Startup Acquisition Stories

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

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

Software businesses can be immensely profitable in very little time. But they can also die just as quickly. Software engineer Mark Jivko built Go index me!, a tool that speeds up Google page indexing, in six months for a bit of extra cash. He grew it to over 150 regular customers and thousands of dollars in sales in under a year. But Mark knew building an app that only relied on the Google APIs was playing with fire. It could all be demolished with a keystroke during a system update. He wanted to sell while he was ahead so that he could move onto another project he was more passionate about. Mark had previously sold a business on Acquire.com and knew he’d find the buyer he was looking for there. He sold Go index me! in one week under the tutelage of his buyer, an eight-time serial startup acquirer who DM’d him almost immediately. Now Mark is gearing up for a new project to help founders using social media for product distribution to avoid platform addiction. Tune in to this SASP with Mark and Andrew as they discuss: Mark’s trick to do escrows faster The questions you should never answer from buyers before going under LOI Why Mark knew he was going to sell his tool from the beginning How Mark plans to help founders who use social media reduce their addictions to the platforms And read our writeup of Mark’s story here. Mark is just getting started and you can follow him below: LinkedIn Twitter

Nico Jeannen just made a quarter-million dollar sale a couple weeks ago with the acquisition of his transcription product, Talknotes. It’s his second sale after a string of roughly 17 startups that have seen increasing success. Here’s how he made TalkNotes. One day, Nico was trying to get Google to transcribe a voice note for him when he noticed the quality was poor. He crafted a prototype transcriber using an AI API and posted it on X.com (formerly Twitter) making $700 in just a few days. He scaled further using his knowledge of SEO gained from previous projects. Nico realized he didn’t want to spend hours fixing code and doing customer support after one round of bug fixes dipped customer acquisition by 70%. He wanted to sell quickly – before he burned out. He listed on Acquire and secured an all-cash $200,000 deal in weeks with the help of Ebony on Acquire.com’s support team. Listen to Andrew and Nico’s interview as they discuss: What Nico has learned about startups after building 17 of them Why Nico accepted a drastic price cut for his sale The dangers of playing buyers against each other --------------------------- Be sure to subscribe to see the newest acquisition stories every Tuesday and gain the knowledge to buy or sell your own online business → https://youtube.com/@acquiredotcom?sub_confirmation=1 Want more stories? Access the past 50+ acquisition stories here → https://blog.acquire.com/tag/startup-acquisition-stories-podcast/Thinking about selling your own startup? The number one question is always 'how much can I sell for' and we've got the answers in our biannual valuation multiples reports here → https://blog.acquire.com/tag/acquire-coms-acquisition-multiples-report/ Thinking about buying a startup? Sign up for a free buyer account and browse all the live listings. Upgrade only when you find the right one that fits your acquisition criteria to engage. Get Started → https://acquire.com/buyers/ --------------------------- Follow the Guest: Nico Jeannen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nico-jeannen/ https://x.com/nico_jeannen Follow the Host: Andrew Gazdecki - https://twitter.com/agazdecki https://www.linkedin.com/in/agazdecki/ https://acquire.com Follow Acquire.com - https://twitter.com/acquiredotcom https://www.linkedin.com/company/acquiredotcom https://www.tiktok.com/@acquiredotcom --------------------------- 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.

How important is your peace of mind to you? Brazilian founder Guilhermo (Guy) Oenning built a SaaS business called Fider, monetized it, and let it quietly earn him $1,000 a month for three years. He sold when he realized it was taking up too much mental space that he could use to focus on other, more profitable projects. After a quick onboarding to Acquire.com, Guy started receiving NDAs within hours of listing. He moved to due diligence with a buyer in two weeks and by four weeks had money in the bank to reinvest into his new projects. He’s now working on two businesses: Aptakupe, a development tool for simplifying communications with Kubernetes. SEOgets analytics for SEO agents. He says it’s like Google Search Console with more functionality. Listen to Andrew's talk with Andrew post-sale as they discuss: How Guy pushed free users to monetize (or at least give him a backlink) How the indie hacker community changed Guy’s perspective on building startups. Why Guy thinks a passive business can be a drain on your energy. Guy is just getting started and you can follow his journey through the links below: X.com: @goenning

When you lack the experience and money to scale your agency, what should you do? Jovan Meljevic created his agency for B2B SaaS businesses, Bountyhunter, when he noticed a shortage of people and agencies experienced in startup growth. His business grew quickly aiding clients with everything from SEO to customer support to product analysis. Although Jovan was on a good trajectory, after five years he realized his agency needed outside input and money to grow. In late 2023 he decided to sell on Acquire. He listed and was shocked by the number of buyers out there looking for agencies like his. Jovan closed with an experienced agency buyer after about 5 months. He now works as an employee at Bountyhunter as his business grows around him. Tune in to Jovan's podcast with Andrew as they discuss Why agencies are in high demand on Acquire.com Why he didn't try to negotiate with buyers When you should consider selling your agency business Jovan is just getting started and you can follow along on his journey below. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jovan-miljevic/

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

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