What-if certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

BloomTrack's founders would have accepted just $20,000 for the acquisition

Ryan O'Neal · How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again) · Nov 12, 2022 · at 16:19

Curate CEO Ryan O'Neal reflects on the negotiation dynamics and pricing of the BloomTrack acquisition.

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“Honestly, they would have taken 20,000 for the deal.”

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More from Ryan O'Neal

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
“I could have said how I spent 40,000 dollars to get 250,000 of ARR and increase my valuation by 2.5 million”
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
“We saw nearly 200% NRR on these. We had one customer that went from 3000 to 30,000, right? Like, two of our largest customers came from this, and so it was a really cool opportunity for us to be able to grow that customer base”
Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 13:51 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
Disclosure
Despite the financial success, Curate will never acquire a direct competitor again
“Was it worth it? Yes. Would we do it again? No, right? Like, not in this particular situation. So a few things for a one-to-one competitor that really make it not something super attractive.”
Ryan O'Neal Nov 12, 2022 ▶ 16:57 How we acquired a competitor for $40,000 (and why we'll never do it again)
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