Jun 20, 2023 · 28m · startup-acquisition-stories
Startup Acquisition Stories with Anita Kirkovska, Co-founder of VoicePen
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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 founder Anita Kirkovska about growing her no-code creator tool Bio to 10,000 users, successfully executing its pre-revenue sale on Acquire.com, and scaling her new AI venture, VoicePen.
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 44.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Andrew as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 1.9 Guest disagreement 0.4 Andrew pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Andrew, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:53 Constructive critique of listing transparency
Kirkovska directly challenges Acquire.com's messaging, suggesting they make pre-revenue listing criteria more transparent to creators.
Hardest push from Andrew ▶ 19:25 Defending marketplace quality standardsGazdecki defends Acquire.com's selectivity regarding pre-revenue applications to filter out clone scripts and scams.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 25:17 Guest highlights marketplace developer gapKirkovska explains the friction non-technical buyers experience and recommends a marketplace feature for developer and agency partnerships.
Andrew holds their own ▶ 16:38 Gazdecki articulates deal de-risking dynamicsGazdecki details why founder responsiveness is vital in M&A transactions to de-risk acquisitions and eliminate red flags for prospective buyers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Andrew as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Andrew pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anita Kirkovska's Background and Journey into Entrepreneurship | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Gazdecki and Kirkovska connect collegially over past crypto/NFT experiences, with the host asking open-ended questions about how Bio was conceived and pivoted away from pure NFT verification. | |
| Scaling to 10,000 Users by Building in Public | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kirkovska explains how building in public helped acquire 10k users on Bubble, and Gazdecki adds his marketing framework on why building in public creates customer empathy. | |
| Monetization Challenges and the Importance of Founder-Market Fit | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Kirkovska reflects on leaving Bio due to lack of monetization and poor founder-market fit. Gazdecki expands on this with an example about avoiding building products for customers you dislike. | |
| Defining Entrepreneurial Lifestyle Goals and the Studio Approach | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Kirkovska describes rejecting the VC hype track to run a lifestyle-focused no-code venture studio. Gazdecki connects this to his angel investor portfolio mental model. | |
| Managing Inbound Inquiries and De-Risking the Sale on Acquire.com | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kirkovska outlines her buyer communication workflow and how providing agency dev support de-risked the sale. Gazdecki reinforces the critical role of de-risking deals for non-technical buyers. | |
| Vetting Buyers and Acquire.com's Pre-Revenue Listing Standards | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kirkovska points out the ambiguity around pre-revenue listing criteria and escrow pain points. Gazdecki clarifies Acquire.com's quality gating and addresses the platform improvements in progress. | |
| Advice for Startup Sellers and Platform Recommendations | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Kirkovska provides product feedback suggesting Acquire offer agency matchmaking for non-technical buyers, and Gazdecki highlights existing in-house support channels. | |
| Repurposing Media with VoicePen and Final Farewells | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kirkovska gives a quick pitch for VoicePen's audio-to-text repurposing tool, and the host closes with warm promotional remarks. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Kirkovska: Intersect Labs sold its no-code analytics tool to Zapier in 2021
“We built a no-code software for data analytics, which we actually sold to Zapier in twenty-twenty-one.”
Kirkovska: Link-in-bio products require massive user bases and are hard to monetize
“All of these other linking bio tools and the competition is really strong and like building a product like this, you need to rely on building a user base that is huge and then getting money and stuff like that. It's really hard to monetize.”
Kirkovska: Acquired startup Bio reached 10,000 users, but most were unpaid
“I think that we got around 10 K users, most of whom didn't pay.”
Kirkovska: Studio built 10 no-code products in one year to find success
“Until now, I think we have around 10 products that we built since last year, No code. It's easy to build and test them. And we have one profitable business, which is voicepan.”
Gazdecki: Founders should treat product incubation like an angel investor portfolio
“As an entrepreneur, sometimes thinking in that framework of, you know, rapidly build products, then one will take off, and that's one that you shift your full focus to, or you just focus on all of them, if they're all working.”
Gazdecki: Centralized buyer FAQs save time and demonstrate deal momentum
“Having a centralized document for everyone's question because with that document, number one, you'll save time. And then you're, you also educate other buyers on questions that other buyers are asking. And that, that really does three things. Number one, it sa…”
Gazdecki: The adage that businesses are bought, not sold, is a lie
“There's a saying where businesses are bought, not sold, and that couldn't be further from the truth. You have to sell your business. You have to talk to buyers. You have to message them. You have to answer their questions because what you're really doing is nu…”
Kirkovska: Bio de-risked its acquisition with post-sale agency technical support
“For our acquisition, the buyer wasn't a technical person. And since we have a no code agency, what we did to offer was that post sales support where we would answer any of your questions. We even like basically supported them in fixing some bugs in the app. An…”
Gazdecki: Acquire.com rejects most of its hundreds of monthly pre-revenue startup submissions
“We get literally hundreds per month, and some of them are, you know, there's just not, if we don't have If we don't think we can help it sell, we won't list it.”
Gazdecki: Many pre-revenue marketplace submissions are scam clone scripts
“Users, people using the product, so anything that's just not, hey, I built this, no one's using it because when we list those, we don't know if it has bugs, if it's a clone script, which is a very common item that we actually see is people will just buy a pre-…”
Gazdecki: Non-Technical SaaS Buyers Should Hire Dev Agencies for Diligence and Maintenance
“If you're buying a complex SAS product and you don't have any engineers that are going to be staying my advice is to get an agency involved and see if they can understand it. Do the technical due diligence with you, and then from there, if there's a fifth, and…”