Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Eliminating a third-place competitor merely opens the door for new entrants

Ryan O'Neal · How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again) · Nov 12, 2022 · at 17:25

Ryan O'Neal, CEO of Curate, discusses the unintended competitive consequences of acquiring a competitor in the floral SaaS industry.

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“And the second is getting rid of your third-place competitor. They were, like, our third-place competitor in this And specifically in the floral space opens the door for others in the market. And so all of a sudden we've seen three or four other little companies pop up.”

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Insight
Outbuilding a direct rival is ultimately easier than acquiring them
“And then it's just easier just to build, be the better software, right? It's the last, it's just easier just to build better and build faster, especially when you're in a space that you're going one-to-one with a competitor.”
Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 19:44 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Curate spent $40K to add $250K ARR and boost valuation by $2.5M
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Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 1:08 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
Insight
Micro-acquisitions should be structured strictly as asset sales to move fast
“At least at this small of a deal, like, make it clean. Don't put in these crazy equity buyouts and all this stuff. Just make it super clean if you want to move fast. Strictly assets sell.”
Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 8:30 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
Insight
Group webinars beat one-on-one onboarding when migrating low-ACV software acquisitions
“Webinars are better than onboarding. I literally went back to our post notes after the acquisition to prepare for this talk, and that was one thing. They said, just do big webinars. Like, don't go with each and every person and work through it. These are small…”
Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 12:38 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Curate achieved nearly 200% NRR on its acquired competitor customer base
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Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 13:51 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
What-if
BloomTrack's founders would have accepted just $20,000 for the acquisition
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Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 16:19 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
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