The Exchanges

Q So that probably made your life a lot easier because, you know, if, if the person's, you know, not technical, you know, you, did you do like a transition period or anything like that? Or did you do just basically sell it? It's theirs. Given their experience?

A No, no. So like, I'm actually finishing up the post sales support right now. I'm in the last like week of it. And so we're doing that right now. It basically just, there's not much left. I mean, at this point, I think he understands everything, but yeah, there, there's a whole period of like, just sort of showing how to operate the business and what it entails and, you know, how to update users in the database, stuff like that. And thankfully I don't actually, you know, again, like this is another reason why it's the right buyer, because I don't have like a UI, for example. For certain things on the back end of the business, and these had to be done in a more technical way than, you know, you might expect, and it's, it's, it was a non-issue for, for the buyer, so.

AI assessment note: “I'm actually finishing up the post sales support right now.”

Q Nice. So let's move on. So business is going good, and you got customers paying you every single month on a subscription basis. Was there like a day where you just said, okay, I'm gonna sell this thing and, and put it on acquire.com?

A Yeah, I don't, I don't think there was a day. I think it was a pretty gradual, you know, decision, but I It was more like curiosity over time, right? Because I started seeing these, these customers like retain, like actually like pay each month. And after a few months, that's when I was like, you know, starting to get a little bit curious as to like, like what can I try evaluating my own business and see how much it's actually worth? And once I started thinking of that, that's when I was like, yeah, I mean, maybe I'll just give it a shot, you know? And it doesn't want, it wasn't necessarily like, like I said, like a moment, but it was definitely a gradual decision of this, you know, just, Over time of like, maybe, maybe I'll just see what happens and, and see if, you know, is, is this real essentially? Cause this is my first business that I sold. So I didn't prove it to myself at this point that someone is actually going to want to buy, you know, a business for me. So yeah. So at that point I was like, let's just, let's just list it and see what's up.

AI assessment note: “I don't think there was a day. I think it was a pretty gradual”

Q Yeah. Okay. So you're, you're now talking to a number of different buyers. Things are going well. How did you land on the person that acquired the business? Was there just a good fit in terms of relationship? Was it the highest price? Was it, what about this individual made you confident in selecting them as the winning buyer?

A Yeah, that's a great question. I think it was just a really good fit in terms of how I saw SoloDrop going in the future and like where I saw it going. And also, yeah, the right offer of Of course, but I will say on, on that note, you know, I had a few people that I was talking to that I felt like we're going to, you know, sign an LOI, like pretty, pretty quick. And I, my, you know, the person that ended up actually buying my business, I felt like I almost unintentionally ignored them for like, you know, maybe even like a week or something like that. So I think that is like, like, it kind of goes back to what you were saying before, like, just be responsive, you know, make sure that you're actually On top of it. But so it was a bit of a shock to me that, that the person that I felt like just sent like a kind of a casual message over of just like, Hey, this looks super interesting. You know, let's chat about it. I think that I didn't take it as seriously as I should have initially, because I was already talking to a few people that I felt like I was, it was really going well. You know, we already talked about a lot of like finances and stuff like that. But when it got down to it, when I just got on the call with him, I just felt like the right fit. Just in terms of what he saw, you know, and he had some knowledge of Shopify as well. And I didn't have to really over explain everyt…

AI assessment note: “when I just got on the call with him, I just felt like the right fit.”

Q So I guess, you know, another question is, did you do any sort of preparation for the acquisition in terms of like a transition guide or common questions or just showing metrics or anything like that?

A Yeah, I think I, I think I thought I did. And I, I really, um, I don't think I prepared enough to be honest with you. So I'll be the first to say my finances with solo drop were like, it was like, so it was very like, just very muddy. You know, I, I kept this on a very personal level. This felt like no one was ever going to See this. And no one's ever going to touch this besides me. So I tried to get the finances in order beforehand. I know that you guys encourage a P&L. So I definitely was like, okay, let me get a P&L. And I put that up and I connected it to maybe QuickBooks, which I did not have. I had, I did not have QuickBooks at all until the selling process. But I think that was the major thing was like, okay, let's like start thinking about other people seeing my business. Like, what is that? What is that going to look like? But yeah, the finances was, was a really, really big one. I think was preparing, preparing that, getting that to look nice and clean and And like understandable, like what's coming in, what's going out sort of thing.

AI assessment note: “I don't think I prepared enough... So I tried to get the finances in order”

Q What is a product? What problem does it solve? And like, what made you, what motivated you to start it?

A Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, I, I've been building Shopify stores for the past six, seven years exclusively as my day job. It's just like something I fell into. And because I started building a lot of these stores and these themes, if anyone knows, if anyone doesn't know what a Shopify theme is, essentially it's like this, the storefront of your store. It's whatever the customers interact with. It's How they get from, like, point A landing on your site to checking out and actually converting. So it's, your entire site is, like, a Shopify theme if you're on Shopify. But yeah, the, the way that I thought of it was that I, I felt like I had this, like, unfair advantage because I knew everything about Shopify themes. I mean, I was sitting here all day just developing and coding for Shopify themes. So I had the insight of, like, a bunch of these really massive stores that I got to go in the back end of. And see, you know, what works? Like what, what is, what is working for them? Like you get the marketing team requesting us to build a certain feature. And, you know, I would see that consistently across like a bunch of sites that I built for, for all of these brands. And I was like, man, like, like a lot of these are, are just like apps that people installed in their Shopify store, or maybe it was something that they just requested to build and it costs them like thousands of dollars …

AI assessment note: “solo drop is like a collection of All of these awesome features into one single Shopify theme”

Q Yeah. I mean, when I'm sure when my team saw it come in, cause we see Shopify app sell, you know, very, very fast. So I'm really curious. Tell me about, you know, the first two weeks you go live on acquire.com. What happens? How many buyers reached out? What was your experience like?

A Yeah, it was, again, this was my first time like listing a business at all. So it was really cool to see. Yeah, I definitely got a bunch of prospective buyers just like in my inbox pretty quick. And I was actually pretty shocked to see that they were not like low value, I guess you could say, you know, like they, like everyone that I talked to was like a real person that actually wanted to chat about it. And, you know, like, honestly, I half expected To get some just buyers that are just completely just like, hey, what's up? This looks interesting. And then never talk to you again. But like pretty much everyone that I talked to was like willing to do a call or, you know, just like wanting to chat or get some more information. But yeah, it was a lot. It was, it was a good amount and it was overwhelming, I think initially, but yeah, it was, it was a really good experience overall.

AI assessment note: “I definitely got a bunch of prospective buyers just like in my inbox pretty quick.”