Walls Used ChatGPT to Set His Walkaway Acquisition Price
Pat Walls · Dumb iPhone Apps Are Making People Rich Again (Here’s how) · Feb 24, 2026 · at 1:15
Starter Story founder Pat Walls explains how he determined his acquisition target price before negotiating his company's sale to HubSpot.
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“I had a number in my head before any of this conversation happened when it just came to my head. I started talking to chat GPT about it, having a little conversation of like, what is before even the sale or anything conversations happened, she said like, what would be my walk away number? And I just remember thinking back what that number is. And when I went back to the negotiation and then it sort of was that number, I was like, okay, well, I made up that, That would have been my number before any sale influenced me or anything like that. I negotiate to that number because I wanted to be like authentic in my negotiation of like that was like truly my number”
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