I never thought I would sell, but I got three offers in one week. I told them all no. But after thinking about it a while, I told them all yes.
Thing is, Amazon was not one of the three. And I always thought that Amazon would be the perfect daddy for my baby.
So after the first three companies were looking at my books with NDAs and LOIs, I asked a connected friend to introduce me to someone at Amazon, and told him why. I was surprised how quickly someone at Amazon got back to me, and they were a contender until the end. (I chose a different company - one of those first three, after all.)
It makes all the difference in the world to have multiple interested buyers.
Any time you hit a snag in negotiations, you really have to be 100% sincerely ready to walk away. Actually believe, to the core, that until the final signature and wire transfer goes through, the deal might not happen, and you're OK with that.
"Any time you hit a snag in negotiations, you really have to be 100% sincerely ready to walk away..."
Wish I could upvote that more. When we sold our company my partner was ready to take nearly any offer but fortunately for me I held a 51% stake and was able to adopt that mindset. Two months into acquisition discussions I got up from the virtual table and said "This won't work. Sorry."
The acquirer resumed discussions later that day and we were able to hit the target we had for the deal. Managing that kind of stress is incredibly hard.
The first time someone offered to buy a site of mine, I ended up selling (after negotiating a price I was happy with). I was thinking about selling it anyway.
For a different site, I've had literally more than 10 offers, but all have been too low, so I have had no problem saying no to those :)
Thing is, Amazon was not one of the three. And I always thought that Amazon would be the perfect daddy for my baby.
So after the first three companies were looking at my books with NDAs and LOIs, I asked a connected friend to introduce me to someone at Amazon, and told him why. I was surprised how quickly someone at Amazon got back to me, and they were a contender until the end. (I chose a different company - one of those first three, after all.)
It makes all the difference in the world to have multiple interested buyers.
Any time you hit a snag in negotiations, you really have to be 100% sincerely ready to walk away. Actually believe, to the core, that until the final signature and wire transfer goes through, the deal might not happen, and you're OK with that.