
I Said No to a $25 Million Buyout Offer for My Startup
When Brian from HubSpot kicked off the financial talk, he mentioned they were thinking of spending somewhere between twenty and thirty million dollars to acquire my company.

When Brian from HubSpot kicked off the financial talk, he mentioned they were thinking of spending somewhere between twenty and thirty million dollars to acquire my company.

I once thought I had an idea that was going to change the world of marketing. I was sure we were building software every business needed, something that would launch my company, Moz, into the stratosphere. I was wrong.

It’s easy to get cynical about "company values." Most of us have worked at a place where the values are little more than nice-sounding words on a plaque in the lobby. They feel hollow because, in practice, they often are. In a startup company, this disconnect can be especially damaging. Values typically fail in one of three ways, and each one reveals a deeper truth about what an organization actually prioritizes.