It’s not often that a company announces the acquisition of another company and then subsequently walks away from the deal, but PayPerPost isn’t a typical kind of company.
In a post on the PayPerPost blog today, the company said “We…dug into the Metrics platform and regretfully found that it wasn’t what we were looking for right now.” That came just a week after the official announcement of the acquisition.
Generally speaking, responsible companies “dig into” the acquisition target before they announce a deal.
Whatever happened, this isn’t pretty. After the deal was announced, Performancing moved their non-acquired assets to a new domain name and re-launched that service. They certainly stopped talking to other potential acquirors, given that the deal was officially announced. In merger-land, this is what’s known as “being left at the altar” because everyone down the road who you talk to will want to know why the previous deal exploded.
Performancing should have had a more nailed down acquisition agreement, so they aren’t entirely blameless. But PayPerPost is becoming an increasingly ridiculous startup, and a black eye for investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Our previous coverage of PayPerPost is here.
“We…dug into the Metrics platform and regretfully found that it wasn’t what we were looking for right now.”
Shouldn’t they have done this BEFORE making the deal?
…just when some sort of momentum was building at PPP too.
That is some ugly stuff…I would hate to make/receive that phone call.
Both PPP and Performancing are saying they decided the deal wasn’t right for them.
That seems like a consensus with neither of the partners upset, so why put a different spin on it?
^ The deal could not have been worth much anyway…PPP has already spent most of their $3M bank account on chairs.
Those are some really nice chairs, by the way.
PayPerPost’s payday wasn’t killed by the metrics, it was shot down by their mantra: Money! Money! Money! The big platform approach to harnessing web synergies for advertizing is falling flat on its face. Social networking worked because it was spontaneous, uncontrolled and free. Advertizing, with corporations mandating what bloggers post, is the opposite.
Andy – Performancing isn’t saying that this is mutual. Their side of the story suggests this was a clusterfuck.
We saw this a great opportunity for PayPerPost and Performancing’s members. It is unfortunate that it couldn’t come together.
PayPerPost agreed to proceed with an accelerated acquisition process to help save the platform and the users utilizing it. The hosted version of Metrics was in danger of being shut down in mid December.
http://performa...g.com/node/5249
The companies decided to make our announcement prior to close in order to calm the users that believed a shutdown was eminent given Performancing’s previous blog posts. An acquisition would have left the hosted application intact.
I agree, in a typical deal you wouldn’t announce until close. We didn’t announce PayPerPost’s funding until well after the deal was done. However, this wasn’t a typical deal in any sense. Please note that our press release stated we had signed a letter of intent, not that the deal was closed.
As far as amateur hour goes I believe the amateur thing to do would be to proceed with a deal that isn’t right for the stakeholders just because you made an announcement.
-Their side of the story suggests this was a clusterfuck.-
Where does it say that?
Mike – don’t hate me but I disagree with your post… click my name for my full post but here is the jist…
Both companies are saying they walked away – not just one side. Also, Nick has been talking with the Perf community for 3 or so months about going open source (i have been a perf member since the beginning).
Would PPP really want 15,000 angry new members? Would Perf want to hurt their rep with the new ad network by pissing off those same 15,000 members?
I think both companies did the right thing here. Win-win. And I think Nick is a very ethical person, even if his email replies are always very short
Good comeback Ted…lol.
-PPP has already spent most of their $3M bank account on chairs.-
Dave,
I am happy to let you know that all of our chairs and furniture were purchased USED and there is still plenty of cash in the bank. I have built my previous companies off of their own profits, and purchasing nice used furniture cheap is one of the many ways I have found stretch a dollar while keeping employees happy.
Allen – ah, I see what Nick wrote. Sounds good. My information came from a phone call and was perhaps the less polished version.
Aah – thanks for the clarification.
Ted –
I watched you (rockstartup) ask a painter to get off of your $700 chairs (that were scattered throughout your new digs). I guess $700 chairs are cheap?
I’m sitting on a $150 chair – until I watched your episode, I thought it was a thrown.
throne (sorry)
Dave – $700 new. It took me 6 weeks to locate enough used chairs for the whole office.
IMHO…maybe you should have put that much work/time into your due diligence…then we would not be talking about your chairs.
Ted – is 6 weeks of chair shopping a good use of your time, as CEO? I have a $90 chair from Ikea that kicks ass.
and what Dave G said.
I see the comment board here is used for people to fight there case etc? Come on guys show some professionalism. Use email to talk with Mike, Ted.
And likewise.. lighten up on the Ted bashing…
we have our civilized conversations via email. this is good content.
True, it does make for good reading
This is what (great) blogs are all about.
LOL You guys are too much.
This is like a house of mirrors for words.
Yes, I spent my days going to flea markets, garage sales and auctions from all the “web 2.0″ companies who never made it to revenue generation. Come on…
I worked with a company that specializes in used furniture. Perhaps I should have said “It took the company I hired 6 weeks…”. My apologies, it’s late in Florida.
We also have a good deal of furniture from IKEA. IKEA does kick ass, but I have yet to sit in an IKEA chair that I would want to sit in for a full day.
Wow. Quite frankly I’m shocked anyone still talks to you given the way you conduct yourself, Michael.
A baseless observation on my part, but I figured I’d share all the same – seems like more and more you’re succumbing to the trap of believing one’s own press. I’m sure you think you’re the Big Man of Web2.0 (ugh), but I’ll go out on a limb and predict that if you keep on acting like an arrogant, unprofessional dickhead (sorry), you’re going to end up just like some of your current objects of scorn… regardless of how deserving they may or may not be.
I have no idea who Ted Murphy is – maybe he drowns kittens for fun in his spare time, for all I know – but twisting his words and deriding him (or anyone else) in public is uncalled for at best and downright unkarmic at worst.
@Dave: It’s that due diligence work/time that actually drove this bit of news. Talk about chairs if you like, just keep talking…
@Michael: I had the same question, but Ted’s a workaholic and knows how to build a productive, happy team — work hard, play hard. If kewl used chairs help make a happy team and they help make happy customers, then it’s a smart move. Don’t get me started on their monster flat panel monitors.
I also noticed a ton of Ikea boxes the first day I met Ted…hey, maybe you two are just soulmates destined to drive controversy that benefits you both…
I agree, Ikea chairs do suck big time. I found some very comfy chairs at Costco though
Shit happens with deals. Maybe it shouldn’t have been announced, but Ted is right, a minor PR problem or piss off the shareholders. I’ll take a minor PR problem any day before I piss my shareholders off. Whatever, I’m all about learning how to buy chairs for my startup. I’m going to start ChairFindR with tagging, google mapping of chair locations, and social networking for chair lovers. Mike you can have first dibs on the story for TechCrunch if you want. Yes, it is late here in Florida.
-JLB
Soon to be CEO of ChairFinder- Chairs 2.0… just kidding.
For those of you completely lost on the chair comments, watch this episode of RockStartup.com, where PayPerPost is chronicling their startup:
http://www.rock.../episode_3.html
The chairs make a cameo at around the 2 minute mark.
I am so in on ChairFinder. I am also in on ItalianSausageFinder if anyone has a line on some cheap yet high quality italian sausage. Does IKEA sell sausage? I know they sell hotdogs.
It’s ChairFindR no -er, cmon, it has to be Web 2.0. Rumor is that Ikea will start selling sausage. Okay, maybe this is going a little bit overboard…
-J
Mike – it seems that you take every and any opportunity to bash Ted and/or PayPerPost and the only thing that you are accomplishing is having people question your credibility.
You really need to lay off.
Oh, and before you start bashing me (the little guy that reads your blog) remember that it is the thousands of people like me that make your blog stats look good everyday which causes advertisers to want to advertise here.
You better deflate the bubble before it pops.
i need to reiterate the value of a good chair. i have a cheap one and my ass hurts all day because of it. if i did have the money, i’d probably spend it on good italian sausage though…
Many of us at AdBrite sit on red exercise balls. They cost $19.95 from the sports store down the street.
Though in the olden days I did sit on an Aeron, and they’re nice too.
Pud
Chairman (har har), AdBrite
I didn’t realize Draper Fisher Jurvetson was in the business of financing comedy. I truly hope that PayPerPost is really a front for a commentary about how nothing was learned in the first bubble.
Ted,
I watched the video.
You are a dick.
I think out of control would be an understatement.
Im still laughing.
Im guessing next week we’ll see ComedyCrunch added to the network.
the roof…. the roof…. the roof is on fire. Does PimpPerPost have a fire extinguisher?
Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that this waste of time is entertainment.
Dick in the Box is entertainment.
1. cut a hole in the box…
you know the rest.
Until watching that video, I thought Ted was the naked guy in bed Michael linked to in an earlier PPP post.
PPP burn rate must be high as sh*t!
The best rockstartup still has gotta be Yelp. Ever been to one of their parties? WTF, they must cost millions of dollars each! $700 chairs aren’t shit when it comes to VC fueled decadence.
This company is SOOOOO doomed.
If I were an investor I would ask for my money back.
Can we add these guys to the deadpool?
I thought “kicking ass” is the last thing you expect of a chair … aren’t they supossed to be comfy?
opps, my chair (also aeron, bought used) just kicked my *ass, hence the typo above …
Mike, what’s with the constant usage of their Christmasified logo? You make them look even sillier than they are.
this is very hilarious…a first on techcrunch
always seemed to me like Performancing should have been the folks criticized. in fact, they were – i’d stumble on blogs and they’d be half-bashing Performancing for selling them down the river. i couldn’t figure out why they didn’t come in for more criticism for that deal. eventually, performancing was probably like “screw it – we tried to screw our users, they didn’t like it – and in the end, if we look like a bunch of dopey amateurs who will sell their users down the river for the right place, then maybe that’s just what happened”.
> This company is SOOOOO doomed.
This company was doomed just by its stupid NAME. the idea is stupid. If they called it PAYOLAperPost it at least would have been more honest. The investors were stupid. The guy running it at least was able to get funding for a totally dumb idea, give him credit for that.