[cpursley]

There's nothing wrong with selling to the right suitor but completely shutting down the product?

Is anybody building a company for the long-haul these days, or has the home flipping bubble just moved over to the startup world?

We need to start a trend / honor system for startups to sign so users know they won't be shafted down the road.

I'm going to start a startup that has some standard legal docs that says you won't shut the company/product down even if acquired (disregarding business failure). You get a quality-mark type badge for your site.

[famousactress]

Honestly, I doubt almost any of the aqui-hire deals happened because the team didn't care about or want the product to work out. I assume this is more often a soft-landing for failure.. companies that aren't working out, finding their model, or gaining enough traction.. so the team ends up taking a signing bonus to jump somewhere together.

Is there much evidence people are really starting shops just to prove their team is worth hiring?

Another note: a reasonable sign that you're at risk of getting 'shafted' as a user is that the company is relatively new, definitely not profitable, and you're not paying for the product.

[bradhe]

> has the home flipping bubble just moved over to the startup world?

If this is "flipping" anything, it's flipping the team. I doubt there was much of a pay out for this.