Hi HN!<p>kareemm and derrickreimer here.<p>I (Kareem) was part of a partnership that bought Codetree in June from Derrick for six figures. Codetree is a project management tool for GitHub issues.<p>We haven't seen anybody fully open up the kimono around an acquisition like this before, so we're going to try something we've never seen: we're both happy to answer any questions you have to demystify the process around buying a business like this.<p>Here are some things you might want to ask about:<p>- specific numbers<p>- the mechanics of buying a business<p>- our psychology during the negotiation<p>- why we chose this business<p>- how we found it<p>- deal terms<p>- the risks of buying a business<p>- etc<p>Some more context<p>Here are some things we (the buyers) have done before buying Codetree:<p>- We've built products at places like ESPN, Microsoft (via acquisition), and MySpace (back when it was bigger than Facebook!)<p>- We've led product and dev to help Chimp.net grow from an inkling in the founder's eye to more than $150M in donations to charity.<p>- We've bootstrapped four successful SaaS businesses, sold one of them, and folded two others<p>- We've started one venture-funded company, an online marketplace that was sold in 2010<p>- We've run product and dev teams at two venture-funded companies<p>- Combined, the three of us have been writing software professionally for 45 years<p>After a year of figuring out what the next business was that we wanted to start and/or run, we ended up buying Codetree.<p>Derrick has also been pretty busy: just after selling Codetree to us, he sold Drip - an email marketing company he co-founded - to LeadPages. Two acquisitions inside of a month!<p>It's 10a PT and we'll be around for an hour or so.<p>Ask away!<p>EDIT 1110a: Wrapping up. Not a ton of questions but thanks for the ones you fired over, HN!
In this type of transaction both parties end up achieving their goal going into things. The seller wants to sell, and the buyer wants to buy. Both parties likely disagree with the potential of the product.<p>With that in mind, a question for the buyer - What do you understand about the business that the seller doesn't that makes this seem worth while? And for the seller - What aspect of the business makes it a target for sale rather than growth?
I've been bootstrapping a small project management tool for non-technical folks that integrates with Gmail and Gcal called Braid - <a href="https://braidhq.com" rel="nofollow">https://braidhq.com</a> .<p>Obviously, getting people to recognize that the tool is important enough in terms of time/hassle to pay for is super hard. What advice would you have for me?
Hey Kareemm,<p>There are a ton of project management tools out there, why buy Codetree? Was there something specific about the business that stood out to you?<p>I imagine when you buy a business you believe there are things you can do that will increase the value of the business. What are the top things you think you'll be able to do that were not already being done?<p>Cheers!
I'm going to cheat and ask derrickreimer a question because i'm curious.<p>Was there any point in time during the negotiation when you thought the deal with us was going to fall through?