Did you see the TechCrunch coverage?

For those that didn't see it, it's on our news page, here. In summary: no, we had never spoken to that individual before. Yes, all three of the owners of FunAdvice have sold companies before...note, each of us have been involved in the actual sale of multiple businesses that we co-founded. One of those, for me & my wife, was with Ericson (he posts here sometimes, too, and he's an incredible guy).

Fact: if you look up anything about me (Jeremy, aka, thedude, also the public face of the company) you'll note I'm extremely opinionated and prone to rash decisions...my blog is full of them, it's why I have a personal blog, rather than ranting about stuff that's not related to FunAdvice here.

The only time I think it's acceptable to send somebody that kind of email is when you have incredible due diligence to back it up and you include both a confidentiality notice as well as some notion of diffidence...a company like ours is incredibly precious, you don't do what we have done (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, multiple TV mentions, dozens of radio stations) without caring a great deal.

You also don't launch a non profit program that ads zero dollars in value (in face, could easily be argued it costs us money to run)...you do it because you care.

When you raise money to build a business, that's perfectly fine. However it does not mean that you care. In fact, you could be an excellent business person and heartless. That's not what our company is about.

I have a ton of respect for Google. As a former employee (and contractor) of Yahoo, I have a lot less respect for them. Why? It boils down to the mission of the company. You can't have "do no evil" as a famous part of your mission statement, fund an organization to improve alternative energy and environmental projects with billion dollars of your profit without caring, at least a little. By contrast, Yahoo simply doesn't seem to care as much. That's fine and perfectly acceptable...however, I bring this up because I don't want to have an "acceptable" company. Nor just a highly successful one.

The goal with FunAdvice is to make a profound, lasting and positive impact on the world while we also build an economic engine that will support ourselves, our families and our employees. These two goals are not mutually exclusive, however, to obtain success means that we *must* do both, not just one.

Any potential acquirer (we're not for sale, btw) will have to both understand, accept and embrace these ideas for there to be any synergy at all. Few companies that come to mind have these same ideals...

...however, we are in business. If you happen to have $20 million in cash & can get a deal done, let's talk ;) I'll start a non profit with a slice of my share of the sale.