🔥 AMA 🔥 - Andrew from MicroAcquire! Startup acquisition marketplace!
Andrew Gazdecki
112 replies
Hi everyone,
Andrew here from MicroAcquire! Startup acquisition marketplace!
MicroAcquire helps startups find buyers. Simple as that. We’ll help you start conversations that lead to an acquisition in just 30 days – for free.
When my company Bizness Apps was acquired in 2018 by a PE firm, it was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, I’d successfully bootstrapped my company to $10m/ARR+ and a life-changing acquisition. On the other, I’d sold something that took years of blood, sweat, and tears to build. Do I have any regrets? Far from it.
I'm here to answer questions about building your own business, bootstrapping startups, marketing, branding, sales, hiring, startup ideas, acquisitions, and anything else related to startups.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/agazdecki
MicroAcquire: https://microacquire.com/
Bizness Apps: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/technology/sd-fi-biznessapps-think3-story.html
AMA!
Replies
Ken Savage@kensavage
CookieJar
Yoo @andrewgazdecki In your opinion can an agency sell the service they provide to other agencies?
The brand is shit but the service they provide is extremely unique and has lots of clients.
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@kensavage Really depends, I'd give it a shot. Best way to find out.
Hey @andrewgazdecki, what's the average revenue multiple (of valuation) you're seeing in early stage < 1 M ARR SaaS startups and mid-stage 1 - 10 M ARR SaaS startups? 20x?
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@adityasriganesh Great question, depends on the company as there as so many factors such as revenue, growth, churn, code quality, happiness of customers, industry, the list is endless but here's a good article on SaaS valuations check out: https://resources.microacquire.c...
Recently, on Startups for the Rest of Us podcast, you started to mention that you started MicroAcquire and did a bunch of other things while having your first kid. Can you say more about how you managed this, and if there are any learnings you can share?
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@mahinckley I used to start a business every summer in high school and college. Started with an eBay store, web design company, job board, then Bizness Apps.
I learned from each venture, how paid ads work, how to set up a website, how to talk to customers. how to find good engineers, how to market, how to sell, and most importantly how to hustle etc.
You learn the most by doing and being able to teach yourself anything.
Hello Andrew! What sort of "angst" did you experience during the valuation process, the ups and downs; and, what were your decision parameters when you finally did arrive at an "agreeable" figure?
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@chuckbrandt1991 Great question. To be candid, I wasn't looking to raise capital and the thought of giving up some ownership gave me seconds thoughts but it was all worth it.
Since I already have a "win" under my belt I'm able to take bigger risks. As for arriving at valuation, that all comes down to negotiation and how interested other investors are. The more the better.
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@adriancb We mainly acquired customers through a white label reseller network. Essentially we focused on the software, then would remove our branding, and then partner with web agencies to allow them to use our no-code platform to build mobile apps for the SMB clients.
At our peak we had over 5,000 partners all across the globe and created more apps than any other company in the world: https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/2...
@andrewgazdecki - appreciate the insight and time.
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Would you consider listing companies for purely acquihire? ie: Team of talented individuals with no business or revenue.
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@greg_egan We've seen a ton of acquihires on MicroAcquire but it would probably be difficult without some working product or company in place. Great idea though!
IconShock
I just signed up! ;) I'm so new to this.
What is top 3 things to do on MicroAcquire site?
Let's say, i'm a seller.
Marvelous.bio
Hi Andrew! I'm wondering how you approached tackling the biggest marketplace app issue - growing both sides of the marketplace - sellers and buyers. Because when you don't have sellers, you don't have buyers, and vice versa. I've built a social gig/job platformin 2016 and we failed, because it was so hard to grow it.
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@tadej_krevh Ah yes it wasn't easy. So I had "launch date". I found a group of serious buyers (mostly private equity) that loved the idea, then I pitched startups letter them know there were real buyers on MicroAcquire. Once both were onboarded I launched on ProductHunt same day: https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Then that just began the fly wheel effect of startups & buyers coming to me but for a while, I'd see maybe 1 new startup posted per week. Now it's 100+.
Startup take a lot of conviction and patience, this is where I see most failing by simply giving up. I stuck with it because I truly felt MicroAcquire needed to exist and enjoyed working on it, which is also important, find something you'd run for free.
Marvelous.bio
@andrewgazdecki I think it's a great service and wish you all the best!
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@tadej_krevh Thanks Tadej and happy to help!
How many BMWs?
Do side projects with traction, but no revenue (as of yet) make sense to be listed on MicroAcquire? Have 0 revenue tools been sold before?
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@abhash_kumar2 We used to list side projects without revenue but not as much anymore. The product has to be really good. I'd recommend trying to find even just a few paying customers before looking to sell your startup as your exit price will be much more meaningful, and much easier to find a buyer.
Love to help you folks, Andrew! if you're planning on producing any video/training/promo content and need a professional voice to tell your story! Let's chat!
#Easy24HourVoiceOver
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@david_gilbert_vo Thanks for the offer David!
@andrewgazdecki my pleasure! Any time.
FromNotion
Hey Andrew, thank you for this discussion and opportunity to talk to you. Much appreciated!
Can you share your thoughts about how to find an idea for a startup?
How did you find your ideas?
How to make something people want?
How to build a product people love?
How to bootstrap a SaaS to $10M ARR?
How to build a successful business that can be sold on MicroAquire?
Can you give a piece of advice about it?
MicroAcquire App For Slack
@shashcoffe Good questions...
1. Talk to customers.
2. Talk to customers.
3. Talk to customers.
4. You need to know your numbers, ideally customer acquisition payback period. How fast can you reinvest revenue from customers back into growth? Also need a team, can't do it alone.
5. Simple. Just focus on building a business with happy customers. The rest sorta takes care of itself but the key is to having a business with happy paying customers. :)
FromNotion
@andrewgazdecki Thank you, man. Much appreciated! You're absolutely killing it! 💪🙌🙂
Hi Andrew! just listened to your episode on startups for the rest of us. Was great to hear about your experience with your acquisition and how you used that experience to create MicroAcquire.
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@cam_langsford Thanks Cam, really appreciate the kind words.
@cam_langsford Where can I listen to the episode??
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@abirxhossain Thanks so much! At the moment, no there's just too many startups I want to help successfully get acquired. The additional money wouldn't really change my life and I like having a purpose & helping entrepreneurs succeed.
@abirxhossain @andrewgazdecki That's a shame : ) otherwise you'd be able to use MicroAcquire to sell MicroAcquire.
Hey Andrew, For an enterprise product beta that is used and loved by it's users. But not beeen paid for due to compliance issue or enterprise requests. Do you think -
1. The product is not market ready?
2. Can it be pushed on microacquire, if yes what metrics would be tracked?
DIY UX Test
Hey Andrew,
Congrats on the seed! Have been following MicroAcquire since the launch on PH, pretty impressive what MicroAcquire was able to achieve in such a short timeframe! Also, always suggesting MicroAcquire to my clients who want to sell their product.
Question: Are you planning to introduce any other types of monetization except Premium?
Thanks!
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@oleksii_sekundant This looks really cool. Will 100% check this out, thank you!
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@oleksii_sekundant Thanks so much for the support dude means a lot!
Short answer yes, see here for the vision for MicroAcquire:
The acquisition market is complex and opaque. Data is siloed in multiple systems, platforms, or agencies, and often skewed towards one party in the transaction. As a result, first-time buyers or sellers struggle to find the help they need and fewer acquisitions happen.
We want to change that. Our goal is to aggregate the acquisitions market in the same way Zillow did for real estate. Due diligence, escrow, valuations, advisors, legal, and financing: we’re bringing everything together in a trusted and transparent marketplace, making acquisitions easy.
DIY UX Test
@andrewgazdecki Thanks for the answer, really appreciate!
For a while had an idea, on how MicroAcquire can make the acquisition more transparent and add some due diligence for the tech part of the products.
Considering you have already business brokers onboard, I feel that it may make sense for you.
One of the things we have been doing is: https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Basically, it is the audit of all the tech behind the platform, in order to detect the true state of the affairs (in terms of tech).
It is mostly based on the requests we've got from our clients and network, to check the tech behind the platform before the acquisition of the competitors or just a random product. The problem is that before acquiring the product, they didn't know: How much support would cost? If there are major bugs in place? If architecture is ready to scale easily and fast? etc.
I see there are might be a cool additional point where MicroAcquire can provide some added value, for both buyers and sellers.
Not sure, if users had requests about something like that before, but would guess there might have been in place.
Obviously, would be thrilled to chat about that :)
How to find ideas for saas projects for manufacturing?
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@shaan_kale Talking to customers or from first and experience
Based upon the tweets I see, are some founders selling through Microaquire are a little unrealistic about their profit margins. Sometimes I see the only cost being $10-$20 for hosting, when I know that there would be extensive maintenance costs.
I am sure this gets ironed out later in your process, or in due diligence, but wouldn't it be better to be more realistic to start?
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@andybeard Yeah most deals get negotiated down quite a bit. Tons of sellers also list high to keep buyers that aren't serious away (I advice not to do this) but it does only bring it people who really love the product rather than the valuation. Also, valuations are hard on the smaller end, see here:
Summer Bod 2020
Hi Andrew. What makes MicroAcquire different than other business marketplaces? Thanks!
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@joshdance We focus on high-quality startups, typically SaaS & eCommerce. Also, it's 100% free to sell on MicroAcquire without any fees or commissions.