If you’re a bigger company and buy a smaller company and then impose yourself on them, you can lose what that company was all about and what you found attractive in the first place.
Quote from Carolyn Jameson, chief legal officer at Skyscanner, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
Surveying the travel startup landscape, part 4: Exit strategy
Let's assume (wildly, let's face it) that every travel startup that is ever formed will eventually get acquired.
This scenario, alongside a merger or a public listing, is probably one of the most likely set of circumstances that will trigger a change in the culture or operating processes of a business.
Let's not forget that when a startup faces problems, this undoubtedly changes the culture, too, as day-to-day running of a company switches to fire-fighting or winding down the business.
But we're being half-full, rather than half-empty here.
Big Company X will buy Startup Y because of a number of factors - technology, business model, customers, financial success, opportunity, etc, but also because the founders have a vision and have managed to spread that enthusiasm around the team.
Two examples, remarkably from the same part of the industry:
The deal for Skyscanner to sell to Ctrip came just a few years after fellow metasearch engine Kayak was acquired by Booking Holdings.
Both companies operated and behaved outwardly like startups (even if their $1 billion+ exit prices and size belied the term), yet were joining huge and publicly listed companies.
That their respective CEOs, both classic startup founders, remain involved in the companies (Gareth Williams as chairperson, Steve Hafner still as the boss) shows how the acquiring companies paid close attention to maintaining some degree of normality and continuity to the culture of the two, smaller brands.
Sure, things changed, not least from the perspectives of reporting and oversight - but culturally, numerous people privately say that fears of massive and detrimental effects on the businesses didn't materalize.
This, sadly, is not commonplace.
Countless startups that have been acquired by bigger brands have gradually seen their staff and executives leave (and not just due to end of earn-out periods), citing that the culture and processes altered how the company was run and, crucially, why it was enjoyable to work there.
Let's not forget that Big Company X has the right to do what ever the hell it likes, of course - but people and the culture are often the glue that ensures all of other elements of what makes a business successful will stay in place.
Acquirers should never forget that.