Hi HN!
kareemm and derrickreimer here.
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.
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.
Here are some things you might want to ask about:
- specific numbers
- the mechanics of buying a business
- our psychology during the negotiation
- why we chose this business
- how we found it
- deal terms
- the risks of buying a business
- etc
Some more context
Here are some things we (the buyers) have done before buying Codetree:
- We've built products at places like ESPN, Microsoft (via acquisition), and MySpace (back when it was bigger than Facebook!)
- 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.
- We've bootstrapped four successful SaaS businesses, sold one of them, and folded two others
- We've started one venture-funded company, an online marketplace that was sold in 2010
- We've run product and dev teams at two venture-funded companies
- Combined, the three of us have been writing software professionally for 45 years
After a year of figuring out what the next business was that we wanted to start and/or run, we ended up buying Codetree.
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!
It's 10a PT and we'll be around for an hour or so.
Ask away!
EDIT 1110a: Wrapping up. Not a ton of questions but thanks for the ones you fired over, HN!
kareemm and derrickreimer here.
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.
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.
Here are some things you might want to ask about:
- specific numbers
- the mechanics of buying a business
- our psychology during the negotiation
- why we chose this business
- how we found it
- deal terms
- the risks of buying a business
- etc
Some more context
Here are some things we (the buyers) have done before buying Codetree:
- We've built products at places like ESPN, Microsoft (via acquisition), and MySpace (back when it was bigger than Facebook!)
- 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.
- We've bootstrapped four successful SaaS businesses, sold one of them, and folded two others
- We've started one venture-funded company, an online marketplace that was sold in 2010
- We've run product and dev teams at two venture-funded companies
- Combined, the three of us have been writing software professionally for 45 years
After a year of figuring out what the next business was that we wanted to start and/or run, we ended up buying Codetree.
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!
It's 10a PT and we'll be around for an hour or so.
Ask away!
EDIT 1110a: Wrapping up. Not a ton of questions but thanks for the ones you fired over, HN!