[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.