Mar 26, 2024 · 39m · startup-acquisition-stories
Startup Acquisition Stories With Luke Sheppard, Founder of Revive Ratings
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Startup Acquisition Stories, host Andrew Gazdecki interviews 23-year-old founder Luke Shepard on how he built, scaled via cold calling, and successfully sold his SaaS company, Revive Ratings, for $500,000 on Acquire.com.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Andrew holds 57.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Andrew as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.0 Andrew pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is Andrew, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:27 Luke recounts arguing to buy another company before funds cleared
Luke describes pushing back on Andrew's conservative advice by attempting to put his entire unpaid acquisition proceeds toward buying a million-dollar business.
Hardest push from Andrew ▶ 22:38 Andrew firmly shuts down Luke's premature dealmakingAndrew recounts refusing to even speak with Luke unless he dropped the reckless plan to invest non-cleared funds, bribing him with a billboard spot to stay put.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:08 Luke teaches student status advantage for competitor mentoringLuke educates Andrew on a clever LinkedIn cold-messaging strategy where competitor CEOs willingly disclosed business operations because they viewed students as harmless.
Andrew holds their own ▶ 24:46 Andrew demonstrates deep expertise on scaling agency softwareAndrew walks through the exact go-to-market mechanics, conversion rates, and cold email pitch that scaled his previous software business to thousands of global agency partners.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Andrew as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Andrew pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meet Luke Shepard and the Origins of Revive Ratings | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Andrew warmly interviews Luke on building Revive Ratings at age 21 and compares notes on targeting local businesses. | |
| The Ups and Downs of College Entrepreneurship & Networking Tactics | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Luke shares his college networking hack of reaching out to competing CEOs on LinkedIn, which Andrew praises as top-tier advice. | |
| Preparing Revive Ratings for Acquisition on Acquire.com | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Andrew details the difference between strategic and financial buyers after Luke discusses cleaning up expenses prior to listing. | |
| Brokerage Support and Guidance from Acquire.com | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Luke recounts learning hard lessons about buyer vetting and proof of funds when an initial deal fell through. | |
| Navigating the SBA Loan Process and the Holiday Close | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Andrew breaks down why SBA loan underwriting takes 90 days regardless of deal size, advising on bank timelines. | |
| Luke's Three Key Lessons for Aspiring SaaS Founders | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Both host and guest exchange entrepreneurial backstories, college grade philosophies, and outbound sales lessons. | |
| Future Moves: Buying Property Management Software & White Labeling | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | Luke jokes about trying to commit half a million dollars to a new acquisition before receiving his payout, which Andrew strictly warned him against. | |
| Scaling via White Labeling and Agency Distribution Channels | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Andrew lays out his exact playbook from scaling Bizness Apps via agency white-labeling across 5,000 agencies worldwide. | |
| Spotting Unobvious Market Trends and Product Timing | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Andrew explains his framework for spotting obvious/unobvious technological shifts, cautioning on venture-funded AI turbulence. | |
| Value Creation Strategies: Go-to-Market Overhauls and Operational Freedom | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Andrew mentors Luke on serial roll-up strategies, customer 80/20 interviewing, and transitioning from working in versus on a business. | |
| Concluding Remarks and Celebrations | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Andrew closes out the interview with warm congratulations and an invitation for future check-ins. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Gazdecki: Luke Shepard sold his startup for $500,000 at age 23
“He recently got acquired for half a million bucks at age 23.”
Shepard: Insurance agencies are easy cold targets because owner names are public
“Insurance agencies, We're the easiest clientele to start with because I started without, like, knowledge of, like, Apollo or Seamless or ZoomInfo, so I don't know how to find people's names online. So if you look it up, just look up insurance agencies near me,…”
Shepard: Revive Ratings acquired its first 200 customers via cold calling
“Yeah, that was all, that was our first 200 customers. Yeah, so all cold called.”
Shepard: 95% of competitor CEOs agreed to meet with college founder
“The other cool thing about college is, like, kind of like the secret is you just no one sees you as a threat, right? So I would actually, like, spend, like, probably, like, 30 minutes a week just messaging competitors on LinkedIn, their CEOs and stuff, and lik…”
Shepard: SaaS is valued on profitability and founder independence, not revenue
“I feel like we're always told when you start a SaaS business, like, oh, you're going to be valued off of profit, off of revenue, right? You're going to get three to five times whatever your revenue is and, like, just, I mean, yeah, that's true in some cases, a…”
Gazdecki: Startups have roughly a 5% chance with strategic buyers
“I would say, you know, maybe you have like a five percent chance with a strategic buyer and they'll value your business entirely different from the majority of buyers. Which are definitely going to be looking at your profitability.”
Shepard: First acquisition deal collapsed due to buyer lacking funds
“He didn't have the money that he said that he did. And so it kind of the later acquisition about two months, which, you know, looking back, it's like, you know, kind of a drop in the bucket, right?”
Shepard: Revive Ratings sold for $500K with a 90-day SBA loan process
“So I think in total it ended up taking, like, Almost 90 days to get it all the way processed. And, like, we weren't, like, a huge acquisition, you know? Like, 500 grand is, it's good, but, like, Acquire.com is selling much bigger deals, but the SBA loan just t…”
Gazdecki: SBA loan process is identical for $500K and $5M deals
“The process is the same for 500 K or up to, you know, five million.”
Shepard would pay 2% higher interest to avoid SBA loans
“Okay, but I did, I told myself, ah, if I got to pay an extra two percent interest rate, I'll do that to avoid an SBA next time when I made an acquisition.”
Gazdecki: Bizness Apps hit tens of millions via 5,000 agency partners
“What you can do is you can take products and then offer a white label solution, and that's what we did, and we sold to over 5000 agencies all across the world in, like, 75 different countries, and so, essentially, what it allowed us to do is kind of have, like…”
Gazdecki: Cold calling can make acquisition targets 100x more successful
“There's a lot of good product, especially on acquired. I see them all the time where it's like, if you can just pick up the phone and you know how to cold call and close the customer, you can make the business a hundred times more successful”
Shepard: Zero-revenue software built for $60k sells on Acquire for $10k
“Acquire has a bunch of these listings from people that like make zero in revenue. So they just don't make anything. And they're like trying to sell these products that are like super high end of probably cost about 50, 60 grand to build for like 10,000 dollars…”