Dear SaaStr: What Should Founders Do To Get Noticed By An Established Company’s M&A Team?

Dear SaaStr: What Should Founders Do To Get Noticed By An Established Company’s M&A Team?

Don’t bother too much with trying to get “corporate development” or the M&A team’s attention.  That’s not their job.

Probably the most important thing to understand is that in 95%+ of tech companies, the “M&A team” does not drive M&A.

Instead, they implement it.

M&A is usually driven by either the CEO, for game-changing acquisitions, or a functional SVP, to accelerate something in her functional area.

So if you want to get bought, don’t waste too much time with corporate development. Take the meetings, be polite, but don’t expect much.

In fact, basically every acquisition requires the M&A/corp dev team to have a “business sponsor” who is driving the deal. Even almost every corporate investment.  A great SaaStr Workshop Wednesday convo on how that worked at Google for example here:

So instead, build relationships with the CEOs and relevant SVPs at the BigCos that are relevant to what you are doing.

They are the ones that will step up, if the time and place are right.

Then the corp dev department will … execute.  Not make the decision.

Having said, there is still value in building relationships with Corp Dev.  They will often give you the insider scoop on how a BigCo is thinking about M&A.  They just aren’t the ones making the decisions.