95. As an employee of a start-up, what are the signs that we are about to be acquired? Turns out if you are in a small enough company the signs are obvious if you look carefully but you do have to look very carefully: • CEO and controller / finance person working together much more often than usual. Because big companies looking to acquire need like 10,000 different reports. • Big company guys (from acquirer) walk into office and act “all cool”. They’re doing their on-site diligence. When an SVP from the big company walks in and tries to act cool, they’re trying not to blow it. This is subtle but if you have a high EQ you can spot it every time. They act very differently from a big company VP coming in to do a regular business deal (when they usually make it very clear who the Alpha Dog is). • CEO and VPE off to off-site meetings together — and they never do this. Not a customer, just a “meeting”. They do this for due diligence. You can’t tell if it’s just the VPs because CEOs and VPs are always off working with customers but if it’s the VPE and they’re off to “a meeting at Google”. • CEO suddenly stops caring about things she used to care about, especially hiring. She longer cares if a certain key hire gets made this month? It’s because she has bigger fish to fry. If you see substantial priority changes ... you know ... something’s up ... The smaller the company, the easier it is to see these things if you’re looking. SAASTR.COM 93