The Inside Story of Stripe’s Acquisition of Indie Hackers with Co-Founder Channing Allen

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In 2016 Channing Allen and his brother Courtland founded Indie Hackers, a blog and forum that encourages founders to transparently share their ideas and stories.

After only eight months, the brothers had grown the business to $8,000 in revenue when they received an unexpected email from Patrick Collison (co-founder and CEO of Stripe), who was looking to acquire the company.

Although tempted to keep building, Stripe’s offer was too good to refuse. The brothers agreed to be acquired by Stripe in March 2017. In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

• Build a thriving online community.
• Share your journey to attract a loyal following.
• Transition from founder to employee without losing your passion.
• Negotiate favorable deal terms using an unconventional strategy.
• Build an engaged following using a crafty tactic.

 

Check out the written by John Warrillow on The Recurring Revenue Bump.

And written by Colin Morgan on Small But Mighty: How To Sell Your Company Beyond Its Weight Class too.

Curious about what your company might be worth? Start with a Built to Sell Valuation.

Check out our full M&A Glossary

Show Notes & Links

Negotiation Article

Press Release

Indie Hackers

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Definitions

 

Earn-out: Earnout or earn-out refers to a pricing structure in mergers and acquisitions where the sellers must “earn” part of the purchase price based on the performance of the business following the acquisition.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnout

Due-Diligence: Due diligence is an investigation, audit, or review performed to confirm facts or details of a matter under consideration. In the financial world, due diligence requires an examination of financial records before entering into a proposed transaction with another party.

Source: https://bit.ly/3yYDfo5

Letter of Intent (LOI): A letter of intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another. The letter outlines the chief terms of a prospective deal. Commonly used in major business transactions, LOIs are similar in content to term sheets. One major difference between the two, though, is that LOIs are presented in letter formats, while term sheets are listicle in nature.

Source: https://bit.ly/3ppDnr3

 

 

About Our Guest

Channing Allen

Channing Allen is the Co-Founder of Indie Hackers, which was acquired by Stripe in 2017.