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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

How the hell do you have a 5-year-old, highly profitable company with multiple founders and $3MM - $10MM in annual revenues, and think that HN is a better place to ask this than to your attorneys and bankers?

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He explained why-- he got the feeling that the professionals are trying to sell him a bill of goods, perhaps independently of an actual need, so he's coming here for a second opinion.

No, he said that they were being courted by attorneys and bankers who want the business. I understand why you wouldn't want to just take the first person who calls you. But he also asked if they should involve their attorney, which implies to me that they have one (they'd have to, right?). It just blows my mind that they're considering accepting an offer for possibly tens of millions and they haven't asked their attorney about it? That's insane.

Fully agreed, I also completely fail to understand how they got this far without a set of good advisors.

Either they do have a good set of advisors and they're just being thorough by asking HN (free advice from smart people, what's not to like?) or you have a new datapoint about the necessity of advisors.

We've received plenty of advice from advisors, but I wanted to get a perspective from someone who'd been exactly in our shoes before - not from the guys that helped them through it.

We're in the same revenue ballpark - though consulting business, so smaller multiples :(

We have used lawyers in the UK and US (for contract advice, that kind of thing) but we don't have one I'd turn to if I were in this position. It's certainly not impossible to reach this point without that kind of advisor around.

[Note: we started in the UK, which could be a factor]

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