Three ways that small, growing companies can screw up their acquisitions

▤ Summary

In order to be competitive in the marketplace, provide users value, and invest for the long term, CEOs and their leadership teams must decide which aspects of their business to focus on in-house, and when it’s better to augment and accelerate growth through acquisitions. That means failing to fully include integration teams in the process so that they can craft a detailed execution that will balance reality and the CEO’s grand vision. However, constant shuffling of management teams, apparent user sentiment that email was good enough for eBay, and clashes in customer service culture ultimately derailed the deal. Furthermore, smaller teams means avoiding the constant churn of reorganization, while also offering greater opportunity for merged set of employees to have a measurable impact on the company culture. The acquisitions of MyMiniLife and Newtoy were very successful because we had a clear vision and strategic fit, allowing those companies to seamlessly integrate into ours and drive huge value in the form of FarmVille and WordWithFriends, respectively.

▦ Linked Companies

Maven Networks

$1M to $5M