Matt, first of all, thanks to you and your team for posting in the comments on sites like HN, TechCrunch, and all the other sites where the news is starting to hit the tech community. I know it can't be easy to read so many critical comments against a company that I am sure has been a great place for you to work at.
However, I think trying to spin things as "everything at (mt) will be the same... only better" is a bit of a disservice to the tech community you are trying to reach out to, which is inherently more savvy about the reasoning and justification behind the acquisition itself.
In short: No company ever sets out to acquire another company to just keep things the same.
I do not doubt that in the short term, not much will change. But starting within the next year or so, there is no doubt in anyone's minds that the combined leadership team of GD and (mt) will begin to capitalize on business, product and technological "synergies" to help increase the bottom line.
That's not a knock against you, GD, (mt) or anyone. That's just business.
But what does that mean for all of your existing (mt) customers?
GoDaddy's modus operandi of profit maximization through questionable-at-best marketing practices, minimizing costs in customer and technical support, and taking any short cuts possible even at the detriment of the customer, does appear completely at odds with the high value of support and refined products that (mt) had prided itself over the years.
So the $400M question (or however much the acquisition was for) is: can these vastly different approaches of your business models be reconciled at all? Or will one way end up "winning out" over the other way? And if it's the latter, who will end up "winning out"... the GoDaddy way, or the (mt) way?
I do apologize if I come up to some of my own conclusions ahead of time, but I hope you guys can prove me wrong. But as I am now an outsider looking in, it ultimately won't make too much of a difference to me -- I actually have been in the process (and am nearly complete) in moving all of my clients off of GoDaddy to AWS (for completely unrelated reasons, mostly dealing with pricing).
But as someone who had been a customer for over 8 years and as someone who had been an advocate for (mt), I couldn't help from having the feeling of "whew, I just dodged a bullet" after hearing this news.
Good question. Some things I will have answers for, others I'm not 100% on. I'll go point by point.
1. The spin isn't really intended. GoDaddy is a huge fan of our services, and they intend to keep it independent so that our team can improve on what we currently have. We'll also be able to hire better people (not putting our team down), but it's always been the motto here to hire people that are smarter than us.
2. Existing customers- nothing is changing. Seriously. Prices aren't going up, control panel isn't changing, and we're not going to be emailing you every day.
3. Our team said yes to this merger because they like the direction their new team is taking. If we can inject some of our flair into what they are doing, even better. In the end though, you aren't going to see a combination of the logos.
4. "winning out" - If i could predict the future, I'd be traveling the world comfortably right now. :) I've been here for three years now, and I trust that things aren't going in that direction.
I appreciate the concern, and we're impressed that so many people care (even if sentiment sways negatively). We're not here to ride our horses into the sunset with bags of money draped to our saddles, we're here to compete in the hosting space. We have always been known for our stellar service, and we are ready to be known for a stellar product.
However, I think trying to spin things as "everything at (mt) will be the same... only better" is a bit of a disservice to the tech community you are trying to reach out to, which is inherently more savvy about the reasoning and justification behind the acquisition itself.
In short: No company ever sets out to acquire another company to just keep things the same.
I do not doubt that in the short term, not much will change. But starting within the next year or so, there is no doubt in anyone's minds that the combined leadership team of GD and (mt) will begin to capitalize on business, product and technological "synergies" to help increase the bottom line.
That's not a knock against you, GD, (mt) or anyone. That's just business.
But what does that mean for all of your existing (mt) customers?
GoDaddy's modus operandi of profit maximization through questionable-at-best marketing practices, minimizing costs in customer and technical support, and taking any short cuts possible even at the detriment of the customer, does appear completely at odds with the high value of support and refined products that (mt) had prided itself over the years.
So the $400M question (or however much the acquisition was for) is: can these vastly different approaches of your business models be reconciled at all? Or will one way end up "winning out" over the other way? And if it's the latter, who will end up "winning out"... the GoDaddy way, or the (mt) way?
I do apologize if I come up to some of my own conclusions ahead of time, but I hope you guys can prove me wrong. But as I am now an outsider looking in, it ultimately won't make too much of a difference to me -- I actually have been in the process (and am nearly complete) in moving all of my clients off of GoDaddy to AWS (for completely unrelated reasons, mostly dealing with pricing).
But as someone who had been a customer for over 8 years and as someone who had been an advocate for (mt), I couldn't help from having the feeling of "whew, I just dodged a bullet" after hearing this news.