This is the second in a series using the blog post describing the recent breakdown of Backblaze's M&A process to explore common mistakes made in M&A for mid-market companies.At this point in the story, the Backblaze team is thin...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
September 01, 2010
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.--TolstoyTolstoy’s famous quote on families applies to deals. A busted deal is like an unhappy family. Every deal that falls apart falls a...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 28, 2010
In our last post, we referenced an eMarketer report that forecasts the market size of various online advertising market segments. Like just about every market size report we have ever seen, the eMarketer report focuses on revenue s...
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Google
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 27, 2010
We aren't regular readers of TechCrunch. It's undoubtedly a nice business, but we view it as a glorified PR news wire for Silicon Valley. It's heavy on description (which often feels scripted by a PR firm) and rarely ha...
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Search Advertising
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 24, 2010
We aren't professional economic prognosticators. But there is correlation between macro trends and deal market conditions, so we try to follow economic news. We would love to see robust economic growth in the US, but it looks like ...
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Economy
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 23, 2010
Identifying the ‘right’ time to sell a company is never a simple ‘black and white’ process. Many of the external and internal business factors to be considered are loaded with ambiguity. There is also a critical personal elem...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 06, 2010
As previous posts have discussed, unsolicited interest from potential buyers is a key indication of a good market for selling a company. Switching perspectives from external factors to internal, we find that an equally critical fac...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 05, 2010
Almost every company we talk with has received many calls from potential buyers. But they might not be what they seem. Before discussing the nature of those calls, let’s first look at the two basic categories of buyers for mid-mark...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
August 03, 2010
How do you know if there will be a set of qualified, motivated buyers for your company?There is an old joke that seems fitting here. There was a man called Jim, who lived near a river. Jim was a very religious man.One day, th...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
July 24, 2010
Who besides Groupon in online customer acquisition for SMB’s doesn’t rely heavily on Google? I can't think of anyoneIt’s a bit unfair to the YP’s trying to recreate themselves online because the real digital Yellow Pages is Google ...
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Online Customer Acquisition
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Posted by
Sandy Kory
on
July 24, 2010
My friend’s small business is booming. Why? He recently used a Groupon clone and got 68 new customers. Many of them have become regulars. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of my friend’s competitors are soon using Groupon...
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Online Customer Acquisition
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Posted by
Sandy Kory
on
July 19, 2010
Timing is important in M&A. Look at Bebo. Sold at a drunken sailor valuation of 850m to AOL during a frothy market a few years ago while it was still growing sharply up and to the right. Or Friendster. S...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
July 17, 2010
One of the most common questions we hear is, “When is the right time to sell my business?”This is a complicated topic. Equally sound lines of reasoning can run entrepreneurs in circles.For example, if a business represents most of ...
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M&A, Investment Banking
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
July 13, 2010
Horizon Partners is a new firm. Like most startups, we will take a different—and, we think, better—approach to execution than our competitors. We will strive to differentiate ourselves based on three factors.First, we will be extremely f...
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Investment Banking, Horizon Partners
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Posted by
Horizon Principals
on
July 01, 2010
