Startup Acquisition Stories Acquire.com

Would you sell your business right as it was going viral on social media?

Victor created his AI landing page builder, Sitekick.ai as a way to salvage a previous project – a slide deck builder called Slidekick.

He thought this too would be a flop, but he added AI capability right as ChatGPT kicked off and went viral on YouTube when a vlogger found his website.

In one day he jumped from one email a day to hundreds of emails and 25 sales per day.

But even with virality, making websites wasn’t Victor’s passion. He listed on Acquire.com hoping to get a sale while his app was trending. With the help of the Acquire team (shout out to Matt), he closed in a few short months.

After closing, Viktor took a long vacation, went to the gym, took his wife out to dinner, and now he’s gearing up to make his future passion project.

Tune in to this weeks Startup Acquisition Stories Podcast with Andrew and Victor in to hear:


Victor’s experience with a nightmare buyer
Why Victor suggests you put as much information as possible on your acquire profile
How Acquire’s M&A advisors helped him safely make an acquisition



Victor is just getting started and you can follow his journey using the links below:


⁠x.com
⁠Linkedin

Curious what a professional small startup acquirer cares about when scouting a business to purchase?



There are a growing group of people who make a living out of acquiring growing startups and taking them to new heights. Pascal Levy-Garboua, founder of Noosa Labs is one of these experts.



Pascal started Noosa after 20 years in tech – mostly startups. He sold his first chatbot more than a decade ago and later went on to become an early investor in Notion and other startups in SF.



Pascal thought he wanted to become a venture capitalist, but he missed the thrill of building. He discovered business marketplaces like Acquire.com let him buy an already operational business and take it to the next level and was hooked.



Now Pascal makes a living buying profitable growing startups and flipping them if they stall. He’s already acquired four and is always looking for a new purchase.



Tune into Pascal’s interview with Andrew as they discuss:


Pascal’s perfect acquisition targets on Acquire.com
Why he prefers buying to investing
His favorite startup he’s acquired
The three things he likes all buyers should avoid like the plague




Pascal is just getting started and you can follow his journey through the following links:



https://x.com/2pasc

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascallevygarboua/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/noosa-labs/

What are the three biggest mistakes SME buyers make when choosing an M&A lawyer?



M&A professional Eric Pacifici says new buyers often pick lawyers who:


Aren’t entrepreneurial
Bill hourly rather than flat rate
Don’t have M&A experience



After years of cementing billion-dollar deals at Kirkland & Ellis (the largest firm in the world by revenue), Eric decided he liked smaller deals better. He decided to jump into the world of small business acquisitions.



Eric is well-known on the internet for his Twitter account (@smb_attorney) and for coining the term “silver tsunami” i.e.the coming wealth transfer between baby boomers and their offspring. He realized a few years ago that many of these boomers’ small businesses would be put up for sale in the coming years.



To confront this coming wave of small acquisitions, Eric teamed up with a team of fellow lawyers from large firms with a passion for smaller deals to create SMB Law Group. 



SMB Law today specializes specifically in entrepreneurship-by-acquisition deals. Those are deals where aspiring entrepreneurs get a running start by purchasing a fully functioning business.



Business has been heating up. The firm did $950 million in closings just last year. Eric and SMB Law are fast becoming the go-to lawyers for people trying to buy small and medium-sized businesses in the US.



This week, Eric hopped on the SASP with Andrew Gazdecki to discuss:


Where Eric thinks most deals go wrong
Why you need a good lawyer when buying a business for $1 million+
Andrew’s lawyer billing horror story



Eric is just getting started and you can contact and follow him below:


Eric@smblaw.group
@smb_attorney (Twitter)
LinkedIn

Here’s a fun stat for you, the homeowner association (HOA) industry in the US alone was worth $38.8 billion in 2023.



Hussein Reda tapped into some of that value during the Covid lockdowns when he created his startup, Propty, to help HOA meetings run meetings and vote remotely.



Pre-Covid, Hussein had just purchased his first property in an apartment building. He learned a lot of maintenance was done through HOAS, aka, groups that manage properties in specific buildings/neighborhoods.



Once Covid hit, everyone was trapped inside and began attending HOA meetings since now they had lots of time to think about their homes. Hussein saw an opportunity, created Propty, and used his HOA as his first free test customer.



Propty went through two years of ups and downs including embarrassing meetings with 500+ members where not everyone could connect. Everything was made more complicated by the fact that HOA meetings only happened once a year.



However, after persistent effort, Hussein secured his first paying customers by mid-2023.



Finally, Hussein sold Propty on Acquire.com in 2024 when he realized he didn’t know how to scale any further. Now he’s working on a project with blockchain technology to facilitate payments for underbanked countries.



Tune into this week’s SASP as Andrew and Husseing discuss:


The hidden gem of the HOA industry
Why boring businesses are the best money-makers
Why Hussein thinks Acquire.com sales beat other online sales forums



Hussien is just getting started and you can follow his journey below:


https://www.linkedin.com/in/hussein-reda/



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► https://www.linkedin.com/in/hussein-reda/⁠



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► https://www.linkedin.com/in/agazdecki/​

► https://acquire.com



Follow Acquire.com -

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About Acquire.com:



Acquire.com is the largest and most active acquisition marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. Acquire.com is the highest rated platform for both ease and quickness to match buyers and sellers. 



We cater to all types of online, revenue-generating businesses while producing the highest success rates for SaaS and eCommerce/DTC businesses in the M&A industry. Join over 350,000 entrepreneurs making life-changing connections and deals everyday.

What’s the trick to buying offshore businesses as a US buyer?



Bryan Digiorgio of 1840 & Company says buyers need to understanding two things:


It requires a lot of documents and processes
You need to get started with them as soon as possible because they’re sequential



Bryan’s had a bit of experience on this topic, his main business today is setting up remote teams for other businesses in other countries. In the past, he worked as the global head of customer service for Sprint and built the direct precursors to Microsoft Teams.



After previously buying a business on Acquire.com two years ago, Byan returned this year to buy a blockchain-based business, Swearit, from a group of founders in Spain. In the process, he got to experience Acquire’s new buyer advisory service. They helped him successfully transact with a seller who didn’t speak the same language.



Listen to a special buy-side advice section as Bryan and Andrew discuss:


How Bryan looks for promising business to buy on Acquire.com
Why foreign businesses can be much more profitable in the US
The number one trait for sellers on Acquire.com that attracts buyers



Bryan has been doing entrepreneurship and M&A for a little while now. Follow his journey using the links below:


https://www.linkedin.com/in/digiorgio/


https://x.com/1840andCompany

Selling your business to a buyer in the same country is tough. Imagine doing it across international borders.



Miguel Diaz spent three years building Swearit, a blockchain-based authenticity verification platform. However, he realized that it could scale better in the hands of another founder so he looked for a place to sell.



In Miguel’s opinion, most other startup marketplaces were too broad. You could sell anything from tech businesses to hotels. It was hard to say what buyers or valuations he could expect.



When the team stumbled on Acquire.com, they were intrigued because it specialized in SaaS M&A. There was only one problem – none of them could speak much English.



Still, Miguel and his team listed their business and were surprised to learn that two Acquire team members were fluent in Spanish. 



Miguel received direct help in Spanish from Acquire’s president, Rosa Romaine and legal counsel, James Graves. With Acquire’s help, Miguel managed to obtain his dream exit within months.



Post transaction, Miguel jumped on the podcast with Rosa and James to talk about his acquisition. Tune in to hear:




How EU regulations are changing to monitor food quality
Some of the cultural differences he encountered during M&A
His favorite parts of the seller experience on Acquire.com



Miguel is just getting started. Follow his journey with the links below:


https://www.linkedin.com/in/miguel-d/
https://x.com/migueldiazes