Entrepreneur Suli Ali presents his thesis for why Squarespace is an attractive take-private acquisition target.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ali: Bill Gurley yelled at founder over lost Andreessen Horowitz deal
“Friend of mine was raising money and got a term sheet from Andreessen Horowitz and Bill Gurley at Benchmark and went with the Andreessen Horowitz term sheet. And Bill Gurley was so mad that he called the founder up and like yelled at them for two hours. And se…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ali: TinyCo's a16z Series A was almost torpedoed by an ex-cofounder
“I started that company, then I started TinyCo and we were raising our series A from Andreessen Horowitz and he found out and He sent them an email saying, you shouldn't let this guy you shouldn't invest in this guy call me. And so they called him and, you know…”
Assertion Partly supported
Ali: Travis Kalanick drove to a VC firm to block Lyft investment
“Like Travis, the Uber CEO, when he heard that some company, some VC fund was investing in Lyft, he stopped what he was doing. He drove down to that VC firm and said, here are all the reasons you shouldn't invest in Lyft.”
Insight
Ali: Telling acquirers you are not for sale often gets you disqualified
“When you ask an entrepreneur if they want to sell their business, entrepreneurs are told to say, no, I do not want to sell my business. And they expect that the buyer is going to come over the top and say, even if you don't want to sell your business, we're su…”
Insight
Ali: High valuations and competition make early-stage investing unprofitable
“So the combination of high valuations and increased competition makes it really hard to make any money as an investor.”
Insight
Ali: Acquirers care about strategic fit and profit, not word nuances
“The, in my head kind of having been through this a couple times, I feel like a lot of the you know, texts, the nuance of words that you care about when you're trying to sell your business, the buyer doesn't care about that much. And it's more of a emotional th…”