We raised $4.8M for Macro from Tier 1 VCs and still had more than $3M in the bank when we were acquired.

Lots of people have asked why we sold.

Here's the answer: As @rjkeck2 always says, you only need
2 or 3 great engineers to build an MVP of almost anything.

The first challenge is figuring out *what* to build.

We spent the first ~ year of our existence doing quick experiments that resulted in several pivots.

Months of due diligence can kill your startup acquisition (or at least be super anxiety inducing).

We used a unique structure to close our deal in 5 weeks: At the start of our negotiation, @plibin said:

"most early acquisitions at this stage don't end up making sense.

they cost more effort than the value they end up creating, if any"

One of my biggest regrets from our company's acquisition process?

How we communicated with investors.

Here's what went wrong and what I wish we would have done: When you make a decision to take venture capital funding, both you and your investors are aligned in one clear goal:

Make this company as BIG as possible.

Jeff Bezos's new superyacht - the one they're dismantling the Rotterdam bridge for - reportedly cost $500M

But it really cost him $0.

In fact, it may even make him money.
Here's how he did it: Being the world's richest man at ~$180B, a $500m yacht purchase is no sweat.

But a lot of his $$$ is tied up in Amazon stock. He could sell it to pay for the boat, but why would he?

Amazon stock keeps going up, so instead, he borrowed against it.

There's not a lot of info out there for startup founders considering an early exit.

Here are the 4 ways we evaluated our acquisition offers before taking one: Most company acquisitions that make the headlines are teams that have been building for 5-7 years+, getting acquired for hundreds of millions $ (if not billions)

But there's a whole bunch of m&a activity happening that flies under the radar.

Today’s the day we finally get to share that @withmacro has been acquired by @mmhmmapp!!

This was @rjkeck and I’s first company, almost 3 years in the making.

To our team, investors, family, and friends - this wouldn’t have been possible without you.
techcrunch.com/2021/11/19/mmh… The company is the people.

Our team members took a monumental risk joining an early stage startup led by people who’ve never run a company before. And @rjkeck and I were still in school for the first ~1.5 years of the company’s life.

Thank you for taking the bet on us.

Today’s a special day.

In the last 8 months I’ve written 16 threads about legendary meetings and went from 300 to 17,000+ followers.

Here’s why meetings matter so much to me and what makes today so important 🧶👇 1) @rjkeck2 and I met 2.5 years ago and quickly bonded over our similar paths - leaving our mechanical engineering degrees behind to work in early stage software tech startups.

We knew we wanted to build something together, but didn’t have something specific in mind yet.

In 1998, an engineer invented a groundbreaking technology that changed media forever.

After an exec meeting, he decided to make it available to anyone - even his competitors.

Now he’s worth ~$9B, and even The Mandalorian uses his tech.

Here’s how that meeting went 🧶👇 1) While studying mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, Tim Sweeney would regularly visit his parents who lived nearby a nearby city - Potomac.

As his first foray into entrepreneurship, Tim started Potomac Computer Systems in 1991.

We’ve all seen the headlines that Afterpay was bought by Square yesterday.

Here's how one meeting convinced its founder, Nick Molnar, to start the journey of a lifetime.

Selling jewelry > Afterpay > $29B acquisition 🧶👇

**you won’t find this in the financials or wikipedia ;) 1) Australian Nick Molnar was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug right from the get-go.

“I was always trying to come up with a way to trade my next product and make a dollar”

No one thought it was a good idea.

The founder quit and the company was bankrupt.

But after one dinner meeting, Caryn Becker decided to go all in on this crumbling business.

Just last month, she took the company public at $5.8B

Here's how that meeting went 🧶👇 1) Clear was started in 2003 as a response to the need for passenger identification after 9/11.

TSA had just recently been formed and were struggling to catch-up with the demands of the modern day.

Their strategy? Public and private partnerships. That’s where Clear came in.

If you failed at something 8 times, would you try a 9th?

One last failed pitch meeting left this young engineer with no other choice but to go out on his own.

Today, he’s one of the world’s most recognizable and successful CEOs.

Here’s how that meeting went🧶👇 1) Eric Yuan’s first experience with entrepreneurship came in the form of burning down his neighbors house...

In 4th grade, he began collecting construction to sell traces of copper for cash.

“Serendipity matters a lot in success”

An innocent catch-up with a former coworker led to a young engineer quitting his job to follow his passion.

Over the last year his company’s stock price grew 78%+, and now he's a billionaire.

Here’s what happened in that meeting 🧶👇 1) As graduation quickly approached in the spring of 1984, Jen-Hsun “Jensen” Huang walked around Oregon State University’s career fair in search of a job.

Ever the tinkerer, he was single-mindedly obsessed with finding a company that would enable him to build something awesome.

Imagine trying to compete with YouTube and Netflix at the same time.

That's what Anjali Sud faced when she joined Vimeo 6 years ago.

She quickly felt their strategy was wrong, and brought it up in a meeting.

Today, as CEO, she took Vimeo public.

Here's what happened 🧵👇 1) 12 years after the company's founding, Anjali Sud joined Vimeo as Director of Marketing.

Vimeo was on a mission to create a higher quality alternative to YouTube.

Bill Gates first met Melinda French in a work meeting at Microsoft.

One of the first things Melinda said to Bill: "You're not spontaneous enough for me"

Here's what happened in that meeting 🧶👇 1) Melinda French joined Microsoft as a Product Manager in 1987, twelve years after Bill founded the company.

Three weeks after she started, Melinda traveled to New York for a work meeting.

On October 5, 2015, Jack Dorsey had a meeting that would go on to become infamous.

Immediately after, many called for his resignation as CEO.

Here’s what went down in that meeting 🧶👇 1/ Jack Dorsey almost never became tech founder. He was entirely obsessed with a different world.

Fashion design.

In a do-or-die meeting to discuss his failing video game, a young founder decided to scrap almost everything he’d been working on and try something new.

Yesterday, news broke that big tech co's are now trying to buy his company for $10B+

Here’s what happened in that meeting🧶👇 1) Jason Citron learned to code solely because he wanted to make video games. From a young age, he was obsessed.

“I was playing a lot of Warcraft online, dabbled in MMOs a little bit, Everquest”

After following his girlfriend to Canada, a young snowboarding enthusiast was ready to start his life anew.

One final meeting with a potential employer took an unexpected turn…

Fast forward to today - he’s created a net worth of $10B.

Here’s what happened in that meeting 🧶👇 1) Tobi Lutke grew up in the small German town of Koblenz.

School was not Tobi’s strong suit.

He struggled with Dyslexia and ADHD.

Though he tried and tried, he found no support from the education system, and would often retreat to his room to be alone with his computer.

A young CEO rushed into his board meeting.

As he excitedly began explaining a new product feature, a board member pretended to fall asleep.

Mortified, he made a key decision right then and there. Microsoft later bought his company for ~$150M

Here’s how that meeting went 🧶👇 1) In 2005, an 18 year old Christian Reber moved to Berlin with no plans to start a company, but ended up doing exactly just that.

YouTube had just started gaining popularity, but Christian couldn’t help feeling that it was missing something.

In the 1970s, a young engineer met with the creator of one of the most iconic video games of all time.

Their conversation inspired the engineer to invent a technology that revolutionized video gaming into the $200B industry it is today.

Here’s what happened in that meeting 🧶👇 1) Jerry Lawson was born and raised in Queens, NY. From a young age, his parents supported his early interest in science.

Jerry started repairing TVs and used his earnings to get a ham radio license and build his own radio station, all before high school.

After battling an exhausting personal lawsuit, she was on the brink of giving up.

But one meeting with an elusive Russian tech mogul reignited her spirit.

Yesterday, she became the youngest woman to take a company public, and a billionaire.

Here’s how that meeting went 🧶👇 1) In June 2014, Whitney Wofle Herd found herself in the middle of the toughest professional and personal challenge she’d ever faced.

She was suing the company she co-founded, Tinder, for sexual harassment.

In 2003, Jeff Bezos invited his former chief-of-staff to a corporate retreat at his home.

One 30min meeting on the schedule ended up going on for hours...

That former chief-of-staff is now worth $400M. Oh, and he’s Amazon's new CEO.

Here’s what happened in that meeting 🧶👇 1) Andy Jassy joined Amazon just before the dot-com boom and became Jeff Bezos’ “shadow.”

He literally followed Bezos around everywhere he went, taking notes in all his meetings and learning directly from the boss himself.