Today’s HostingCon keynote was a fitting capstone to a very good conference. Although a bit personal at times, it reinforced for me the high emotion that goes into transactions. For all of the “be objective” talk – deals are emotional. This is true both for buyers and sellers – though particularly true for sellers. I don’t see how it is possible not to get emotionally invested in a deal. From negotiating to money, everything about a deal involves emotional investment. In my mind, not being emotionally invested in a deal is akin to dating and only looking for friendship – a bit of an oxymoron. Like dating, however, there are ways to participate in the process without getting completely heartbroken or frustrated. From my experience the following points may help:
· Don’t put all your eggs in the buy/sell basket. Keep operating your business and innovating.
· Know what your hard stops, or non-negotiables are, and realize that the deal will end if these are reached. Only designate these as non-negotiables if you are willing to walk away.
· Communicate with your advisors constantly. Feel free to vent to us about your frustration – but try not to make it personal unless it really, truly, is deserved.
· Hire people who have participated in deals before.
· Don’t give yourself artificial deadlines. If you want to take a day off to go see your kid’s swim meet, do it. The deal will be there when you get back.
· If the deal falls through, take time to deconstruct what happened, what you can learn, and try to reuse any documents that were created in the process.
About David Snead
David Snead is a lawyer whose practice is focused on internet infrastructure providers. In his eleven years in this practice, he has represented clients including multinationals, middle tier hosting companies, and two guys, a server, a T-1 and a huge MasterCard balance.
A long-time WHIR contributor, David Snead is the Web hosting business's best-known legal expert. Through his WHIR blog, he offers a credible legal perspective on both specific actions in the Web hosting business and general developments in legislation.
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