Ha, thanks. Yeah, there are just a lot of things I could ask for, and I have a great attorney to help make sure my contract is solid, I'm just not sure if I'm going to know how to ask for exactly what I need but from writing this post I think I covered it (worried about my knowledge being stuck in some NDA loop and losing ownership).
It's international but it still only allows me to select an airport about 20 hours drive away. I'm not sure what their logic is in self-selecting an airport in a country that is outside of my usual area while I'm traveling?
We seem to be ok with #4 so far, but we'll see. They'd be buying us for our technology and staff, we've gone really far where they want to go and I've had an intimation that they've put some R&D into it already and figured out that it's pretty complex stuff to do well. It's been an honor to have so many great responses, I'll post back here with an update (some weeks from now.. Christmas is going to be nerve-wracking unless Big Company really just wants to get this done before the end of the tax year).
Having gone through acquisitions myself, I've learned that BigCo tax issues are entirely different than YourCo tax issues - i.e. they're going to think about taxes (cap gains, operating taxes, etc.) with different rules than you will.
This is extremely good information, thank you. We have been careful in how to describe to them what our long terms goals are without being specific what technology we have up our sleeves. It's been great reading HN for so long, I feel like I have the basics down - be calm, expect nothing, carry on as usual. But cross fingers.
>Negotiating the deal is though topic for another post.
Im not sure if I would be able to post about negotiations any time soon. Drop me a line when you enter negotiations and if you want an outside perspective. I will be happy to help. You can reach me through the feedback form of the site in my profile.
Yes, we want to be acquired. We're excited to be able to take our skills to where we can compete on an international level - it's not something we feel we have the ability to do by ourselves and we've not met anyone who we thought would be a good fit to come in and do it with us, I think we're too small and you rarely meet people who will drop everything to be part of a 'maybe', when you can't offer massive stock options or salary.
Perhaps it's part of being what we are - loving what we do and being so proud of what we do that we're happy to work hard and see a few customers come in and make us profitable, but being afraid to really build something huge. I don't think I personally have it in me to do that, but I'm up for the idea of working with someone who is. We can only trust in this big company that they believe in what we have, and even if it gets destroyed or forgotten at least we gave it a chance.
Thanks, this is great advice. We know we'll need a lawyer very soon and I like the idea of working with someone with a history of working with other small tech businesses. It's a comforting thought!
