This is part 1 of a 3-part series about the challenges support teams might face during an acquisition. The link to Part 2: The Bad Stuff is at the bottom of this post.
It seems every week another acquisition is announced here in the tech industry*. And while the initial reaction is all dollar signs and high fives from the outside, when the confetti settles there is a lot that goes on that is hidden from the public eye and unclear even to the people that should be closest to the impending changes.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to virtually meet someone who had been my counterpart at CrowdStrike when my former company, Humio, was acquired by them . He and I got to talking about how strange it was that we’d oddly never met despite both needing critical information from each other during those confusing first weeks and months.
That conversation led to a larger thread on the Support Driven Slack, and last week I gathered a group of customer support friends new and old on a Zoom call to discuss our experiences, cheers, jeers, tips, frustrations, and questions related to companies either acquiring or being acquired.
Here is some of what was shared:
The Cheers
Successful startup exits happen one of two ways: either you go public on the stock market or you are acquired by another company. This is the goal for nearly all startups that take money from venture capital. So, from the perspective of a startup employee or founder, when an acquisition is announced, it can feel like your work is done and now it is time to collect your reward.
As one person noted on the call, “When an acquisition happens, someone out there is having a very good day.”
However, in a great many cases, those who are due some winnings can collect little to no reward until the paperwork is all signed and you are dealt with by the new company. If the new company decides to keep you on board, you are usually going to be migrated to a new vesting schedule and given four years after which you might collect on all that is coming to you. In the meantime, there is often a lot of work to be done and a lot of new people to meet to start the busywork of integrating your company and your team into the new company, and bringing your customers along for the ride.
“”When an acquisition happens, someone out there is having a very good day.”
On the acquiring company side, acquisitions often bring a lot of uncertainty. You might wonder about the company, why they were acquired, and what their addition will mean for you and your job. In some cases, you might even wonder if you will still have a job or if it has been handed over to someone else as part of the terms of the agreement. Once that is sorted, you are still usually tasked with something related to either welcoming, onboarding, and or integrating people from the newly acquired company.
That said, there can be a lot of immediate benefits to being acquired. Here are a few that were mentioned.
Structure
A lot of times in startups, we are flying by the seat of our pants trying to attract customers and then bending over backwards to keep those customers around. People often have to take on many roles (“wear many hats” is what we often say) and hours can be long and chaotic to keep up. Oftentimes when your company is acquired by a larger company you can take off many of those proverbial hats and lean into your true area of focus.
One participant spoke to being able to hand off her recruiting and hiring responsibilities to an army of competent HR professionals. Another spoke about having an in-house legal team so the CS team no longer had to be such a critical stakeholder in the conversation about terms in customer contracts.
Professional Development
Startups can be a great place to hone your skills and climb the ranks much quicker than in a large corporation, but that expertise is often more of a function of grit and determination than actual training and professional development. However, once your startup is acquired you will often be able to avail yourself of many resources to help you grow as an IC or a manager. A participant in the session mentioned being afforded a professional coach when her company was acquired, and another spoke to gaining access to a system with useful online modules. Participants also spoke of peers who were opened up to a wider world of job opportunities once they were in a larger company
In addition, corporations often have clearer salary bands and professional ladders that can help you as you discuss what it will take to get you (or the people that report to you!) to a higher level and/or a higher salary. When the acquisition introduces a new functional area that the acquiring company did not have in-house, this provides an opportunity for the acquirer to investigate how it will work at the company and work with subject-matter experts to set standards and pay bands that will work. .
In one case, an acquisition resulted in a community management function that no longer existed. The “acquired” head of community was able to talk the HR team through how this functional area worked, while the HRBP was able to access systems that would provide them with baseline salary numbers across a myriad of geographical areas.
New Energy
When working at a large corporation, it can be easy to get stuck in a rut. The days are more predictable and your remit (as mentioned above) is often fairly narrow. The project of integrating a new company can bring a much needed energy shift and burst of ideas and innovation.
During the discussion, someone mentioned that they thought that the acquiring company would have “all the best ideas” and that the people from the startup would just have to “do it the new way”; however they were pleasantly surprised at how receptive their new colleagues were to what they brought to the table. “Even though they were way bigger than us; there was a lot that still hadn’t figured out about how to do support at scale. So we were able to share what we were doing and help them think through the problems in a new way.”
Wanna know more about how support teams fare in acquisitions? Click here to read Part 2: The Bad Stuff.
* Non-exhaustive list of new acquisitions
Camille E. Acey 
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