June 18, 2026
What if your platform specialization gets acquired?
On today’s Ditcherville LIVE session, I was asked:
What smart bets can I start to place when the platform I specialize in gets acquired?
The context was that a huge tech company had announced they were acquiring the platform this person specializes in.
The acquisition might turn out fine.
Or it might not.
Either way, they wanted to have a contingency plan ready.
Here’s what I recommended as a first step:
- Reach out to current and past clients
- Set up a quick chat with each to discuss the acquisition
- Ask what they are worried about, if anything
- Listen for patterns in their replies
- Create some experimental content that addresses their most common concerns
- If one of the experiments gets some traction, double down in that direction
But let’s zoom out to platform specializations in general...
Your chosen platform can get acquired, shut down, bloated, folded into something else, or turned into a product your clients no longer want to use.
It happens all the time.
So if you have a platform specialization, it is smart to keep your head up.
- Stay curious about adjacent technologies.
- Explore technologies that the platform plugs into.
- Notice where your clients are trying to extend the platform or work around its limitations.
- Pay attention announcements from the platform leadership (and chatter from their employees)
Doing so will:
- Give you more warning if/when the platform starts to feel shaky, and
- Give you a better idea of what you could potentially pivot to in a pinch.
Hope that helps!
BTW - This is the kind of question that comes up every two weeks in Ditcherville LIVE, my group Q&A session for independent consultants who are done trading time for money.
If you’ve got questions like this rattling around in your head, come get them answered:
Hope to see you inside!
Yours,
—J