It sounds like you can be an amazing developer evangelist.A lot of technical startups (like mine :) ) are looking for someone with your skill set - writing technical blogs, demos, speaking at conferences, meeting with customers, etc.
A company can be bought for anything really, if it makes sense.
As shubb points out, if it's cheaper to buy a company than to deal with licensing or legal problems, then it might be bought. Same if the overhead of dealing with a company as an external entity is too high compared to buying it outright and forcing it to come in-house (if the product or service isn't of any need after some time, the employees can still be shuffled in the org afterward)
Ugh, maybe i'm the only one that hates this but if I have to spend time/effort just to get a price for something it's already off the table as a choice.
This makes it seem like it's either too high priced and you know it or the pricing scheme is too complicated and should be simplified.
It's just that as a young startup, it's very important for us to learn about our customers. At this stage, it might be beneficial for us to offer you a fantastic deal if we think we there is much to gain by the partnership. Also, learning about the problems our customers face is more important to us than sheer sales volume at this stage. That's why we want you to talk to us. But we're sorry for the inconvenience.
I work freelance. When someone wants a price from me, they want a number. It might not be the number they want to hear. It might not be an accurate number. A lot of the time, it won't be the actual number used, and it will probably not have any relation to the final invoice. There are an infinity of reasons why you might not give someone a number when they ask for a price, and they're all irrelevant.
It's okay to qualify the number. "Ten million dollars, but order now and..."
If you'll note, your customer just said the same thing I did. Listen to him.
