The Exchanges

Q Geez, that is a huge improvement from when you originally bought it. Um, what got you into entrepreneurship through acquisition? How did you know, you know, maybe acquiring a brand is a better path than you and say starting it from scratch?

A Well, it's funny. I didn't, uh, I'd spent the last, uh, since I graduated starting most of the things that I had done from scratch. And honestly, I think me and a couple of my partners who went in on this with me, we both agreed like, Hey, this time let's try to buy something. Uh, let, let's like have something with, you know, an email list and a customer base and like just buy it in a place where we feel like we can make the improvements. So this is my first foray into actually buying a business. Uh, part of it was we, we both, we all wanted to do that. We wanted to get that experience, figure out, oh, doing due diligence on someone else's business is a lot more fun than having someone due diligence on your business. Um, so we went, we went through that process and yeah, I would say we, It's, it really has been, having started a bunch of businesses and then sold a couple before this, buying a business is now like, man, it's so much better. Um, you can use a lot more of your, um, experience to improve it, we found, uh, than the other way around. Uh, just, it's all, it just de-risks it up front. And that's what I love most about Acquire, is just, you can look at so many pieces of the business on the front end before taking, like, the massive risk.

AI assessment note: “let's like have something with, you know, an email list and a customer base”

Q Great advice. Let's move on to the acquisition. Sounds like things were going super well. You had tons of happy customers, millions in revenue. What made you want to sell a business?

A Um, I think from my perspective, it was like, we, we wanted to buy a business, we wanted to see what it was all about, um, what that process was like, and then we saw with the growth and opportunity to just take a win. Um, you know, we, we sold it for more than what we bought it for by a significant margin, and we just wanted to take the money off the table and move on to something else. So it really wasn't more to that. I mean, with any scale, we'd scaled it from 300 grand to You know, two and a half million, scaling from two and a half million to five million would have presented more challenges. So we were like, great, let's, let's do something different. Um, you know, I had an, I have another opportunity, so.

AI assessment note: “we just wanted to take the money off the table and move on”

Q Right on. How many, um, how did you pick the winning buyer? Did they have the best terms? Did you get along with the individual really well? What made that person stand out to you?

A Yeah, it was definitely like the first, like, just the initial phone call. It's like they were the right buyer profile for what we were looking for, and like surety of closing, right? Making sure that we felt like they actually had the funds. I think the verified funds on Acquire was helpful, so it showed they had significant, um, you know, liquidity to purchase the business that y'all had already verified, so that was actually a really helpful tool that you guys offer. Um, so I really, really love that. Uh, and then yeah, just the deal terms. So they had all cash at closing instead of any seller financing after that. Goes to cats. Yeah, that's what you want. You don't want to wait. You want to wait a year for the rest of it.

AI assessment note: “they were the right buyer profile for what we were looking for, and like surety of closing”

Q Nice. Did you change, like, the products at all? Did you have to improve certain processes? Was anything, like, essentially broken? You had to step in and rebuild the old marketing strategy? What was, like, the biggest unlock in the business?

A I think the biggest unlock was just better UI, UX on the website. Um, better offering. A lot of similar products. We introduced some new products. Just, we used the particle, um, website or platform. I don't know what you call that, particle. But we were able to look at, okay, these are the existing rings in the market. For alpine rings, we sell men's wedding rings. Uh, which ones sell the best? Okay, let's, let's get a version of that or a ring like that. Uh, that we know sells. And then really, we, we, we, it was kind of basic blocking and tackling. We improved the product photography. We did a video for every product. We really worked on our PDP to make the product page, like, as airtight as we could, and really iterate and evolve it from day one. So we used the tools to watch people's sessions, obviously, and see how people interact with the PDP page. And we spent, like, six months Trying to find the right balance of product market fit, what, what's working, what's not, and then just kept iterating the offer until the MER worked and we were able to scale ad spend.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest unlock was just better UI, UX on the website.”

Q That's true. Right on. Well, tell me this. First week, you go live on Acquire. What were you expecting? How did that first week go? How many buyers did you talk to? Yeah. What did the process look like?

A Yeah. Um, like I mentioned to you, the process was awesome. Uh, once I submitted everything, it was under review. A couple of associates on your team reached out to me with just like really valuable feedback on the listing and how we should, you know, reformat and show the P&L and show all the different data. So that was really encouraging. Once we went live, I think I probably had 10 to 15 people reach out with different messages asking questions. So just made it exciting, right? Like we, we got it launched, we got feedback, we got a lot of questions. Um, and the process was, was seamless right when we posted it. I would say, like, within a day, we were talking to multiple people.

AI assessment note: “I think I probably had 10 to 15 people reach out with different messages”

Q So you started a number of different businesses and then you bought one. What was like the biggest learning in terms of the ease or maybe even the difficulty? Was it finding the business? Was it learning operations when you didn't build everything brick by brick? Was it much easier because you didn't have to essentially chew glass for the first year? Uh, What was, like, the biggest surprise you?

A I mean, I think the biggest value in buying a business was that, like, we had an existing customer base to interview, so, like, when we first bought the business, we just literally sent out, like, a Google survey to all the existing customers, and then used that to inform the decisions that we made, and then that, that directed, like, okay, these are the improvements we're gonna make based on the customer feedback, so I would say that was the biggest learning in buying the businesses go around, is, like, The person before that spent the two to three years to build it to where it was, they went through all the pain of, like, who is the customer, what do they want, you know, and trying to build the product. Based on that, we got to, like, interview the customer, say, hey, this was the product we, that you did have, you know, how can we improve it? Um, and that was the big, I would say that was the biggest learning, just being able to speak to existing customers.

AI assessment note: “biggest value in buying a business was that, like, we had an existing customer base”

Q There you go. If someone's looking to go down this path, maybe they're thinking of building a startup from scratch. They're aware that you can buy a business. They're not too sure which path is right for them. What would you tell them? Would you say, hey, buying a business is obviously better, but here's kind of two things you should know.

A Um, I mean, buying a business is definitely better or improving an existing business. Having done it a couple times, but I would say my biggest point to anyone that's gonna buy a business or run a business is you need to know every dollar in and out every day of your business and how it translates to the P&L and the balance sheet in QuickBooks Online or whatever accounting software you use. If you don't understand it, you will never create shareholder value. You will never return money to investors unless you just get lucky. So that's my biggest piece of advice, regardless of what your background is, is with ChatGBT and all the resources out there, know your numbers. It's like when I emailed you guys my P&L and you guys get feedback, it's like, you have to know it. And if you don't, you're never going to make any money and you're never going to make any money for anyone else, which there, which means you won't be able to, you know, continue to run the business.

AI assessment note: “buying a business is definitely better or improving an existing business.”

Q Right on. Well, if you were talking to another founder, they're looking to sell their business, they've never been through an acquisition before, what's like a couple pieces of advice you give them?

A Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest piece of advice I would give you is, like, I think at Alpine Rings, at one point, we continued to pivot and had, like, you know, I think, 30 grand of capital left in the bank to, like, keep going, and then we eventually found the unlock. So, I think, as a founder, sometimes it can be maddening to be like, is, if I keep changing, if I keep iterating, like, will this work? I think at some point, it's like, you'll know if product market fit is there, but my encouragement is just to keep going and keep Iterating until you've iterated to the point where it's either going to work or it's not. We, we kind of like got the last minute pivot, you know, finally found the product market fit. So you never know where product market fit is right around the corner.

AI assessment note: “my encouragement is just to keep going and keep Iterating until you've iterated”