Instagram's Acquisition Breadcrumbs

Shaan shares a story about how selling a company is different for most founders compared to Instagram's Kevin Systrom.

"Here's Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram. This is the first picture ever posted on Instagram - a picture of a foot and a dog. Today it's this iconic picture of how it all started. And here's Kevin himself, looking great, power pose, got the white sneaks.

If you're Kevin Systrom with a dozen employees, you make a billion dollars and everybody loves you because you've built the hot thing and everybody comes knocking at your door. If you ask Kevin Systrom how to sell your company, he'd say 'Well, you gotta create a sensational product and then people will just come and offer you a billion dollars.'

My experience was very different. We had built a good, not great business. We had built a good but early business and we were trying to sell. If you're reading this or watching this, you are not Instagram. I think my talk will be more applicable to you than what you might hear from the people on the Forbes list because they were in a totally different position of leverage and bargaining power than most people are when they go to sell their business."