So hard! And this is a reality even you're not trying to sell but are doing as part of your regular corp responsibility! I've been on the founder side in convs like this, both real+fake, so some advice I got here that has resonated the most:
1. Assume 95+% of inbounds won't go through, even if 'serious'
2. Use every ask from the acquirer to get a parallel give: if they're serious, they'll increasingly show they're not the 95% here
3. Almost all teams are not emotionally equipped to understand the 95% no-deal thing, unless you're say a VP-only company (???). As soon as they hear potential acquirer, it's natural to think "maybe 30% chance for one, so 100% across 3-4 inbounds", not "maybe 5% for just one if we qualify it more." It's hard to do anything if you're worrying about your kid's college tuition for 6mo wrt to a fragile deal's ups and downs that you have little control over.
A common path here is to understand indiv employee personal goals, and only bring in the acquirer in front of them, such as for interviews or whatever, only once you've gotten a deal to the 99% point (one of the biggest asks). Baremetrics is going for more transparency afaict, so having someone to help contextualize for both its ~first-time ceo + employees would seem required to avoid morale going through the ringer.
4. Don't optimize for building to exit, but do treat as part of general BD. (Though I feel most YC etc. co's don't do this, and the wave of quick-flip startup people is poisoning the well for follow-on founders more serious about high-trust areas like enterprise.)
==> 4b. This kind of distinction can be all sorts of confusing for team members too, who aren't thinking about BD+Prod+... etc. strategy all day but how to make an X do a Y. They can make bad high-level decisions if it takes center stage.
==> 4c. More likely outcome is becoming colleagues with folks for future accounts/partnerships/etc., and even hires. So do that!
1. Assume 95+% of inbounds won't go through, even if 'serious'
2. Use every ask from the acquirer to get a parallel give: if they're serious, they'll increasingly show they're not the 95% here
3. Almost all teams are not emotionally equipped to understand the 95% no-deal thing, unless you're say a VP-only company (???). As soon as they hear potential acquirer, it's natural to think "maybe 30% chance for one, so 100% across 3-4 inbounds", not "maybe 5% for just one if we qualify it more." It's hard to do anything if you're worrying about your kid's college tuition for 6mo wrt to a fragile deal's ups and downs that you have little control over.
A common path here is to understand indiv employee personal goals, and only bring in the acquirer in front of them, such as for interviews or whatever, only once you've gotten a deal to the 99% point (one of the biggest asks). Baremetrics is going for more transparency afaict, so having someone to help contextualize for both its ~first-time ceo + employees would seem required to avoid morale going through the ringer.
4. Don't optimize for building to exit, but do treat as part of general BD. (Though I feel most YC etc. co's don't do this, and the wave of quick-flip startup people is poisoning the well for follow-on founders more serious about high-trust areas like enterprise.)
==> 4b. This kind of distinction can be all sorts of confusing for team members too, who aren't thinking about BD+Prod+... etc. strategy all day but how to make an X do a Y. They can make bad high-level decisions if it takes center stage.
==> 4c. More likely outcome is becoming colleagues with folks for future accounts/partnerships/etc., and even hires. So do that!