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Playbook Media vs. strategic acquirers.

A strategic acquirer buys your business to make its own product stronger. That can mean a good price. It can also mean your product stops being a product.

Email a short overviewHow the process works
Contents3.1Should I sell to a strategic buyer or a long-term owner?1 / 4

§ 3.1

Should I sell to a strategic buyer or a long-term owner?Ask what happens to the product.

Fig. 3.1Short answer

A strategic buyer may pay more because your product helps its own. In exchange, the product often merges into the buyer’s product or closes. A long-term owner such as Playbook Media keeps the product running as its own business.

  • Strategic buyers value customers, technology or people.
  • Integration can change the product, the price and the support.
  • Ask for the plan for the product in writing.

§ 3.2

Side by side.Typical patterns.

Fig. 3.2aMerged into a buyer’s product, or kept as its own business
Fig. 3.2bStrategic buyer and Playbook Media
Strategic buyerPlaybook Media
Why they buyTo add customers, features or people to their own product.To own a useful product and make it better.
The product afterOften merged into theirs, renamed or closed.Keeps its brand and its customer relationships.
Customers afterOften moved to the buyer’s product and pricing.Keep the service they rely on, agreed before ownership changes.
Your role afterOften a role inside the buyer’s company.Agreed in the transition plan.

§ 3.3

When a strategic buyer is right.An honest list.

Choose a strategic buyer when

  • Your product clearly works better inside a larger one.
  • Customers would gain from the buyer’s platform.
  • You want to keep building inside a larger company.

Talk to us when

  • You want the product to keep running as its own business.
  • Customers chose your product for what makes it different.
  • You want a long-term owner, not a new employer.

§ 3.4

Questions founders ask.Short answers.

Will a strategic buyer close my product?

Some do, some do not. Ask what they plan for the product, the customers and the price in the first two years.

Does Playbook Media merge products?

No. Each product keeps its own brand and customers. Products can share internal tools for measurement and experiments; the people who run each product stay responsible for it.

Can I ask a strategic buyer for continuity commitments?

Yes. Your lawyer can advise which commitments are realistic and enforceable.

  1. 1Patterns vary between firms. This page describes common practice in general terms. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. ↩
  2. 2Playbook Media has reviewed businesses and made offers, but no acquisition has completed yet. Weigh that when you compare us with buyers who have. ↩

End of comparison

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