MailChimp's Acquisition: Employee Perspectives and Startup Realities

In Episode 568, Rob Walling talks about MailChimp selling for $12 billion to Intuit, the largest exit for a bootstrap company, ever. Not that all founders aspire to grow to this scale, but it's truly an incredible day for bootstrapped founders to know that we have the potential to get to this level without raising institutional funding.

The topics we cover

[1:41] $800 million in ARR without outside funding

[4:14] Acquisition multiple

[7:42] Everyone sells, eventually

[9:31] Respect for MailChimp

[11:49] Disappointed with the UX

[13:21] Equity vs higher salaries and bonuses

[18:00] Long term outlook for existing Mailchimp customers

[21:21] Never say you're never going to sell

[21:42] Being an email service provider today is hard

Links from the show

• Episode 519 | Profit Sharing, Stock Options, and Equity (A Rob Solo Adventure)
• Rob Walling (@robwalling) | Twitter

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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