I Sold My Company Today

Today, we announced that we were acquired by a wonderful company. And, I have to admit it's with mixed emotions that we sell right now.

 

Today, we announced that we were acquired by a wonderful company called Deluxe Corporation. And, I have to admit it's with mixed emotions that we sell right now. We're on the cusp of a brand new product (coming soon!) and we're geared for greatness all on our own.

So Why Sell?

I've always told our employees, our loyal investors (12 years loyal) and even our customers that one day we'd find the right match with a company that valued us for our ability to:

1. Be experts at what we do with our talented team
2. Acquire and retain small businesses worldwide
3. Be profitable for many years while still being able to invest back into the company to grow

In my opinion, if we found a company that would value us for all of these things, want to acquire us and pay us what we're worth, then all our shareholders would benefit. After all that's where my responsibility lies. (Did I mention it's 100 times harder to take money from your family and friends than from VCs or a bank?)

Over the course of 12 years, we've had many conversations-- and I mean many. Companies big and small, public and private, too many to even think about. And every time we walked away from a conversation, it was because the company didn't value us for our abilities and wouldn't have given our shareholders what they deserve.

But this one was different. It was great; it was time and it was perfect.

So I had to weigh it all, taking care of customers, employees and shareholders. And with a great brand like Deluxe and millions of small business that trust them with services that help their companies grow, it felt like the right thing, at the right time and the right way to take care of everyone.

The Next Chapter

Deluxe shares our long-term vision of being the best destination for small business marketing. This gets them even further and with our acquisition they come closer than ever to completing a pretty cool picture.

Put simply, we got acquired by a company that wants small businesses to save time, money and ultimately work happy and that's a goal we can easily get behind.

And, to my much-loved VerticalResponse employees, this is going to be pretty fun. Now we've got 4 million customers that might just need our services; are you ready? I am! Let's do this!