Beboe Courthouse Auction Victory
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A story about how Shaan participated in a high-stakes courthouse auction to buy back the Beboe brand against Match.com and IAC.
"Michael tells me we have an opportunity to buy Beboe back. We go to a courthouse with our lawyer and COO. The judge asks if there are multiple parties here to buy it out of bankruptcy, and two other groups raise their hand. We go to this tiny room where one person from each team sits at the table - us, Match.com, and IAC.
The bidding starts at $100,000 and goes up by $50,000 increments up to $500,000, then becomes free form after that. At $700,000, one guy drops out. At $750,000, Match.com calls timeout to make a phone call to their boss. I try to eavesdrop but they stop talking when I walk by.
I tell the auctioneer no more timeouts. The bidding continues: 800, 850, 900, 950. We decide to act like we have an infinite bankroll so they feel they can't win. At a million, our representative makes a great move - instead of saying $1 million, she goes "$1,025,000" to throw them off. They immediately fold, confirming their max was $1 million.
We won the auction and got Beboe back. It was like the most high-stakes hand of poker I've ever been involved in."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.