||UτU||

@0xShual $TAO @bittensor community is still very bull on crypto x AI I think that spaces that stay bullish in the middle of a bear with little drawdowns are the plays

So, to recap, the sentiment on the TL is: - DeFi is dead: don't bother with it, don't deposit anywhere, 'just use aave' is dead, off-ramp and at best park with ibkr or coinbase - The age of crypto is over: we're no longer early, it's the instutitionals era, coins have infinite price-insensitive sellers, and retail isn't coming to buy your bags - Onchain is dead, especially on solana, because of pvp tards that rush to outdump each other on 30k market caps. The only true runners are flukes on ethereum that are old and have no gen z to control its supply and is reliant on elon tweets. - The handful of projects that were considered investment-worthy are either not (aave, for example) or are already adequately priced (hype, zec). there are a few silent runners like $morpho but not many and low volume. - GameFi is dead. SocialFi is dead. L2s are barren. Financial activity only exists to farm points. Did I miss anything? Is anyone excited about anything? Something? If you're reading this - why are you still in crypto?

@anjismail Tu arrives vraiment à utiliser Polsia ? Je suis dessus depuis hier et je trouve que ça bloque beaucoup et sur des trucs assez simples... Genre 3 tasks parce que j'ai demandé d'ajouter du signup et ça a fail 2 fois

Startups autonomous agents should be pitching VC autonomous agents. Everybody save time. Less ego. Less BS. Less bias. More deals.

@Bencera @MitchOnX @polsia Thanks, sent you my email in mp just in case I made it bug or something 🤣

@maskedMASKED1 @MitchOnX @polsia Damn should have been fixed. Sorry will give credits to all affected users and fix it asap.

Once you free your mind about the concept of a company and what it means to build a company "the right way", you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to build and there was no preconception of what to build.

@Bencera @MitchOnX @polsia Hello Ben, pareil de mon côté ça me dit qu'il y a un problème de token Github côté Polsia et ça ne peut pas push le code ! Bloqué depuis 5-6h comme ça...

@MitchOnX @polsia Hey Mitch, i apologize. Can you DM me your email? I will have a look now.

@mindsharexbt "meilleur tool au monde" -> 20k de benef allez c'est report

ce trader a les news avant tout le monde grâce au meilleur tool d'OSINT sur Polymarket il a réalisé +$19,900 de profit grâce au tool qui a diffusé l'information 9 minutes avant que CNN l'annonce officiellement -> le tool détecte à 6:47 des mouvements d'avions inhabituels vers Dubai -> un marché sur des tensions au Moyen-Orient est price à 0.08 -> CNN annonce 9 minutes après les premières attaques et le marché est price à 0.76 c'est un +850% en 9 minutes de edge c'est sur cette fenêtre qu'il faut avoir l'information, avant que tous les mecs qui attendent le prochain "BREAKING NEWS" rentre sur le marché c'est un très bon tool pour l'OSINT et monitor les news, mais je vous prépare encore mieux pour track toute cette data sur Polymarket start knowing

@alignedlayer @rj_aligned the leaderboard thing doesnt seem to be working, XP points not showing after email verification

almost there.

@rohitdotmittal But having raised $10m means 10m in liquid pref so even if you sell for 8-10m (wich is crazy multiplier right?) founders get 0, so how ? I know someone exactly in this situation but with a total or 2,1m raised and 1,5 year runway

Situation: $10M raised, $1.5M arr, 12 months runway. The founder wants out and admits, "This isn't my life's work." Options: 1. Fundraise: grow fast, burn more, and go for fundraise right now - Pro: Keeps optionality open, can take secondaries if you get a hot round - Con: Investors need growth, at least 3-5x, the market is brutal for Series A right now 2. Strategic acquisition: push to convert partnerships to acquisition conversations - Pro: Best potential multiple, buyers pay for distribution and talent, not just revenue - Con: Catching lightning in a bottle. Your push doesn't mean they want you. One VP leaves, one strategy shift, and the deal dies. It takes at least 5-6 months. Prior relationship needed. 3. Financial acquisition via broker - find brokers willing to work with low-revenue companies - Pro: More predictable process, actual market pricing. - Con: Math rarely works for founders. The price is not justifiable to the founders. Earnouts are structured so you'd make more by taking a job elsewhere. 4. Cut costs and grind it out - get to a skeleton crew and maintenance mode - Pro: Extends runway, buys time for something to break your way - Con: Opportunity cost is real. founders checked out means the company isn't going anywhere. Grinding without conviction kills companies slowly 5. Do everything at once - try all of the above at the same time. - Pro: None. - Con: Half-ass both processes. Investors hear you're selling, and you're dead. Action: 1. Commit to one lane. You can change later, but pick now. 2. If selling, get an actual offer from the interested party first. Soft interest means nothing. 3. Build relationships with 3-4 similar strategic buyers as leverage. Start from a partnership angle. 4. Keep the broker as plan D when the runway hits 6 months 5. Sell on momentum. "We 2x'ed last year" is a story. "Growth is slowing" is a different story 6. Assume 5-6 months to close. manage runway accordingly 7. Your team can't know. Your customers can't know. This is a full-time job on top of your full-time job. Do the above to increase your chances of an acquisition.

@rohitdotmittal Hi, thinking of selling a VC-backed startup (1,2M ARR) proprietary hardware as a service in Europe, could you DM me ? Best,

The biggest thing no one knows about the Brex acquisition is whether the price also includes payments on the debt facilities. Brex must have a $1B+ in revolving debt facilities to fund these receivables. We all think of equity investor liquidity pref, but we never consider any corporate debt (if at all), and debt facilities that need to be unwound. If there's corporate debt and the cash price also takes out the debt facilities, then the outcome could look different. It's a huge win in any case, the specifics may be different based on the the stack.

@E43772 @PEoperator Are you proud ?

@PEoperator we just bought a $7m EBITDA for 4x (owner was on his deathbed and no succession plan) in Europe

People saying <5x, are you actually getting deals done or just criticizing people who “overpay”? I am not seeing any $1M+ EBITDA deals whatsoever at <5x. That is just not getting a quality business owner to sell. (Maybe adjusted pro forma w synergies, but not regular ol' LTM EBITDA.) <5x w/ add'l potential via earnouts/structure - could see that. Sounds nice on paper but reality is if you’re interested in growing through acquisitions and waiting for sub 5x you’d better have a very long time horizon, low burn, and extremely patient investors (as in they will wait through a cycle). Am I crazy?

@Racem Si on peut te virer sur décision du board t'as très mal négocié ton pacte d'associés ou alors t'es minoritaire au capital

Les VC peuvent convoquer un board pour virer le CEO, faire la réunion, signer, et partir en vacances le jour d’après avec un do not reply automatique. L’avenir de la société, du CEO qui a passé sa vie à bâtir etc c’est un détail parfois… Heureusement ça arrive rarement surtout aux très bons VC, voire jamais, pas parce qu’ils ne sont pas courageux mais parce qu’ils choisissent bien déjà leurs boîtes / founders, aussi parce qu’ils ne forcent pas le management avec leurs opinion de comment la boîte doit être gérée et parce qu’ils sont eux même choisis par les très bons grâce à leur réputation. Et ce dernier point est important. La réputation dans ce monde est très importante pourquoi ? Parce que les très bons investissements souvent sont des boites qui ont eux même le choix et quand ils choisissent leurs VC ils prennent en compte la réputation et retour marché. Un peu comme Google avis. Je reçois plusieurs fois dans l’année des demande de réf check par des entrepreneurs sur mes propres investisseurs par exemple. « Comment ça se passe avec ton VC » est une question qu’on se pose souvent entre fondateurs. Bref le monde de l’investissement même pour les BA est un monde de réputation, et les mauvais VC ne durent pas ou en tout cas ne devraient pas pour que le marché soit efficient.

@rohitdotmittal How can you "sell without trying to return money to the investors"? When nowadays every funds you raise come with a pref. liquidity ? At least a 1x pref

$6M raised. top tier investors. $2M still in the bank. $500k ARR, but declining. and completely stuck. talked to a founder last week in this exact situation. they were building a consumer app. it kind of worked. they grew quickly with social media, but it plateaued. revenue somewhere between $500k-$1M ARR. consumers have churn, so declining revenue. things didn't end here, after the product stopped working, cofounders had different ideas on their next steps. one cofounder wants to continue to try, the other wants to do a hard pivot. classic founder split. and investors don't care. at all. not because they're bad people. because $4M is a rounding error for their fund. they'd rather write it off for tax loss harvesting than spend cycles figuring out the mess. "just have a clean breakup" is the actual advice from tier 1 VCs. this is what nobody talks about. there are hundreds of companies like this. raised real money. built real products. making real revenue. and completely trapped. wrong cap table structure. wrong cofounder alignment. wrong growth expectations set by the raise size. the founder could return every dollar tomorrow and investors would shrug. sometimes the best move is to stop optimizing for investor feelings and just decide what you actually want to do with your life. if you want to sell your company, you should do so without worrying too much about how you are going to make the investors whole. you don't owe investors every dollar back. what you actually owe is "a shot at greatness" - and that's impossible when you're spending months negotiating a breakup instead of building. make decisions for your next big thing and stop worrying about sunk cost. if investors believe that you did your best, they will support you again

@michaelxbloch @rohitdotmittal Hey, question as I am going to be in a similar situation soon : Does it make sense to get professional help from banks (other than our attorney) for an "official listing" if the deal is under 7M ? Also, how do you deal with investors if you know they'll only get their 1x pref ?

@rohitdotmittal Great thread. I wrote about this after selling my startup to Acorns in 2021 and had a very similar experience x.com/michaelxbloch/…

strategic exit is the best option for founders stuck with good logos, low revenue you have maybe 500k, maybe a million ARR, slow growth, a few million raised (high pref stack) the series A market wants 10x growth and you're at 1.5x. the AI hype cycle means every big company is building what you built. and you're having honest conversations with yourself about whether this is the thing you want to grind on for another decade you've started taking partnership calls. integrations. strategic conversations. you're wondering if any of these could turn into something more you may have heard that the best acquisitions often start as partnership conversations. but there's a right way and a wrong way to make that transition this is the playbook and a checklist for partnership conversation to strategic acquisition Part 1: Get Clear Before You Do Anything before you try to convert a single conversation, you need to answer questions you've probably been avoiding - write down why you want to exit. not the version that sounds good. what's actually true - separate external noise (competitor raises, market panic, exhaustion) from internal signal - is this your life's work or act one? neither answer is wrong but you need to know which one it is - define what success looks like in real numbers. be specific understand this: once you commit to selling, every decision optimizes for that outcome. you can't half-commit to an exit the founders who struggle most are the ones running parallel tracks - trying to raise and trying to sell simultaneously. investors can smell it. acquirers can smell it. pick a lane Part 2: Map Your Buyer Universe you probably have 3-4 companies in your head that "might acquire us someday" that's not enough. you need 20+ - list every company where your product could extend their roadmap - research acquisition history. have they bought companies at your stage? your size? - find founders they acquired. cold outreach if you have to. ask: how did it happen, who made the decision, what did the process look like - identify overlapping customers. shared customers = easier integration story = higher willingness to pay - understand their product roadmap. where's the gap you fill? - note the financial structure of these companies, which companies have PE backing, which are venture funded, which are profitable, etc - try to figure out if they have cash to pay (it'll also help positioning it the right way with your investors and the board) most founders skip this work and then wonder why they only got one lowball offer Part 3: Reading Signals in Partnership Conversations you're already talking to potential acquirers. you just might not know which ones yet signals they're only interested in partnership: - questions about APIs, SLAs, integration timelines - focus stays on product mechanics - conversation moves at normal business development pace - only BD or product people in the room signals something bigger might be brewing: - questions about financials, runway, team size, your plans - asking what you're thinking or where you're headed - questions that go beyond partnership scope - unusual urgency in scheduling follow-ups - senior people showing up unexpectedly - they start asking about your team's background and experience if there's real acquisition interest, they won't wait for you to be obvious. they'll start asking the questions themselves Part 4: The Slow Reveal you cannot go from "let's discuss API integration" to "want to buy us?" in one conversation. that's how you kill deals before they start stage 1 - relationship building (weeks 1-8) - keep conversations product-focused - build genuine rapport with people who matter - understand their problems, roadmap gaps, strategic priorities - gather intel on decision makers and internal politics - do not mention acquisition. do not hint stage 2 - strategic alignment (weeks 8-16) - start discussing how your product fits their long-term roadmap - share your perspective on where the market is going - let them connect the dots between your capabilities and their gaps - ask about their build vs buy philosophy (this is recon, not a pitch) - still don't mention acquisition explicitly stage 3 - soft signal (only when you sense reciprocal interest) - mention you're "thinking about the next chapter" or "exploring what's next" - gauge reaction carefully. do they lean in or change subject? - clarifying questions = interest. moving on = not interested - if they bite, you can be slightly more direct: "we've had some inbound interest and we're figuring out what makes sense" stage 4 - explicit conversation (only after you have another horse in the race) - once a different company is formally diligencing you, now you can be obvious with others - this creates urgency without desperation - "we're in conversations with a couple of strategic partners about potential acquisition and wanted to see if [company] might be interested" - never be obvious before you have at least one real process running Part 5: Timing the "Obvious" Moment this is where most founders mess up. they either reveal too early (desperation) or too late (no leverage) too early to be obvious: - no one has expressed formal acquisition interest - you haven't mapped the full buyer universe - you don't have runway to walk away from a bad deal - you're hoping someone will rescue you right time to be obvious: - one company has explicitly said they're diligencing you for acquisition - you've signed mutual NDAs - their team is actively reviewing your business - you have enough runway to negotiate from strength too late: - after you've signed a term sheet with exclusivity - now you can't talk to anyone else and you have no leverage remember once you're obvious, word travels fast in your market. competitors will use it against you with shared prospects. customers may get nervous about signing annual contracts. there is no going back Part 6: Separating Real Interest from Noise you'll waste months chasing phantom interest if you can't tell the difference it's real when: - they send an NDA or ask you to send one -they explicitly use the word "acquisition" not "partnership" or "strategic opportunity" - they want financials, cap table, customer contracts - conversations accelerate rapidly (weeks not months) - decision makers are in the room or on the call - corp dev gets involved (but is not only team) - they're asking about your team's retention and equity situation it's noise when: - conversations drag with no clear next steps - they keep exploring but never commit to anything - questions stay surface level - only junior people are involved - they're vague about timeline or process - they want to "keep talking" indefinitely slow conversations mean low interest. if they wanted you, they'd move fast. real deals happen in weeks. fake interest drags for months Part 7: Running a Competitive Process you have almost no leverage with one buyer. you have significant leverage with two or more - never negotiate with just one party if you can avoid it - use diligence with company A to create urgency with companies B and C - verbal offers or term sheets are your key leverage points - once you sign a term sheet you're usually in exclusivity - that's your last moment to create competition - maintain warm relationships with backup buyers throughout the process - warm relationships convert 10x faster than cold outreach when you need them a sample phrase that creates urgency: "we're in active discussions with another party and expect to have a term sheet soon. wanted to give you a chance to participate in the process if there's interest" Part 8: Protecting the Business During the Process acquisitions fall through constantly. you cannot let your business die while chasing a deal - assume anything you share could reach competitors - be careful what you reveal before NDAs are signed - competitors may weaponize "they're trying to sell" against you with shared customers - keep your team focused on execution. tell them nothing until there's something real to tell - don't let pipeline die. keep selling. keep shipping - a business that's still growing is worth more than one that stalled during a sale process Part 9: Understanding Valuation Reality most founders have no idea how acquirers actually value companies at your stage strategic acquisition math: - buyer pays based on strategic value to them, not your revenue multiple - what gap do you fill? what do they avoid building? what customers do you bring? - lightning in a bottle is possible (someone pays $50M for a $600k ARR company) but it's not the median case - your leverage: competing interest, strategic fit, team quality, technology moat, customer relationships financial acquisition math: - buyer pays based on cash flow potential - at sub-$5M ARR, multiples are compressed (often 1-3x) - they're buying a small business, not a strategic asset - outcome often goes to founders OR investors, rarely both - proceed only if you're okay with smaller numbers the gap between these two is massive. a strategic buyer might pay $30M for something a financial buyer values at $1.5M. know which game you're playing Part 10: The Process Timeline knowing what normal looks like helps you spot when things are off typical timeline: - initial interest to term sheet: 4-12 weeks - term sheet to close: 6-12 weeks - fastest deals (strong buyer need, clean company): 2-3 weeks to term sheet - slow deals (lukewarm interest): drag for months, often die key milestones in order: - first conversation that goes beyond partnership - explicit statement of acquisition interest - mutual NDA signed - data room access shared - management presentations / deep dives - verbal offer - written LOI or term sheet - exclusivity period begins - full legal and financial diligence - definitive agreement signed - close and wire if you're stuck between steps for more than 2-3 weeks with no clear reason, something is wrong Part 11: Who to Cultivate, Who to Deprioritize your time is limited. spend it on people who can actually make things happen prioritize: - founders who sold to your target buyers (best intel you'll get) - people with direct line to decision makers - product leaders who own the roadmap you'd fit into - corp dev if the company has an active M&A function - executives who would sponsor the deal internally deprioritize: - people who can't influence decisions no matter how friendly they are - BD folks with no strategic authority - anyone who seems to be collecting intel rather than evaluating - junior employees who take meetings but can't escalate one warm intro to the right person beats twenty coffees with the wrong people Part 12: Red Flags to Watch For not everyone negotiating with you has your interests in mind - buyer trying to extract IP through "partnership" before acquiring (or instead of acquiring) - endless diligence with no movement toward term sheet - verbal offers that never become written - term sheets with unusual conditions, aggressive reps and warranties, or escrow that eats your proceeds - pressure for exclusivity before they've given you real terms - acqui-hire framing when they're really getting product + customers + team - "we need more time" repeated more than once - radio silence after you've shared sensitive information trust your gut. if something feels off, it probably is the meta point: most founders in your situation know the options. the hard part isn't knowing what to do. it's deciding which path and committing fully half-committed founders get half-committed outcomes. you can't simultaneously optimize for series A and strategic exit. pick the path that matches your internal motivation - not what vcs are telling you, not what other founders are doing, not what your investors want then execute against that path with everything you have the founders who get the best outcomes are the ones who answer the hard questions early, commit to a direction, and make every subsequent decision in service of that outcome good luck

@Goldikam @agazdecki @acquiredotcom How is 4.7x on profit a great multiplier ? Even in trad business you aim for minimum 6x ebitda

@agazdecki @acquiredotcom 4.7x is really a great multiplier. Must be some niche business

We just helped a founder exit for $1,250,000 on @acquiredotcom. Business was a bootstrapped SaaS. Multiple 4.7x profit. Took about 65 days from listing to close. Another life changing outcome.

@nexa_favour @ModestMitkus You will not sell a startup at 10x ARR in this market, good luck selling a 80k mrr startup 10M

@ModestMitkus $10M exit ≈ 8–12× ARR Let's pick 10× for clean SaaS: $10,000,000 ÷ 10 = $1,000,000 ARR $1,000,000 ÷ 12 ≈ $83,333 MRR Range: ~$70k–$105k MRR depending on multiple.

How much MRR do you need to sell a business for $10M? If the churn, CR, MoM, etc is all good. Asking for a friend. 🙈

@0xSins thats what ur getting for the mean wormhole form teasing a year ago

debasement trade in full effect and my decentralized alternative currencies not going up

@ksldubiz Ca doit fluctuer sur la présence de pur recurring je pense, vous avez levé où ? Liquid pref 1x ou 0 ?

@maskedMASKED1 1M€ en 2025 de CA et valo de 2,63M€, pas déconnant, sachant que la valo a été faite à la moitié de l’année

Si ce projet va au bout ça va être costaud, on va aider plus d’un entrepreneur je vous le dis

@ksldubiz CA prévi 2025 pardon

@ksldubiz Hello je viens de voir votre poste sur votre levée et valo, pourquoi une valo si basse. ? 2,6x votre CA prévi 2026 c'est super bas nan ? Je lève à x6 en ce moment sur secteur pas super loin

@Bixentee_ Ici les gens tapent 100k MRR 2 mois d'affilée et font des posts tah influenceur de Dubai pourquoi ?

@andrealbriziom Je suis pas du tout sur le même secteur (startup hardware 1,2M ARR) mais je me demandais : Comment tu gères le besoin de renouvellement permanent ? Genre si tu stop d'innover ça se tasse non ? Comme toutes les boites mais là renouveller tous les 30j si j'ai bien capté, c'est rude

on a fais les gants assorti - 2 autres hoodies cagoules réflective - softshell - gants - cagoule - chaîne + bague - 2 t-shirt et surtout surtout une offre de malade mental pour le BF Jvous raconte bientôt