Startup Acquisition Stories

Acquire.com
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Startup Acquisition Stories

Get the inside look at how startup founders and entrepreneurs used Acquire.com (formerly MicroAcquire) to sell their startup or buy an online business. Learn tips on how to vet sellers/buyers, justify valuations, negotiate terms, handle due diligence, asset transfers, escrow, post-acquisition support, and more!

  1. FEB 12

    How Gabby Rosen Flipped a Newsletter for 18x in Under a Year

    What does it take to sell a startup for almost 20 times what you paid for it?Gabriella (Gabby) Rosen says it comes down to three things:Having an unfair advantage when you buyListing on Acquire.com for slightly less than it’s worth when you sellUnderselling the product in the listing when you sellGabby originally acquired her newsletter Nomad Cloud while working as a partner at an email outreach startup called EOC. When she spotted the digital nomad newsletter on Acquire.com, she knew it was a perfect fit for her expertise.Using EOC’s tools for highly-targeted email outreach, Gabby and her business partners at EOC turned thousands of keyword searchers into active readers of Nomad Cloud. They also systemized content creation with the help of an assistant and ChatGPT. Soon it was bringing in thousands of dollars a month.But her email startup was growing quickly too. Enough that Gabby couldn’t justify splitting her time between two businesses. She moved to sell Nomad Cloud on Acquire.com. With the help of Acquire’s acquisition manager Robbie, she flipped the business for 18 times what she paid for it.Tune into Gabriella Rosen’s chat with Andrew Gazdecki as they discuss:🚀 Gabby’s thoughts on how to flip startups on Acquire.com.📩 Why newsletters are underrated assets for acquisition.💡 The systems Gabby used to bring in buyers willing to pay twice her asking price.

    16 min

  2. FEB 4

    Kamil Almost Went Broke Growing His AI Startup – An Acquisition Saved It

    Have you ever fantasized about quitting your job and living off savings until you built a successful business or ran out of cash? SaaS builder Kamil Zowczac nearly accomplished both at the same time. While living in Bali off the money he’d earned as a project manager at a startup, Kamil taught himself to code and built a fast AI reel-video creation app called Copycopter. Marketing his product was slow at first. Kamil started offering a free subscription and then mysteriously went viral among Chinese Tiktok (Douyin) users after posting about it on Twitter. After installing a paywall and successfully launching on Product Hunt, he began to make a bit of money, but it was all too little too late. He’d spent too much time building his product and not enough time marketing it and was out of money. He needed an exit, fast. After posting about his dilemma on Twitter, Acquire.com’s CEO, Andrew Gazdecki, helped Kamil list his business for free. After a few difficult negotiations with buyers and one deal that fell through, Kamil encountered his dream buyer. Within 24 hours, he’d finished all the deal paperwork and completed the sale of Copycopter. Now Kamil is back to building businesses in Bali living comfortably off his acquisition and resting easier knowing if he needs an exit, serious buyers are only a few clicks away. Listen to Kamil’s interview with Andrew post-acquisition as they discuss: Kamil’s tech recommendations for anyone wanting to get into AI video editing. The unfair marketing trick that applications like Copycopter can pull off better than any other SaaS. Andrew’s top piece of advice for sellers who don’t want to get locked into negotiations with an unserious buyer. Kamil is just getting started and you can follow his journey below: Twitter: @ky__zo

    23 min

  3. JAN 29

    How to Prime Your Business For a Seamless Acquisition with Sukhpal Saini

    Founder Sukhpal Saini thinks you should consider offering lifetime subscriptions (at least for a time). He knows because he built a Shopify interface for Stripe that just couldn’t hold down recurring customers. Called Reetail, Sukhpal operated the application for two years and got consistent users. The problem was they all were selling products in relatively low volumes. It was hard for them to justify subscribing to his platform. As Sukhpal’s other side business, Engyne began to grow, he also had less and less time to dedicate to Reetail. Feeling like he’d given all he could to the product, he decided to sell in the best place he knew: Acquire.com. Sukhpal says his experience on Acquire.com was extremely straightforward. His buyer offered him the exact price he was looking for and paid all in cash.  Post-acquisition, Sukhpal shared how he got his sale to go off without a hitch, including: Creating multiple accounts for all his paid software, to facilitate an easy handoff Creating a clear list of why buyers should be interested in your product Setting aside a transition period to over all elements of your business with the buyer The tradeoffs of lifetime vs. subscription-based business models The advantages of including a “Risks and Limitations” component in your listing. Tune in by clicking the image above! Sukhpal is just getting started and you can find follow his journey below: Engyne (his new project) LinkedIn

    20 min

  4. JAN 3

    Want to Build an Agency Worth Buying? Spend a Decade Saying Yes

    While working full-time as a pharmaceutical sales rep, Bobby Dimovski noticed that medical professionals were: Always looking for new ways to grow their business. Usually 10 years behind on marketing trends. Hard to access (unless you were a pharmaceutical sales rep). Armed with this information and wanting to save for his kids’ college fund, Bobby founded a healthcare-industry marketing agency, 4MJ Social, in 2014.  He started by upselling his medical clients on marketing services like SEO and Facebook business profiles. Over 14 years, he expanded into a multi-client, full-service healthcare marketing agency doing web design, PPC, social media, and everything in between. Then a family member began suffering health issues. Bobby couldn’t put in the time to keep the business going. Rather than diminish his salary by hiring new management, Bobby wanted to unlock some extra cash from his decade-plus of work so he could take an extended break without worrying about money. Acquire.com had everything Bobby needed to find the right buyer for his business. Working with Acquisition Manager Ky Pratt, Bobby sourced the perfect buyer who understood his business and was willing to carry on his vision. The deal nearly fell apart when the financier pulled out, but Ky managed to keep all parties working together, and within a week, everyone was happy.  Tune in to this episode of Startup Acquisition Stories Podcast to hear Andrew and Bobby discuss: Why Bobby spent four years pursuing one of his largest clients (and what it took to land the deal). Why Bobby thinks all founders should ponder their seller financing limits before acquisition. Why always being completely transparent about your business attracts the best buyers. Bobby is just getting started and you can follow his journey on LinkedIn below: LinkedIn

    29 min

  5. 12/18/2024

    Look For This When Acquiring Startups, It Could Triple the Resale

    After building and selling one of the first ChatGPT plagiarism checkers on the market in 2024, Tomer Tarsky decided to search Acquire.com for another project in the edtech AI space. He found a promising business, grew it for seven months, and sold it for three times the purchase price. The business Tomer stumbled across was called Seamless For Science. It was an AI literature review generator with 20,000 free users. While it didn’t make much money, its users were extremely active and would immediately complain if the service went down even for a day. After acquiring the business (which was built in a development language Tomer didn’t know), all he had to do was adjust the homepage copy and up the prices. Immediately, he earned $2,000 more in MRR despite some churn. “I knew if just one percent of those free users converted, we would have a lot more money,” he says. However, Tomer soon reached the limits of improvements he could make without hiring a developer. He’d already decided he wanted to expand outside of edtech, so Tomer returned to Acquire.com and sold it for three times what he bought it for within a few days. Tune into Tomer’s podcast with Andrew Gazdecki post-acquisition as they discuss: Why Tomer thinks it’s easier to double ARR on a $3k startup than a $30k startup 💹. How Tomer recommends other founders look for good startup buys on Acquire.com 🔍. Why Tomer thinks you should beware of buyers who won’t get on the phone 📲. Tomer is just getting started and you can follow him here: Twitter (@tomer_tarsky) His new project (www.conversionagent.ai)

    12 min

  6. 12/10/2024

    Turning Your Weakest Skill into an Acquire’d Startup

    Are you a developer who’s bad at email marketing?  Ironically, you may be in a great position to build the next big email marketing tool. Onur Genes wanted to promote his software development agency but couldn’t write good sales emails. He developed Nureply to help him send better automated cold emails. Eventually, he sold subscriptions to his development clients transforming his helpful tool into a SaaS business. In under two years, Nureply acquired thousands of users, and through savvy Facebook marketing, Onur became the face of the increasingly popular Nureply brand. However, right as the customer base doubled in size, Onur’s father passed away suddenly. Stricken and needing time away from his business, Onur turned to Acquire.com to find a new home for Nureply. With the help of acquisition specialist, Ky Pratt, he managed to find a buyer specialized in email products (they’d been in the industry since ‘98) within one week.  After the transaction, the buyers became close personal friends with Onur, and he says they still talk every week. Post-acquisition, listen to Onur’s chat with Andrew as they discuss: Onur’s biggest regrets from developing Nureply. Onur’s surprising marketing channel on Facebook. Why working with Acqire doesn't feel like a normal client-sales relationship to Onur. Onur is just getting started and you can follow him here: Twitter (@onurgenes)

    17 min

  7. 11/20/2024

    How Ian Blair Jumped From Building Apps to Selling Laundry Sauce With Acquire.com

    Ian Blair has been an entrepreneur his whole life. As a kid, he sold lemonade, and then graduated to golf balls in adolescence.  While in university, Ian found his calling for the next decade: white-labeling Andrew Gazdecki’s Bizness Apps app-building software to churches. Later, he built his own template app builder, except with more customizable features (Bizness Apps meets Wordpress is how he describes it) called BuildFire. He completed his new app-builder in 2014, and through ten years of savvy marketing, helped over 15,000 satisfied customers build custom phone and tablet apps. But Ian always considered himself more of a marketer than a technical founder. In his free time, he’d cooked up an ecommerce project in 2021 – a new take on laundry detergent called Laundry Sauce. In just a year and a half, it brought in eight figures in revenue while Ian was still working at BuildFire pulling 80-hour workweeks. To return funds to investors (and time for himself), Ian sold BuildFire on Acquire.com with the aid of none other than Acquire.com CEO and former competitor, Andrew Gazdecki. Andrew helped Ian close an all-cash offer with an interested buyer, funding a surf trip to Indonesia and enough seed money to feel secure going all-in on his new venture. Listen to Andrew and Ian chat post-acquisition as they discuss: Their unique experiences of the app-builder industry Why modular SaaS businesses are hard to scale Why Ian settled on laundry detergent for his next business Ian is just getting started and you can follow his journey here: Instagram : @ianblair44 laundrysauce.com

    20 min

  8. 10/16/2024

    How to Build SaaS for an Industry No One Knows About (Except Your Customers)

    Have you ever heard of the career readiness industry? It’s a rarely reported on but active auxiliary industry spanning career coaching and development, edtech, vocational training, higher education, and more. Just career coaching and development alone is valued at $45 billion. Harris Osserman founded Talk Hiring originally to turn voice notes into job applications as a B2C career-readiness product. He and his team changed trajectories into the B2B industry when a school district tried to buy them out as an interview prep tool. On the back of the successful pivot and many timely connections with hiring groups, Harris and his team developed Talk Hiring into a useful job interview simulation tool. Then they spun off a handful of other career-readiness apps when they saw the market was underserved. However, after the birth of his first child and a move to Atlanta, Harris was ready to sell Talk Hiring and look for something new to spend his time on. He created an account on Acquire.com and experienced just how effective it was to attract qualified buyers, securing seven offers within weeks. With the help of the Acquire team, he sourced an all-cash deal from a private buyer and closed quickly. Listen to Harris’ talk with Andrew as they discuss: How Harris pivoted into the career-readiness industry (he did a lot of volunteering). How Harris marketed his product (about five different ways). Why using Acquire.com can help you land a higher sale price. The startup building mistake to avoid if you want to attract buyers financing acquisitions with SBA loans. Harris is just getting started and you can follow him using the links below: Linkedin Twitter His blog

    27 min
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Get the inside look at how startup founders and entrepreneurs used Acquire.com (formerly MicroAcquire) to sell their startup or buy an online business. Learn tips on how to vet sellers/buyers, justify valuations, negotiate terms, handle due diligence, asset transfers, escrow, post-acquisition support, and more!

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