The Exchanges

Q able to get their document in and wasn't able to get the approval. Uh, so that feeling, uh, also sucks too. Um, So glad, glad it all landed in your bank account, um, where it belongs. Um, so now I, I, I got, um, every person I talked to who sold a business, um, is, is working on, um, something else. What are you, what are you up to now?

A Yeah. So I just, um, I just jumped on as the director of marketing for a SaaS startup, uh, called Zenlytic. And it's pretty wild because I'm one of the first 10 employees. And so you get that, like, You get that really core feeling of like, all right, we're going to be at the ground floor of this. And I basically have the opportunity to, to shape how we're going with marketing and the direction we're going to take. Um, which is kind of the thing that fires me the most up is like, at the end of the day, cam skins was just all my marketing ideas. And I just had a great manufacturer that somehow supported me and bet on me. Uh, and now it seems like this, this startup that I just joined, Is essentially doing the same thing where they're just like, Hey man, what are your marketing ideas? How are you, how are we going to go forward? Um, and that's the stuff that just fires me up the most.

AI assessment note: “I just jumped on as the director of marketing for a SaaS startup, uh, called Zenlytic.”

Q I guess, you know, final question would be, you know, lots of people are trying to sell their businesses right now. Lots of people, uh, don't know whether getting themselves into, um, What are maybe like three tips you'd give to another entrepreneur that, um, was specifically looking to, you know, list on acquire.com. What would you, if you had three, five, one piece of advice, what would it be?

A Definitely. Um, I would say top three is if you can know your numbers, like as best as you physically can, and just get all those done out of the way. And I'm talking like all your PNLs for the last five years and just make sure you know all that stuff and like even any someone like like some anomaly months too so you're just like you can explain those you'd be like oh what was happening with this weird month like oh actually we did xyz um and then i think painting the picture too for like uh i was basically up front about it where i was like i've taken camskins as far as i physically could here's the other opportunities in which i think camskins can expand and then i listed all of those out and i gave them Basically the full, the full like playbook of how I would expand it if I had more opportunity to do it. Um, and then I think just the third thing is like, uh, talk to some people that you really trust and have some like really good phone calls. Um, there were some moments during this process where I was like doubting myself and I was just doubting basically everything. I think it's pretty normal to do during that process, but I have some really good friends in the industry. Like That are in various stages of all of this. Some have sold their businesses and some are operating them. And I would just call them and they would basically just be a, an opportunity for me to just li…

AI assessment note: “I would say top three is if you can know your numbers”

Q ads, SEO, uh, you know, Social media, but just going all in on one channel, you'll be, you know, good at it, you'll be consistent. Um, so that, that's awesome, man. And then, okay, so you, you got the business up and running, you got some customers, you got great products. I'm looking at your photos now, beautiful photos. Uh, what, what made you decide to, uh, sell the business?

A Yeah, so I, I basically had the business for three-ish years. Um, I tried a lot of things. And I think there's like, there's like an old adage where it's like the team that gets you from zero to a 100,000 is different from the team that gets you to a 100,000 to a million. And then the team that gets you from a million to five is different from that team. And so I don't think I was ever, I don't think I'm that super scale guy. And I didn't really want to go through either two options, which was, all right, do I want to raise money? Not really. I don't really want to Go down that route. Uh, or do I want to hire people? Not really. I don't, I don't really want to hire anybody. We basically ran cam skins with 10 contractors and freelancers. No one was, uh, W two. It was just all contractors. And so there was this opportunity where it's like, okay, we could take this like to the next level, but it would require hiring a ton of people or giving up a decent amount of equity.

AI assessment note: “it would require hiring a ton of people or giving up a decent amount of equity.”

Q you found them, you found the buyer. This person is, uh, he's agreed to your terms. You're, I assume, getting along great. Um, now you move into the funnest part ever aside from going to Disneyland due diligence. Um, oh yeah. Yeah. Walk me through that in terms of, you know, it's e-commerce business. Um, yeah. How did that process go? And, um, you know, what'd you learn from it?

A Yeah, my, I was basically keeping two people on speed dial at all times, which was my accountant and, uh, my friend who is a lawyer and I was basically just be like, if they needed anything, I would respond immediately with due diligence. And then if we kind of had some, some new terms that we were working with or potentially trying to figure out a different way to shape some stuff, I would always run that by my friend who's a corporate lawyer. And I'd be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Like, does this seem right? Does this seem like something that I should go with? Or is this like, totally, I should ignore this. Um, so it was basically this like, kind of like your two weeks of hold your breath period. Where the buyer is essentially trying to poke holes in all of your evaluation for your company. Uh, and you are providing as much data and backing that up as, as much as physically possible. And so I felt that my accountant and my lawyer would back up me up and hopefully this would also back up the business itself. So it was, uh, it was definitely more stressful than, uh, than I would have thought, but I'm glad we got through it.

AI assessment note: “it was basically this like, kind of like your two weeks of hold your breath period.”

Q bunch of other stuff to get excited about, growth opportunities, et cetera, and that can keep the deal going. But it sounds like you had a pretty smooth due diligence process. So, uh, congrats on that, man. Um, and then So, uh, it, it comes time to, um, you know, wire the funds. Did you use a escrow service? How did that, how did you kind of end all this?

A Yeah. So I think we use an escrow service. Um, I forget which one, but we just use an escrow service and decided a date. And it's weird because like, I don't know, you, you assume when you're selling a business that like, you don't really know what's going to happen. And then you realize that like, oh, this is just all going to get wired to my bank account. And then it just kind of appears in your bank account. And so I'm like looking at my chase app and I'm like, oh wow, this is real now. Okay. Uh, it's kind of a weird moment where you're just like, all right, this is cool. This is also super strange. Like I, I made this thing and now it's like worth this money and it's on my phone. I don't know. It was kind of a surreal moment, but yeah.

AI assessment note: “I think we use an escrow service. Um, I forget which one”

Q You have to talk to people. How did, how did you, uh, vet buyers? How did you, um, Negotiate. How did you speak with them? And how did you finally arrive? This is like the most loaded question ever. So maybe we can drag it. Um, how did you, you know, bet buyers, um, initially, and then how did it lead to, uh, the final buyer that actually acquired Camson?

A Yeah. So there was, I use the chat feature inside of acquire and I was basically talking to all of them and I would get the email updates. Cause I think you, I think I signed up for like email updates on chat for acquire. And so I would just get these email updates to my phone and I would be like, 1145. And people would be like, Hey, could you give me the PNL financials for the last four years? And I would just be like, all right, sorry. And I just run away from my girlfriend and just hammer out into the computer and send them a quick, uh, PNL for the last four years. But it was just constantly keeping those, um, conversations flowing and then basically whittling away And fielding like verbal offers from people, uh, and then slowly starting to go from like, okay, there's 30 people that are pretty interested.

AI assessment note: “constantly keeping those, um, conversations flowing and then basically whittling away”