Business Acquisition Quotes

The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that's all there is.

Tony poured wine into each glass and handed one to Claire. “Do you remember when we had wine at the Red Wing?” Claire closed her eyes, recalling the scene from a lifetime ago, and nodded. “I do.” “I’d been watching you for years. I was so nervous that night. I thought I was planning your acquisition.” He looked into his red liquid. Her stance straightened, “If you’re using business metaphors, may I suggest hostile takeover. It’s more appropriate.

An advertising strategy is based on proper research which guides you in this entire process of customer acquisition with the help of ads.

We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can't. Too many voices, too much scattered, illogical, ill-considered criticism. It's worse in the case of newspapers. Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices and philosophy. A year later there is a new political ring or a change in the paper's ownership, consequence: more confusion, more contradiction, a sudden inrush of new ideas, their tempering, their distillation, the reaction against them -

I suffered,I learned,I changed

Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required. Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.

It's worse in the case of newspapers. Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food." p. 201

Businesses solve problems. Businesses make the world better. There are too many problems for any one person to solve.

The world is now being dominated by few Giant organizations that influence and dectate our consuming behavior.

The commercial media … help citizens feel as if they are successful and have met these aspirations, even if they have not. They tend to neglect reality (they don't run stories about how life is hard, fame and fortune elusive, hopes disappointed) and instead celebrate idealized identities – those that, in a commodity culture, revolve around the acquisition of status, money, fame and power, or at least the illusion of these things. The media, in other words, assist the commercial culture in “need creation”, prompting consumers to want things they don't need or have never really considered wanting. And catering to these needs, largely implanted by advertisers and the corporate culture, is a very profitable business. A major part of the commercial media revolves around selling consumers images and techniques to “actualize” themselves, or offering seductive forms of escape through entertainment and spectacle. News is filtered into the mix, but actual news is not the predominant concern of the commercial media.

Use the data from the clients you already have to help you find new clients just like them. Eventually you'll be tapped into a whole market segment.

The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.

Here is an all-too-brief summary of Buffett’s approach: He looks for what he calls “franchise” companies with strong consumer brands, easily understandable businesses, robust financial health, and near-monopolies in their markets, like H & R Block, Gillette, and the Washington Post Co. Buffett likes to snap up a stock when a scandal, big loss, or other bad news passes over it like a storm cloud—as when he bought Coca-Cola soon after its disastrous rollout of “New Coke” and the market crash of 1987. He also wants to see managers who set and meet realistic goals; build their businesses from within rather than through acquisition; allocate capital wisely; and do not pay themselves hundred-million-dollar jackpots of stock options. Buffett insists on steady and sustainable growth in earnings, so the company will be worth more in the future than it is today.

I hope my message has at least jarred you into rethinking the standard and conventional approaches to living one’s life—get a good job, work hard through endless hours, and then retire in your sixties or seventies and live out your days in your so-called golden years. But I still ask you: Why wait until your health and life energy have begun to wane? Rather than just focusing on saving up for a big pot full of money that you will most likely not be able to spend in your lifetime, live your life to the fullest now: Chase memorable life experiences, give money to your kids when they can best use it, donate money to charity while you’re still alive. That’s the way to live life. Remember: In the end, the business of life is the acquisition of memories. So what are you waiting for?

The business of life is the acquisition of memories.

Embracing data-driven decisions allows organizations to uncover valuable insights, adapt to changing market conditions, and stay ahead of the beat, ultimately increasing their chances of success and growth.

When considering the acquisition of new sources of revenue, the business must account for the costs that must be incurred prior to the acquisition, and the costs associated with the maintenance of that source of revenue.

Sometimes, though, people want to know more about your offer before they buy. This is common for businesses that sell more expensive stuff. If that’s you, then you’ll often get more leads to engage by advertising with a lead magnet first.

Rapid business growth, increased downsizing, frequent reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures have inadvertently increased the number of attractive employment opportunities for individuals with psychopathic personalities

Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy.

thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play. For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

Companies should embrace data-driven decision-making because it enables them to make informed decisions based on concrete evidence rather than speculation, leading to more efficient operations, better strategies, and improved competitiveness in today's data-rich business environment.

Tasks are the real-world activities people think of when planning, conducting, or recalling their day. That can mean things like brushing their teeth, preparing breakfast, reading a newspaper, taking a child to school, responding to e-mail messages, making a sales call, attending a lecture or a business meeting, having lunch with a colleague from work, helping a child with homework, coaching a soccer team, and watching a TV program. Some tasks are mundane, some complex.

I have seen the consequences of attempting to shortcut this natural process of growth often in the business world, where executives attempt to “buy” a new culture of improved productivity, quality, morale, and customer service with strong speeches, smile training, and external interventions, or through mergers, acquisitions, and friendly or unfriendly takeovers. But they ignore the low-trust climate produced by such manipulations. When these methods don’t work, they look for other Personality Ethic techniques that will—all the time ignoring and violating the natural principles and processes on which a high-trust culture is based.

I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product.

Companies should consider merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities carefully because these strategic moves can have a significant impact on their operations and financial health. Thorough evaluation helps mitigate risks, ensure alignment with business objectives, and maximize the potential benefits, ultimately leading to successful integration and growth.

Interest rate risk arises when there's potential for interest rates to change, impacting loan costs. It’s a serious consideration for lenders.

Lenders want to have peace of mind when it comes to getting their money back plus profit – collateral is one thing that gives that peace of mind.

There’s a best time for everything – including the acquisition of capital.

In most cases, lenders are not interested in owning the collateral itself – they are only interested in the cash value of the collateral.

Your business’ debt is a lenders investment and your business’ liability is a lenders asset.

Bankers throughout time have used what we call ‘‘The Five C’s of Credit’ as a basis of evaluating the worthiness of a potential borrower.

Every lender is interested in the character of their borrowers.

We all really only want to lend our money to people we can trust to pay it back. It’s the same thing with banks and other institutional lenders.

Reminder: You get rich from what you make. You become wealthy from what you own. And it took me years to realize this because not that long ago...

He devoured morning shows, daytime shows, late-night talk shows, soaps, situation comedies, Lifetime Movies, hospital dramas, police series, vampire and zombie serials, the dramas of housewives from Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills and New York, the romances and quarrels of hotel-fortune princesses and self-styled shahs, the cavortings of individuals made famous by happy nudities, the fifteen minutes of fame accorded to young persons with large social media followings on account of their plastic-surgery acquisition of a third breast or their post-rib-removal figures that mimicked the impossible shape of the Mattel company’s Barbie doll, or even, more simply, their ability to catch giant carp in picturesque settings while wearing only the tiniest of string bikinis; as well as singing competitions, cooking competitions, competitions for business propositions, competitions for business apprenticeships, competitions between remote-controlled monster vehicles, fashion competitions, competitions for the affections of both bachelors and bachelorettes, baseball games, basketball games, football games, wrestling bouts, kickboxing bouts, extreme sports programming and, of course, beauty contests.

Leaders of large businesses sometimes make huge bets in expensive mergers and acquisitions, acting on the mistaken belief that they can manage the assets of another company better than its current owners do.

Currency risk is a consideration in international corporate lending, given fluctuating exchange rates. It represents another set of costs and risks that lenders have to consider when lending internationally.

Redundancies are much more predictable and transparent than theoretical opportunities to add value. My focus is always on the downside. Overly optimistic assumptions lead to the graveyard of corporate acquisitions.

My target customer will be? The problem my customer wants to solve is? My customer’s need can be solved with? Why can’t my customer solve this today? The measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is? My primary customer acquisition tactic will be? My earliest adopter will be? I will make money (revenue) by? My primary competition will be? I will beat my competitors primarily because of? My biggest risk to financial viability is? My biggest technical or engineering risk is? What assumptions do we have that, if proven wrong, would cause this business to fail?  (Tip: include market size in this list) You should be able to look at this list and spot

Corporate lenders play a vital role in supporting economic growth by providing capital to businesses. Without corporate lenders, the ability and rate at which businesses are able to grow would likely be considerably less.

Companies should maintain accurate and timely financial records because it serves as the foundation for informed decision-making, ensures compliance with regulatory requirements, and enhances transparency, ultimately bolstering trust among stakeholders and facilitating long-term financial stability and growth. Without good records, businesses may risk financial mismanagement and uncertainty, hindering their ability to thrive in a competitive market.

Why am I violent, competitive, ambitious, acquisitive? Why is there in me this constant struggle to become? Obviously, I am running away, taking flight from something through ambition, through acquisitiveness, through wanting to be a success. I am afraid of something, which is making me do all these things. I am not for the moment concerned with the fear of darkness, of public opinion, of what somebody may or may not say of me, because all that is very superficial; I am trying to find out what it is that fundamentally making me afraid, which in turn drives me to be ambitious, competitive, acquisitive, envious, thereby creating animosity and all the rest of it. First of all, it seems to me that we are very lonely people. I am very lonely, inwardly empty, and I don't like that state; I am afraid of it, so I shun it, I run away from it. The very running away creates fear, and to avoid that fear, I indulge in various kinds of action. There is obviously this emptiness in me, in you, from which the mind is escaping through action, through ambition, through the urge to be somebody, to acquire more knowledge - you know, the whole business of violence. And without running away, can the mind look at this emptiness, this extraordinary sense of loneliness, which is the ultimate expression of the self? - the self being the entity, the self-consciousness which is empty when it doesn't run.

The startup’s goal is to find a profitable customer acquisition strategy by spending small amounts of money in a lot of them, measuring results, and then narrowing down the best channels, while performing PDCA for continuous improvement.

Commercial loans serve various purposes, from financing expansion and working capital to equipment acquisition and real estate investment – They’re a very important part of the capital ecosystem of the world, and of its individual nations.

The infamous Debt-To-Income ratio is the standard formula most lenders use to determine a potential borrowers capacity. Lenders calculate this by adding up a borrower’s total monthly debt payments and dividing that by the borrowers gross monthly income.

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoi, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over... We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their Congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can't. Too many voices, too much scattered, illogical, ill-considered criticism. It's worse in the case of newspapers. Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy. A year later there is a new political ring or a change in the paper's ownership, consequence: more confusion, more contradiction, a sudden inrush of new ideas, their tempering, their distillation, the reaction against them-

Let me share with you an intriguing thought. The real value in setting goals is not in their achievement. The acquisition of the things you want is strictly secondary. The major reason for setting goals is to compel you to become the person it takes to achieve them. Let me explain:

Every business needs capital. Whether we’re talking about a barbershop or a bank, a boutique e-commerce store or a hotdog stand. Whether we’re talking about a restaurant or a clothing store, a giant like Walmart, or the local bodega that’s owned by a local family. They all need capital.

A persons trustworthiness in one area of life may not necessarily transfer over to their trustworthiness as a borrower. And a business that can be trusted to do the right thing for its customers may not necessarily be a business that can be trusted to do the right thing for its creditors.

Using Hollerith’s tabulators, the 1890 census was completed in one year rather than eight. It was the first major use of electrical circuits to process information, and the company that Hollerith founded became in 1924, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, the International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM.

Ya'aburnee1. As in you bury me. A rough translation for the way I want to leave this world before you because I can’t imagine having to go through a single day without you in it. If this last week was a preview of that kind of life, then I can assure you it isn’t a life worth living. You’re my wife and my best friend. The future mother of my children and the one place that truly feels like home. You’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, not because you signed a contract, but because you love me enough to stay without one. “I want to be the kind of man who is worthy of a woman like you—if it’s even possible. I promise to work every damn day to make sure you don’t regret marrying someone as miserable as me. Because when I’m with you, I’m not miserable at all. You make me happy in a way that makes me afraid to blink just in case it all disappears.” The vulnerability of his words tugs at every single one of my heartstrings. “I’ll give you anything you want—anything at all—so long as you give me a chance to make you as happy as you make me. A dog. A family. A home. I want it all. These are my terms and conditions, take it or leave it because I’m not open to negotiations.” “Only you could make a proposal sound like a business acquisition and get away with it.” “Marry me,” he orders with a smile that could make me agree to just about anything.

The more trustworthy a borrower is, the greater the likelihood that they will return the money lent to them back to the lender with interest. This is why lenders of every kind and size, place a high priority on the character of potential borrowers – it is one of the five key determining factors as to the likelihood of the lender receiving their money back with interest.

Murphy’s approach to the roll-up was different. He moved slowly, developed real operational expertise, and focused on a small number of large acquisitions that he knew to be high-probability bets. Under Murphy, Capital Cities combined excellence in both operations and capital allocation to an unusual degree. As Murphy told me, “The business of business is a lot of little decisions every day mixed up with a few big decisions.

Kensi Gounden, Highly innovative new technologies can be both disruptive and transformative, but technology adoption can also be incremental, such as simply automating a manual process. So introducing business technology innovations, either incremental or step-change, may embrace increasing online connectivity across the business, strategic technology acquisition and use or using time-saving technologies to improve internal communication.

It’s ironic perhaps – but no one wants to lend money to someone or something that has no money or no monetary worth. You wouldn’t plant a seed on barren ground – you plant a seed where there’s already a wealth of resources sufficient to cultivate the seed. It could be a tiny bit of soil in a pot, or the expanse of your front yard. But you’re going to make sure the seed has enough soil to put down roots and a quality of soil that facilitates growth.

Be optimistic around the opportunity but tremendously concerned about the risks involved. This will allow you to see the opportunity as it is. Most tire-kickers spend the entire first meeting identifying why the business is a bad investment rather than identifying the opportunity as a whole. Where are the opportunities and where are the risks of this business? What would need to be true for you to grow this company to double its size? These are the questions you are asking yourself.

The third acquisition was a big single-family house. I found an architect, a small local general contractor, and we created a design for four separate units. Then I went to the bank and got loans to do the renovation. I was twenty-three, with a BA in political science. I didn’t know anything about financing. But it never crossed my mind that I might be too young to start an investment business or that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know any better, but was able to sell the banks on my ability to get it done. Our management company took over the property, did the renovation, and rented the units. The asset did very well.

3 He seems to have regarded agriculture as the business most conducive to moral and physical health. He thought "if the leadings of the Spirit were more attended to, more people would be engaged in the sweet employment of husbandry, where labor is agreeable and healthful." He does not condemn the honest acquisition of wealth in other business free from oppression; even "merchandising," he thought, might be carried on innocently and in pure reason. Christ does not forbid the laying up of a needful support for family and friends; the command is, "Lay not up for YOURSELVES treasures on earth." From his little farm on the Rancocas he looked out with a mingled feeling of wonder and sorrow upon the hurry and unrest of the world; and especially was he pained to see luxury and extravagance overgrowing the early plainness and simplicity of his own religious society. He regarded the merely rich man with unfeigned pity. With nothing of his scorn he had all of Thoreau's commiseration, for people who went about bowed down with the weight of broad acres and great houses on their backs.

There is also another political party, who desire, through the influence of legislation and coercion, to level the world. To say the least, it is a species of robbery; to some it may appear an honorable one, but, nevertheless, it is robbery. What right has any private man to take by force the property of another? The laws of all nations would punish such a man as a thief. Would thousands of men engaged in the same business make it more honorable? . . . I shall not, here, enter into the various manners of obtaining wealth; but would merely state, that any unjust acquisition of it ought to be punished by law. Wealth is generally the representation of labour, industry, and talent. If one man is industrious, enterprising, diligent, careful, and saves property, and his children follow in his steps, and accumulate wealth; and another man is careless, prodigal, and lazy, and his children inherit his poverty, I cannot conceive upon what principles of justice, the children of the idle and profligate have a right to put their hands into the pockets of those who are diligent and careful, and rob them of their purse. Let this principle exist, and all energy and enterprise would be crushed. Men would be afraid of again accumulating, lest they should again be robbed. Industry and talent would have no stimulant, and confusion and ruin would inevitably follow. Again, if you took men's property without their consent, the natural consequence would be that they would seek to retake it the first opportunity; and this state of things would only deluge the world in blood. So that let any of these measures be carried out, even according to the most sanguine hopes of the parties, they would not only bring distress upon others, but also upon themselves; certainly they would not bring about the peace of the world.

The destruction of representative government and private capitalism of the old school was complete when Hitler came to power. He had contributed mightily to the final result by his ceaseless labors to create chaos. But when he stepped into the chancellery all the ingredients of national socialist dictatorship were there ready to his hand… The aim in which Bismarck had failed was accomplished almost at a stroke in the Weimar Constitution – the subordination of the individual states to the federal state. The old imperial state had to depend on the constituent states to provide it with a part of its funds. Now this was altered, and the central government of the republic became the great imposer and collector of taxes, paying to the states each a share. Slowly the central government absorbed the powers of the states. The problems of business groups and social groups were all brought to Berlin. The republican Reichstag, unlike its imperial predecessor, was now charged with the vast duty of managing almost every energy of the social and economic life of the republic. German states were always filled with bureaus, so that long before World War I travelers referred to the ‘bureaucratic tyrannies’ of the empire. But now the bureaus became great centralized organisms of the federal government dealing with the multitude of problems which the Reichstag as completely incapable of handling. Quickly, the actual function of governing leaked out of the parliament into the hands of the bureaucrats. The German republic became a paradise of bureaucracy on a scale which the old imperial government never knew. The state, with its powers enhanced by the acquisition of immense economic powers and those powers brought to the center of government and lodged in the executive, was slowly becoming, notwithstanding its republican appearance, a totalitarian state that was almost unlimited in its powers.

The Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market provide a back-of-the-napkin method you can use to identify the attractiveness of any potential market. Rate each of the ten factors below on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is terrible and 10 fantastic. When in doubt, be conservative in your estimate: Urgency. How badly do people want or need this right now? (Renting an old movie is low urgency; seeing the first showing of a new movie on opening night is high urgency, since it only happens once.) Market Size. How many people are purchasing things like this? (The market for underwater basket-weaving courses is very small; the market for cancer cures is massive.) Pricing Potential. What is the highest price a typical purchaser would be willing to spend for a solution? (Lollipops sell for $0.05; aircraft carriers sell for billions.) Cost of Customer Acquisition. How easy is it to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale, in both money and effort? (Restaurants built on high-traffic interstate highways spend little to bring in new customers. Government contractors can spend millions landing major procurement deals.) Cost of Value Delivery. How much will it cost to create and deliver the value offered, in both money and effort? (Delivering files via the internet is almost free; inventing a product and building a factory costs millions.) Uniqueness of Offer. How unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market, and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you? (There are many hair salons but very few companies that offer private space travel.) Speed to Market. How soon can you create something to sell? (You can offer to mow a neighbor’s lawn in minutes; opening a bank can take years.) Up-front Investment. How much will you have to invest before you’re ready to sell? (To be a housekeeper, all you need is a set of inexpensive cleaning products. To mine for gold, you need millions to purchase land and excavating equipment.) Upsell Potential. Are there related secondary offers that you could also present to purchasing customers? (Customers who purchase razors need shaving cream and extra blades as well; buy a Frisbee and you won’t need another unless you lose it.) Evergreen Potential. Once the initial offer has been created, how much additional work will you have to put in in order to continue selling? (Business consulting requires ongoing work to get paid; a book can be produced once and then sold over and over as is.) When you’re done with your assessment, add up the score. If the score is 50 or below, move on to another idea—there are better places to invest your energy and resources. If the score is 75 or above, you have a very promising idea—full speed ahead. Anything between 50 and 75 has the potential to pay the bills but won’t be a home run without a huge investment of energy and resources.

The Lowly Thermostat, Now Minter of Megawatts How Nest is turning its consumer hit into a service for utilities. Peter Fairley | 945 words • Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest Labs in January put the Internet of things on the map. Everyone had vaguely understood that connecting everyday objects to the Internet could be a big deal. Here was an eye-popping price tag to prove it. Nest, founded by former Apple engineers in 2010, had managed to turn the humble thermostat into a slick, Internet-connected gadget. By this year, Nest was selling 100,000 of them a month, according to an estimate by Morgan Stanley. At $249 a pop, that’s a nice business. But more interesting is what Nest has been up to since last May in Texas, where an Austin utility is paying Nest to remotely turn down people’s air conditioners in order to conserve power on hot summer days—just when electricity is most expensive. For utilities, this kind of “demand response” has long been seen as a killer app for a smart electrical grid, because if electricity use can be lowered just enough at peak times, utilities can avoid firing up costly (and dirty) backup plants. Demand response is a neat trick. The Nest thermostat manages it by combining two things that are typically separate—price information and control over demand. It’s consumers who control the air conditioners, electric heaters, and furnaces that dominate a home’s energy diet. But the actual cost of energy can vary widely, in ways that consumers only dimly appreciate and can’t influence. While utilities frequently carry out demand

Halo Effect Cisco, the Silicon Valley firm, was once a darling of the new economy. Business journalists gushed about its success in every discipline: its wonderful customer service, perfect strategy, skilful acquisitions, unique corporate culture and charismatic CEO. In March 2000, it was the most valuable company in the world. When Cisco’s stock plummeted 80% the following year, the journalists changed their tune. Suddenly the company’s competitive advantages were reframed as destructive shortcomings: poor customer service, a woolly strategy, clumsy acquisitions, a lame corporate culture and an insipid CEO. All this – and yet neither the strategy nor the CEO had changed. What had changed, in the wake of the dot-com crash, was demand for Cisco’s product – and that was through no fault of the firm. The halo effect occurs when a single aspect dazzles us and affects how we see the full picture. In the case of Cisco, its halo shone particularly bright. Journalists were astounded by its stock prices and assumed the entire business was just as brilliant – without making closer investigation. The halo effect always works the same way: we take a simple-to-obtain or remarkable fact or detail, such as a company’s financial situation, and extrapolate conclusions from there that are harder to nail down, such as the merit of its management or the feasibility of its strategy. We often ascribe success and superiority where little is due, such as when we favour products from a manufacturer simply because of its good reputation. Another example of the halo effect: we believe that CEOs who are successful in one industry will thrive in any sector – and furthermore that they are heroes in their private lives, too.

Suite 1500, 13450 102 Ave Surrey, BC V3T 5X3 604-581-7001 cbettencourt@mcquarrie.com Chris works with individuals and firms to provide legal advice and expertise for their real estate and business needs. He can plan and draft agreements relating to a wide variety of business and corporate transactions such as securing debt and the incorporation of companies. Chris acts for purchasers of businesses, helping to ensure that they begin their new venture with adequate protection. Chris is also experienced in the acquisition, development, and sale of residential and commercial real estate.

For the purpose of this discussion, it is useful to think about technology acquisitions in three categories: 1. Talent and/or technology, when a company is acquired purely for its technology and/or its people. These kinds of deals typically range between $5 million and $50 million. 2. Product, when a company is acquired for its product, but not its business. The acquirer plans to sell the product roughly as it is, but will do so primarily with its own sales and marketing capability. These kinds of deals typically range between $25 million and $250 million. 3. Business, when a company is acquired for its actual business (revenue and earnings). The acquirer values the entire operation (product, sales, and marketing), not just the people, technology, or products. These deals are typically valued (at least in part) by their financial metrics and can be extremely large (such as Microsoft’s $30 billion–plus offer for Yahoo).

Let’s look at the case of Opsware. Why did I sell Opsware? Another good question is why didn’t I sell Opsware until I did? At Opsware, we started in the server automation market. When we received our first inquiries and offers for the server automation company, we had fewer than fifty customers. I believed that there were at least ten thousand target customers and that we had a decent shot at being number one. In addition, although I knew the market would be redefined, I thought that we could expand to networks and storage (data center automation) faster than the competition and win that market as well. Therefore, assuming 30 percent market share, somebody would have had to pay sixty times what we were worth in forward credit to buy out our potential. You won’t be surprised to find that nobody was willing to pay that. Once we grew to several hundred customers and expanded into data center automation, we were still number one and were more valuable stand-alone than any of the prior acquisition offers. At that point both Opsware and our main competitor, BladeLogic, had developed into full-fledged companies (worldwide sales forces, built-out professional services, etc.). This was significant, because it meant that a large company could buy one of us and potentially execute successfully (big enterprise companies can’t generally succeed with small acquisitions, because too much of the important intellectual property is the sales methodology, and big companies can’t build that).

Interestingly, I see this same problem play out in many consumer Internet startups. I often see teams that maniacally focus on their metrics around customer acquisition and retention. This usually works well for customer acquisition, but not so well for retention. Why? For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep enough on the actual user experience. This generally results in a frantic numbers chase that does not end in a great product. It’s important to supplement a great product vision with a strong discipline around the metrics, but if you substitute metrics for product vision, you will not get what you want.

Finally, the legitimization of the corporate holding company [1890] established a business structure that lessened the threat of competition by allowing for the elimination of competitors. The merger movement followed and horizontal combinations of productive capability reorganized industry into large blocks of corporate power.

Their leadership team recognized how amazing this sales productivity number was to the company and ultimately to one of the factors that led to the acquisition by Verizon. I love this quote from Kelly: “We could close deals faster and bigger than our competition.” What sales leader, salesperson, sales manager, or chief executive officer does not want this too?

CONFUSION 5: HOW TO DEAL WITH CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION If you have hit each step to this point, customer dissatisfaction will be rare. But dissatisfactions will happen. Here’s what to do about them: 1. Always listen to what your Customers are saying. And never interrupt while they’re saying it! 2. After you’re sure you’ve heard all of your Customer’s complaint, make absolutely certain you understand what he or she said. You could ask, “Can I repeat what you’ve just told me, Mrs. Jones, to make absolutely certain I understand you?” 3. Secure your Customer’s acknowledgment that you have heard his or her complaint accurately. 4. Apologize for whatever your Customer thinks you did that dissatisfied him or her even if you didn’t do it! 5. After your Customer has acknowledged your apology, ask exactly what would make him or her happy. 6. Repeat what your Customer told you would make him or her happy, and get his or her acknowledgment that you heard it correctly. 7. If at all possible, give your Customer exactly what he or she asked for! But what if your Customer wants something completely unreasonable? If you’ve followed my recommendations to the letter, what your Customer asks will seldom seem unreasonable. That’s assuming you’ve got the right Customer. CONFUSION 6: WHO TO CALL A CUSTOMER At this stage, it’s important to ask some questions: Which types of Customers would you most like to do business with? Where do you see your real market opportunities? Who would you like to work with, provide service for, and position your business for? A Tactile Customer for whom people is most important? A Neutral Customer for whom the mechanics of how you do business is most important? An Experimental Customer for whom cutting-edge innovation is important? A Traditional Customer for whom low cost and certainty of delivery are absolutely essential? In short, it’s all up to you. No mystery. No magic. Just a systematic process for shaping your business’s future. But you must have the passion to pursue the process. And you must be absolutely clear about every aspect of it. Until you know your Customers as well as you know yourself. Until all your complaints about Customers are a thing of the past. Until you accept the undeniable fact that Customer Acquisition and Customer Satisfaction are more science than art. But unless you’re willing to grow your business, you better not follow any of the above recommendations. Because it will definitely grow.

CONFUSION 6: WHO TO CALL A CUSTOMER At this stage, it’s important to ask some questions: Which types of Customers would you most like to do business with? Where do you see your real market opportunities? Who would you like to work with, provide service for, and position your business for? A Tactile Customer for whom people is most important? A Neutral Customer for whom the mechanics of how you do business is most important? An Experimental Customer for whom cutting-edge innovation is important? A Traditional Customer for whom low cost and certainty of delivery are absolutely essential? In short, it’s all up to you. No mystery. No magic. Just a systematic process for shaping your business’s future. But you must have the passion to pursue the process. And you must be absolutely clear about every aspect of it. Until you know your Customers as well as you know yourself. Until all your complaints about Customers are a thing of the past. Until you accept the undeniable fact that Customer Acquisition and Customer Satisfaction are more science than art. But unless you’re willing to grow your business, you better not follow any of the above recommendations. Because it will definitely grow.

Each ran a highly decentralized organization; made at least one very large acquisition; developed unusual, cash flow–based metrics; and bought back a significant amount of stock. None paid meaningful dividends or provided Wall Street guidance. All received the same combination of derision, wonder, and skepticism from their peers and the business press. All also enjoyed eye-popping, credulity-straining performance over very long tenures (twenty-plus years on average).

When we become an autonomous organization, we will be one of the largest unadulterated digital security organizations on the planet,” he told the annual Intel Security Focus meeting in Las Vegas. “Not only will we be one of the greatest, however, we will not rest until we achieve our goal of being the best,” said Young. This is the main focus since Intel reported on agreements to deactivate its security business as a free organization in association with the venture company TPG, five years after the acquisition of McAfee. Young focused on his vision of the new company, his roadmap to achieve that, the need for rapid innovation and the importance of collaboration between industries. “One of the things I love about this conference is that we all come together to find ways to win, to work together,” he said. First, Young highlighted the publication of the book The Second Economy: the race for trust, treasure and time in the war of cybersecurity. The main objective of the book is to help the information security officers (CISO) to communicate the battles that everyone faces in front of others in the c-suite. “So we can recruit them into our fight, we need to recruit others on our journey if we want to be successful,” he said. Challenging assumptions The book is also aimed at encouraging information security professionals to challenge their own assumptions. “I plan to send two copies of this book to the winner of the US presidential election, because cybersecurity is going to be one of the most important issues they could face,” said Young. “The book is about giving more people a vision of the dynamism of what we face in cybersecurity, which is why we have to continually challenge our assumptions,” he said. “That’s why we challenge our assumptions in the book, as well as our assumptions about what we do every day.” Young said Intel Security had asked thousands of customers to challenge the company’s assumptions in the last 18 months so that it could improve. “This week, we are going to bring many of those comments to life in delivering a lot of innovation throughout our portfolio,” he said. Then, Young used a video to underscore the message that the McAfee brand is based on the belief that there is power to work together, and that no person, product or organization can provide total security. By allowing protection, detection and correction to work together, the company believes it can react to cyber threats more quickly. By linking products from different suppliers to work together, the company believes that network security improves. By bringing together companies to share intelligence on threats, you can find better ways to protect each other. The company said that cyber crime is the biggest challenge of the digital era, and this can only be overcome by working together. Revealed a new slogan: “Together is power”. The video also revealed the logo of the new independent company, which Young called a symbol of its new beginning and a visual representation of what is essential to the company’s strategy. “The shield means defense, and the two intertwined components are a symbol of the union that we are in the industry,” he said. “The color red is a callback to our legacy in the industry.” Three main reasons for independence According to Young, there are three main reasons behind the decision to become an independent company. First of all, it should focus entirely on enterprise-level cybersecurity, solve customers ‘cybersecurity problems and address clients’ cybersecurity challenges. The second is innovation. “Because we are committed and dedicated to cybersecurity only at the company level, our innovation is focused on that,” said Young. Third is growth. “Our industry is moving faster than any other IT sub-segment, we have t

His order cited "credible evidence" that a takeover "threatens to impair the national security of the US".Qualcomm was already trying to fend off Broadcom's bid.The deal would have created the world's third-largest chipmaker behind Intel and Samsung.It would also have been the biggest takeover the technology koo50 sector had ever seen.The presidential order said: "The proposed takeover of Qualcomm by the Purchaser (Broadcom) is prohibited. and any substantially equivalent merger. acquisition. or takeover. whether effected directly or indirectly. is also prohibited."Crown jewelSome analysts said President Trump's decision was more about competitiveness and winning the race for 5G technology. than security concerns.The sector is in a race to develop chips for the latest 5G wireless technology. and Qualcomm was considered by Broadcom a significant asset in its bid to gain market share.Image captionQualcomm has already showcased 1Gbps mobile internet speeds using a 5G chip"Given the current political climate in the US and other regions around the world. everyone is taking a more conservative view on mergers and acquisitions and protecting their own domains." IDC's Mario Morales. vice president of enabling technologies and semiconductors told the BBC."We are all at the start of a race. and you have 5G as a crown jewel that everyone wants to participate in - and every region is racing towards that." he said."We don't want to hinder someone like Qualcomm so that they can't provide the technology to the vendors that are competing within that space."US investigates Broadcom's Qualcomm bidQualcomm rejects Broadcom takeover bidHuawei's US smartphone deal collapsesSingapore-based Broadcom had been pursuing San Diego-based Qualcomm for about four months.Last week however. Broadcom's hostile takeover bid was put under investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US. a multi-agency led by the US Treasury Department.The US company had rejected approaches from its rival on the grounds that the offer undervalued the business. and also that any takeover would face antitrust hurdles.Earlier this year. Chinese telecoms giant Huawei said it had not been able to strike a deal to sell its new smartphone via a US carrier. widely believed to be AT&T.The US also recently blocked the $1.2bn sale of money transfer firm Moneygram to China's Ant Financial. the digital payments arm of Alibaba.

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creating a company for acquisition or IPO is different from building a profitable enterprise; it’s about building a sellable enterprise. Startups are not trying to earn revenue (which is a liability); they are setting themselves up to win more capital. They are not part of the real economy or even the real world but part of the process through which working assets are converted into new stockpiles of dead ones. That’s all they have really accomplished with whatever digital fad they’ve foisted onto the market or sold to yesterday’s tech winners. They thought they were engineering a new technology, when they were actually engineering a reallocation of capital. That’s why digital entrepreneurs who do win often end up becoming the next generation of venture capitalists. Everyone from Marc Andreessen (Netscape) to Sean Parker (Napster) to Peter Thiel (PayPal) to Jack Dorsey (Twitter) now runs venture funds of his own. Facebook and Google, once startups themselves, now acquire more businesses than they incubate internally. With each new generation, firms and investors leverage the startup economy more deliberately, or even cynically. After all, a win is a win.

The process contains serious flaws. First, it’s conducted annually, so it doesn’t help executives respond swiftly to threats and opportunities (a new competitor, a possible acquisition) that crop up throughout the year. Second,

CBS spent much of the 1960s and 1970s taking the enormous cash flow generated by its network and broadcast operations and funding an aggressive acquisition program that led it into entirely new fields, including the purchase of a toy business and the New York Yankees baseball team. CBS issued stock to fund some of these acquisitions, built a landmark office building in midtown Manhattan at enormous expense, developed a corporate structure with forty-two presidents and vice presidents, and generally displayed what Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, calls “a prosperity-blinded indifference to unnecessary costs.”1

Many technology companies prioritize acquisition targets based on how well they are integrated with their existing API.

Acquisition opportunities tend to emerge spontaneously, the result of changes in management at a target company, the actions of a competitor, or some other unpredictable event.

Shortly before we closed the deal, Randy Michaels and Terry Jacobs, who were running Jacor, came to me to finance the acquisition of a Denver station. Jacor already owned one of the other FM stations in Denver, and this one was losing money and available cheap. They showed up in Chicago carrying a thick book of details, prepared to make their pitch. “This is a great deal,” Randy assured me. He thumped the book on the table, ready to take me through it. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Do you understand the scope of the deal—why we should buy it?” “Yes,” he replied. “All the details are right here in this book.” He added that he and Terry had worked feverishly night and day to prepare it. I picked up the book and tossed it into a corner of my office, where it landed with a thud. Randy and Terry stared at me wide-eyed. “If you really understand it, you don’t need a book,” I said. “You could put it on a single piece of paper.” They looked uncertain. “I assume this says things are going to be great, right?” They nodded. “What happens if you’re wrong? How do I get out of the room?” “What do you mean?” Randy asked. “How bad can it get?” “Well,” he said, “it’s pretty bad now, and if we fail to fix it you could lose some operating capital. But I don’t see a station in Denver ever being worth less than $4 million. I mean, the building, the transmitter—the physical assets alone are worth close to that.” “Okay, great. How good could it get?” The answer, in short, was very good. So I said, “Go do it.

May 2001, the Harvard Business Review published an article by Neil Churchill and John Mullins, titled “How Fast Can Your Company Afford to Grow?

The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that's all there is.

Most buyers will go in aloof and reserved. They’ll shoot down ideas and inject cautionary responses at opportune times. They act like a conservative investor who must be convinced to be brought to the table, and if they do, their actions warn, it’s going to be hardball. This is not a trust but verify approach. It’s a prove it and then I’ll consider trusting you approach. There is a time to be a conservative investor during this process. This book, however, is not about how to become a conservative investor; it’s about acquisition entrepreneurship. Any acquisition will obviously include volumes of cautious investing analysis. Buying your first business is usually the largest investment you’ve ever made in your life and you will research accordingly. If there are snakes in the bushes, you will simply walk away later. The best buyers, however, understand that they too are entrepreneurs, just like the seller. The transaction will be completed within a few months after meeting the seller and then the buyer will be in the driver’s seat for the next four to forty years. Acting like an entrepreneur and not a venture capitalist during the interactions with the seller is the key to winning the seller over, getting the best deal outcome later, and behaving like the new CEO of the company—which you may or may not be, but that will be up to you and not them if you play your cards right.

I encourage you to treat this first meeting like a job interview, where you are interviewing to be the CEO of the seller’s company. Remember, having the right attitude is a critical component of the CEO mindset. It is here where it will start to move from theory to action. Be respectful and polite. Thank them for taking the time to meet with you and let them know you are interested in their opportunity. Give a history of your background, highlighting relevant accomplishments. Explain why you’re actively on the search, that you have a process, that you have taken the time to meet with banks and have arranged access to enough capital, and that you are committed to finding the right business in a certain timeframe. Compliment them by complimenting the business. Do this by highlighting a few characteristics that draw your interest to the company.

After twelve months of going nowhere, the investment committee loses patience and takes over the deal more directly. Organic is sold to a special-purpose acquisition company (or SPAC) listed on local stock exchanges. A SPAC is a cash box with a blank check raised from investors to buy a business within a set timeframe as determined by the executives who run the vehicle. Often, as the vehicle is publicly listed, a SPAC can strike a deal at a higher purchase price than a private equity firm would be willing to pay. Its investors will accept a lower return than they would from a private equity fund, often because the investment is marketed to them as a safer or more straightforward bet. In this case, the SPAC is run by a former senior executive of a French food retail chain and a major hedge fund seeking to expand into the private equity industry. Their joint sector and finance experience is convincing enough for the SPAC’s investors to agree that the transaction is likely to be worthwhile. The

but the truth is that comparing what private equity firms used to be—and where the perception of private equity still sits in many quarters—to what they are now is like comparing a Motorola cellphone from the 1990s to the latest iPhone. There’s a world of differences; it’s not even close. For pension funds and other investors in private equity funds, the firms they back gives them access to investment opportunities they can’t find or execute themselves. What’s more, they get consistent investment returns out of these opportunities, whether they include leveraged buyouts, credit investments, infrastructure assets, essential utilities, real estate transactions, technology deals, natural resources projects, banks, insurance companies, or life science opportunities. They can buy companies, carve out businesses, build up companies through acquisitions and organic growth, spin off businesses, take companies private from the public market, buy businesses from other funds they manage, draw margin loans to finance dividends, and refinance the capital structure pre-exit. And more besides.

There is no question that it is easy to enter the wedding industry but it is tough to survive there because most businesses still don’t know what it takes to build a long-line of loyal customers in this business.

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Paul Turovsky is known in the real estate sector as an esteemed and results-oriented professional. He is highly regarded by clients and investors, and he works closely with each through real estate acquisitions—both residential and commercial. Mr. Turovsky is an alum of Baruch College, where he received his Bachelor in Business Administration in Finance & Investments in 2009 before continuing his education at Ave Maria School of Law, where he graduated with his Juris Doctorate in 2013.

As I near the end of all of that and think back on what I’ve learned, these are the ten principles that strike me as necessary to true leadership. I hope they’ll serve you as well as they’ve served me. Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists. Courage. The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in ever-changing, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have courage. This is true of acquisitions, investments, and capital allocations, and it particularly applies to creative decisions. Fear of failure destroys creativity. Focus. Allocating time, energy, and resources to the strategies, problems, and projects that are of highest importance and value is extremely important, and it’s imperative to communicate your priorities clearly and often. Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can and should be made in a timely way. Leaders must encourage a diversity of opinion balanced with the need to make and implement decisions. Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counterproductive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale. Curiosity. A deep and abiding curiosity enables the discovery of new people, places, and ideas, as well as an awareness and an understanding of the marketplace and its changing dynamics. The path to innovation begins with curiosity. Fairness. Strong leadership embodies the fair and decent treatment of people. Empathy is essential, as is accessibility. People committing honest mistakes deserve second chances, and judging people too harshly generates fear and anxiety, which discourage communication and innovation. Nothing is worse to an organization than a culture of fear. Thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness is one of the most underrated elements of good leadership. It is the process of gaining knowledge, so an opinion rendered or decision made is more credible and more likely to be correct. It’s simply about taking the time to develop informed opinions. Authenticity. Be genuine. Be honest. Don’t fake anything. Truth and authenticity breed respect and trust. The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection. This doesn’t mean perfectionism at all costs, but it does mean a refusal to accept mediocrity or make excuses for something being “good enough.” If you believe that something can be made better, put in the effort to do it. If you’re in the business of making things, be in the business of making things great. Integrity. Nothing is more important than the quality and integrity of an organization’s people and its product. A company’s success depends on setting high ethical standards for all things, big and small. Another way of saying this is: The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

Acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, merger! Until there was only one business left in every field.

It's also important for tech product managers to have a broad understanding of the types of analytics that are important to your product. Many have too narrow of a view. Here is the core set for most tech products: User behavior analytics (click paths, engagement) Business analytics (active users, conversion rate, lifetime value, retention) Financial analytics (ASP, billings, time to close) Performance (load time, uptime) Operational costs (storage, hosting) Go‐to‐market costs (acquisition costs, cost of sales, programs) Sentiment (NPS, customer satisfaction, surveys)

Our flexibility in capital allocation – our willingness to invest large sums passively in non-controlled businesses – gives us a significant advantage over companies that limit themselves to acquisitions they can operate. Woody Allen stated the general idea when he said: “The advantage of being bi-sexual is that it doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.” Similarly, our appetite for either operating businesses or passive investments doubles our chances of finding sensible uses for our endless gusher of cash.

What happens if you build your business without ever thinking about your purpose? What if you’d rather focus exclusively on acquisition and higher profits? Those activities can definitely seem more rewarding. But the more we busy ourselves with work and fail to consider why we’re doing it in the first place, the more likely we are to realize (often far too late) that we’re not enjoying what we’ve worked so hard to build.

That is the biggest differentiator. Even today, with all the acquisitions being done in the asset management business, most of them are just consolidation plays. Our acquisitions were based on growth and building deeper relationships with our clients.

ETA Insider is a dynamic, interactive community that brings together aspiring acquisition entrepreneurs, business veterans, and industry experts to discuss, explore, and succeed in the world of business acquisition. Here, you’ll find a wealth of resources, ranging from insightful articles to a comprehensive directory of businesses for sale, complete with unbiased reviews.

Opportunity is very often embedded in the imbalance between supply and demand. It could be rising demand against flat or diminishing supply, or flat demand against shrinking supply. When there’s an imbalance, I look at where the two lines will intersect and then determine whether it is cheaper to buy or to build. Usually the answer is in acquisition, which eliminates a lot of the risk inherent in development. I like to invest below replacement cost, thereby creating a competitive advantage.

comparison companies frequently tried to jump right to breakthrough via an acquisition or merger. It never worked. Often with their core business under siege, the comparison companies would dive into a big acquisition as a way to increase growth, diversify away their troubles, or make a CEO look good. Yet they never addressed the fundamental question: “What can we do better than any other company in the world, that fits our economic denominator and that we have passion for?” They never learned the simple truth that, while you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness. Two big mediocrities joined together never make one great company.