There's an adage among investors: you don't want to sell a company, you want to be bought.

Patrick Keane, Sharethrough's president, has helped a few startups get acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars, including Associated Content which sold to Yahoo for $100 million and Bleacher Report which sold to Turner for $213 million.

Here's what Keane says happens behind the scenes of an acquisition, how big companies and startups get acquisition talks rolling and why acquisitions may not be the only option for today's digital media startups.


Edited by Justin Gmoser