Lessons learned from PlanGrid’s $875M acquisition by Autodesk offer valuable insights for founders in mergers and acquisitions.
This article appears to be a guest column by Tracy Young, co-founder and CEO of TigerEye, discussing her company’s experience with integrating PlanGrid into their platform after acquiring it. Here are the main points:
The Challenges of Merging Companies
Tracy emphasizes that merging companies can be a challenging process, both financially and organizationally. The article highlights five key lessons she learned during this process:
- Clear Vision: Having a clear vision is essential for navigating the integration process smoothly.
- Back-office Systems Integration: Integrating back-office systems is crucial to function as one team, but it can be boring and blocking-and-tackling work.
- Product Integration: Unifying engineering teams and products is challenging and requires strong leadership and prioritization of retention.
- Engineering Culture: Defining the engineering culture and uniting the engineering team are essential before starting product integration.
- Turbulent Transition Period: The transition period can be thrashy, but it can be navigated smoothly with clear vision.
Final Thoughts
Tracy concludes by warning founders that selling their company can lead to a painful process of integration. However, she believes that this path may be the best option for the company, customers, and team. In her case, joining another company was necessary to compete in the market and provide a financial outcome for everyone involved.
Overall, the article highlights the importance of clear vision, strong leadership, and prioritization of retention during the integration process.
