Diary of a Startup: The First Serious Offer

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The past week has been a roller coaster, to say the least. At the end of last week, we were expecting a response from an angel investor who was very serious about his interest in Acquirent, and we were still busy negotiating a deal to complete a buyout of my former partner's stock. The good news is that both of these big hurdles materialized, but not as well as we had planned.

I spent Monday and Tuesday with our potential angel investor and his team of advisors. We went through the numbers again and built out a projection for the 2005 financials based upon the numbers we mutually agreed upon. By Wednesday morning I had secured a deal with my former partner, and although we are paying him more than I want to pay him (isn't this always the case), I was comfortable with it because frankly it was over, and sometimes just officially ending the partnership and any ties related to the business is worth it even if you have to put up a little more money.

Wednesday afternoon, I received a call from our serious angel investor saying that he and his team had an offer prepared and he would like to meet with me to present it. As such, I went to his office with cautious optimism to assess the offer. The offer was considerable, but a little light on the capital side and perhaps a little too much in terms of the equity he desired in return.

On Thursday, my lawyer and I worked on a counter offer and sent it out that day. The counter offer is out there now, of course, but I guess I worry about the risk of losing the deal and think that I should just take the offer. But then I think, the worst he can say to our counter offer is "no," and then we can simply accept the original offer, which was certainly an acceptable arrangement.

For now, we wait to hear from him.

Diary of a Startup is a weekly blog written by Pete Kadens, founder of Acquirent, an outsourced sales execution company based in Chicago. Click here to read last week's column.