Tara Reed
Founder and CEO, Apps Without Code. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveoperatorinvestor@TaraReed_ ↗LinkedIn ↗appswithoutcode.com ↗
Tara Reed is the founder and CEO of Apps Without Code, a company teaching non-technical founders to build software without code. Previously a marketer at Google and Microsoft, she created the startup Kollecto and later launched Growth Spree to acquire and scale software companies.
Everything Tara Reed said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Tara Reed: Premium pricing works far better than high-volume low pricing for bootstrappers
“I'm not really that interested in the like low price point, but we've got lots of customers model. I actually prefer premium price points as a business model and sort of learned that in my first two businesses. One where I did a low price .1 where I did a prem…”
Reed: Formal technical due diligence is unhelpful for micro-SaaS acquisitions
“I actually worked with a due diligence company, actually, who, like, went to the code base and did all of that work, and I felt like they It just wasn't all that helpful at the deal sites that I was doing to get that level of, like, there were things that were…”
Tara Reed: Cutting ad spend lowered revenue but increased overall profitability.
“So what it meant was that we changed some of our practices to operate more profitably. But to spend less money on ads. And so top line went down a little bit, but profitability actually went up.”
Tara Reed: No-code development still requires logical, linear engineering thinking.
“One of the limitations and downsides to no code is it's not no effort, right? And it's also, you still need to be thinking Logically and linearly about what you want this to do, because the app still can't read your mind.”
Tara Reed: Bubble offers high functionality but has a steep learning curve.
“I would say, like, Bubble probably has the highest functionality capability of the no-code tools out there. There's also the highest learning curve.”
Tara Reed: Launching quickly with no-code outweighs eventual scaling limitations.
“I still think the trade-off of, like, I got this up and running in a couple weeks, in a couple hours, is still worth the, like limitations you might eventually run into. I think it's still worth it to, like, get revenue and get going and get customers first.”
Tara Reed used hypnotherapy to overcome a scarcity mindset in business.
“I actually ended up doing a lot of hypnotherapy to help me with this, which sounds like super woo, like me several years ago, be like, what are you talking about? If I heard myself saying this, but there were lots of scenarios where just like, I didn't have th…”
Reed: Splitting Acquisition Price into Asset and Contractor Fees Optimizes Taxes
“The other part that's really important about how we structure the deals just for like tax planning purposes. Is we'll do a lot of the asset purchase. We'll be like, we'll take the amount that we agree upon, and a particular percentage of that will be actually …”
Tara Reed: Growth Spree companies share centralized marketing and agency resources
“And so the, all of the growth spree companies are sharing marketing agency operations, a couple of different resources, if that makes sense, but then they have a point of contact who's usually the CTO.”
Reed: Customers pay far more for human services than identical software
“But if you gave people, like, a service, the service did the exact same thing as the software, but just a service version and told them that humans are gonna do it, they would pay, like, way more for that same exact thing.”
Growth Spree packages acquired software as agency or educational services
“So when we acquire a software business, we're not going to sell it just as a software business. We sell it and position it as a education experience and or an agency.”
Reed: Marketing and distribution potential is primary criterion when evaluating acquisitions
“Like that's not going to be my superpower. I'm probably not going to come up with a bunch of product ideas is what they can do differently. I'm going to come up with a marketing and distribution idea. Or how we're going to like wrap this in something that can …”
Tara Reed: Apps Without Code has trained 150,000 people across 14 countries.
“We've trained 150,000 people in 14 different countries.”
A no-code student white-labeled their manufacturing app to Coca-Cola.
“And his first customer was Coca-Cola, who white-labeled this from him.”
Tara Reed discloses acquiring Copycat and Way on MicroAcquire
“So there's been two the first one is called copycat and it's a copywriting AI software. And the other one the most recent one is called way. And so it's a software that helps you build a website. So a website building tool. The first company was the founders b…”
Reed: Due diligence depth is constrained by acquisition deal size
“I think that there is a limited amount of due diligence that you can do depending on the deal size, and so I think I probably over complicated that part of the process when I first got started.”
Reed: Sellers Unwilling to Discuss Motivations Are an Acquisition Red Flag
“I find that, like, a red flag is just, like, unwillingness to talk about much at all. It's like, if we're gonna go into business together and we're gonna work on something, like, we sort of have to talk about where we're going and what we're motivated by.”
Reed: First Acquisition Structured as 80% Cash, 20% Seller Retained Equity
“So the first deal that I did was a deal where I purchased. And there is a cash upfront, 80% purchase. They held on to 20% equity.”
Reed: Second Acquisition Structured as 100% Buyout Across Three Tranches
“The second deal that I structured was different. I bought a hundred percent of the business of course in that deal. And we had like a three payment tranche payout.”
A no-code student licensed a custom music platform to 23 Virginia schools.
“So he built this custom platform for this and then licensed it to 23 schools in the state of Virginia, for example.”
Tara Reed: I Just Closed My Second Acquisition on MicroAcquire
“I actually just did my second. I haven't told you about this yet. I just closed my second Microacquire acquisition last week, the end of last week. So I'm now two on Microacquire.”
Tara Reed: Apps Without Code has 150,000 entrepreneurs on its email list
“Because for us, we've got this audience of 150,000 entrepreneurs who are just on our email list, who are looking for, like, entrepreneurship advice, what tools they should use to get started, all of that.”
Tara Reed: Growth Spree acquires small marketing software businesses
“We decided that we're going to be creating another entity, and really through that separate entity, investing in and buying primarily marketing related software businesses, but putting our own spin on the distribution of them. So, so that's where, so I've got …”
Reed: Growth Spree targets marketing businesses, software, and LinkedIn tools
“In general, I'm looking for marketing related businesses. We're not exclusively looking at software. So there are some like education businesses and some agencies, but sort of that's trio. Of education software agency, primarily leaning on softwares. I am real…”
The other half of the tape: Tara Reed's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Rob Walling 4Courtland Allen 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Startups For the Rest of Us 5
2023 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Tara's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 ACQUISITION STORIESLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Apps Without Code | 1 | 17 | — | full record on Startup Acquisition Stories → |
| STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Apps Without Code | 1 | 8 | — | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |