[jmathai]

If it is an acqui-hire, then think of the scenario. A team that's probably burned out. The passion probably died a while back and along with it went the mission.

What type of announcement do you expect?

  We appreciate that you signed up for and used our product. 
  Things haven't gone as well as we had hoped and we're 
  exhausted.   The truth is we'd be shutting down the site 
  in due time anyway but this is a better option for us and
  doesn't make any real difference for you, our user.

It says they launched a year ago so this particular company was still very new. It may not apply to them but I imagine this applies to most acqui-hires.

[aaronbrethorst]

Ideally an honest one.

Edit: here's a thought.

Thanks again for your support of Product since our launch. It means the world to us, and it's been a terrific ride for us. Unfortunately, we haven't seen the broad usage of our service necessary to sustain it and we'll be shutting it down in X months. Luckily, BigCo is acquiring our team, which means that we'll have jobs making their quasi-similar product even better.

Here's how you get your data: (blah)

Here are some similar services you may want to consider moving to: (blah)

[anoncowherd]

You want honesty?

How about:

"Thanks again for your support of Product since our launch. It means we're now in a position to get acquired by Yahoo. In other words, your support means we get money. We could gush about how much you mean to us, but really, we're running a business here, with the explicit goal of making money. We've done that now, so, thanks!"

[aaronbrethorst]

    After the liquidation preference the founders
    (probably 1-3 people) are likely to get 90%
    of the remaining proceeds and the staff –
    those engineers that the acquiring company
    so desperately wants – would ordinarily
    receive a very small proportion.

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/05/13/the-corrosive-...

Hopefully Ptch employees were making market wages, because an acquihire certainly won't net them much of anything.

[jmathai]

Valid.

I wonder if the founders feel any pressure from the acquiring company to spin the acquisition as purely positive without revealing the more than likely disappointing outcome.