was giving reasons to watch the video rather than enforce the other comments that say it was a waste of 2 minutes. It was just positive feedback?

The thing is, everyone agrees with the spirit ( the blond is cute ), but not the letter ( doesn't really add value to the discussion ), of your comment. Anyways I laughed when I read your comment, because I knew it was only a matter of time before someone said the only obvious thing about the video.

When the topic is a lost cause, we make do with what we can.

It looks like the interview was at the Summit (780 Valencia).

I would like to read what they did... a story doesn't need video to be conveyed. This story would certainly be interesting in an article format.

Probably the title raised a lot of expectations about learning the 'how'. So people expected a long and detailed video.

I would say for a 2 min video, it was good. Hey, TC did not cover an $80 million exit by a 23yr old.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/02/google-reportedly-acquiring...

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