[majani]

I don't want to speak for the founders, but looking at the factors surrounding this acquisition(little innovation, spam tactics, low price, unrelated acquirer), it is clear that Socialcam was a build-to-flip company. And as a build-to-flip company, it was a fantastically executed one at that.

Some people (pg included[1]) build companys just so they can sell them off one day. Many around here get worked up by that reality, but the cold, hard truth is that not everyone is in this game to change the world forever. Deal with it.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3178029

(edit: reference)

[jmathai]

I don't care if your goal is to change the world. But please, don't make it worse (spam).

But congrats to the team on the acquisition. Maybe Socialcam will die under Autodesk and everyone wins!

[ttran4]

I agree. This is definitely not a long term business model and could only benefit if its built to sell. These people build a business out of tricking people into clicking their misleading title and video thumbnails that are populated from their Facebook Feed(almost like ads) to increase their stats and app users. People don't usually get fooled more than once, so their traffic is starting to decline. Like our president Bush once said "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again"

[emmett]

$60 million is a low price now?

My but we live in a world of inflation.

[majani]

They have 200million unique visitors to their website according to Google Adplanner, many of which were probably forced to register as users. Also Viddy are behind them, yet valued at 370m. That's how I concluded that Socialcam was sold for cheap.

[il]

You do realize that $60 million is an enormous, lifechanging amount of money, right?

It would be interesting to compare success rates between people who build companies to sell and people who build companies to change the world.

[snprbob86]

I think that built-to-flip vs dent-the-universe is a gross oversimplification and a false dichotomy. Maybe they were aiming to change the world, but their funding round wasn't coming together. Or maybe they lost the faith and decided to return money to their investors, rather than go bust. Maybe one of their key team members had a personal or family issue and needed more financial stability in a hurry. Maybe they learned so much about startups that they were wishing for a reset button. Maybe some combination of all of these things and more?

Startups are a repeat game. A base hit might just be the right career move. You can swing for the homerun on your next at-bat.

Having just gone through a small acquisition myself, I can tell you that it's incredibly bittersweet to pad your bank account by means of killing your baby. Unless you've gone through the process, you have no idea the extent and complexity of thought processes and emotions you experience as a founder.

[ArbitraryLimits]

Dude. Socialcam was no one's baby.

[snprbob86]

I don't know anything about socialcam. I just heard of them for the first time with this headline. My comment is with respect to the wide range of small acquisitions.