First off: I’m a massive believer in growing one’s own ideas and it would thus be a very hard decision for me to ever even consider selling one of my companies. We had concrete interest in WooThemes in the past for example, but to this day we have decided that we’d rather continue to grow our own baby, instead of selling.
This article on TechCrunch goes on to explain why FourSquare should not be selling out to Yahoo. I however have an unique take on this…
I will always be an entrepreneur at hard and even at silly valuations, I will be reluctant to sell any business I’m currently involved with or may be involved with going forward. Reality however is that even entrepreneurs need to be realistic at times; so selling your startup should always be an option.
Having that as an option, doesn’t mean you are selling out, but it does mean you are considering every possibility and every opportunity. In my mind, that is more entrepreneurial than just ignoring a possible sale because you are afraid of selling out.