The Exchanges

Q Nice. So things are, things are going well. You have customers, product market fit. What made you want to sell the business?

A Um, I mean, I, I forget exactly the year, but, um, a few years ago, I considered selling the business, um, because I was considering, um, raising money for the job searching tool, um, and thought, like, I can't be running two product lines at the same time, so I priced it way too high, did not get enough interest, um, but then this time around, I decided to Um, legitimately sell the business, um, for a bunch of reasons. Like, personally, I just had a child, so that is just, like, a big personal change and tough to deal with the stress and the long hours, and, um, I just felt like as I was, um, I mean, he's six months old as of this weekend, but, like, in the early days of having a child, it, it sucks that you're thinking about As you're holding in, like, all the crap that you have to code up, or, like, all the emails that you have to write, and it just, like, doesn't, doesn't feel right, um, and I had been running it for a while, like, it was, I was about six years in, um, the, the job search product that I'd been working on, um, had basically, like, the business fundamentals of the, of the product changed, um, and so I was, Just ready for, like, a new start. I'd also just moved to Atlanta, so a lot of reasons, um, but the, the mock interviewing tool especially was like a, a healthy, multi-year, profitable business that I knew I could get a good return on and find the right par…

AI assessment note: “personally, I just had a child, so that is just, like, a big personal change”

Q Yeah, yeah, kids, kids are hard. It's a, it's a full-time job is, is how I like to think of it. Um, tell me about your experience with acquisitions. Had you ever sold a company before? Was this your first Time going through a formal process?

A Um, yeah, this was my first time doing it. Um, I actually really enjoyed the process, like, a lot more than I thought I would. Um, it's, I mean, I, I definitely enjoyed it because of Acquire.com. If I was just, like, going out, cold emailing people or something like that, it would not have been a fun process, but the fact that potential buyers were just, like, coming to my door every day and having a bunch of meetings, um, Yeah, just meeting a lot of people, um, it's flattering when a lot of people want to buy the thing that you worked on for so long, um, trying to understand people's motives, and why they want to buy this thing, and like, what kind of wacky deal terms they might try to come up with to screw you over, um, negotiating with them, um, but acquire.com is great, it's just, yeah, it's, It's a time. I think if it had, you know, fallen through, then I might not have liked it.

AI assessment note: “yeah, this was my first time doing it. Um, I actually really enjoyed the process”

Q Emily? How did she help you through the acquisition process?

A Um, she helped me a lot of ways. So, um, she helped me, we met in the beginning, like, probably every week, um, figuring out How to write up the, you know, the public facing blurb to not give too much away, but make it intriguing enough, um, figuring out how to price it. Um, there, there's also a point when you're in an acquisition process where you have a bunch of people interested, but no one's going to jump until someone else jumps and like gives you an offer or like there's some deadline. Um, so she helped me figure out how to get over that hump. Um, And how to set a deadline, and how to push everyone to the deadline, and, um, for the, um, for the diligence process, which is probably the scariest part for the person selling the business, um, figuring out what documents we need, like, how to structure the diligence process to not have this thing fall through, um, and then transitioning everything over is a surprisingly big lift to, like, Move all the SaaS apps over and onboard the tech team and tell all the customers and meet with all the customers. Yeah, it's a lot, but she was really helpful.

AI assessment note: “she helped me a lot of ways. So, um, she helped me, we met”

Q That's, yeah, I can imagine. Did Emily help you in any way, select the winning buyer? Did she help decipher what these deal terms were, or what could go wrong with the other buyers?

A For sure. Um, She was really helpful as well as I had, uh, a few other mentors who had sold businesses help me with that. But, um, what, what she was, you know, obviously the least risky deal on paper is all cash up front. Um, but it's hard to get, you know, fully all cash up front. There's no risk to that kind of deal, um, offer because often someone needs to like raise some money to do that. Uh, so yeah, she was really helpful at number one, helping me negotiate up a lot of the offers by just telling them these are the kinds of deals I'm accepting or I'm considering. If you can increase your, um, do your fee in the first three months, then like maybe I'll consider it or, um, whatever. Um, and then on the process of Um, on the diligence process, like, I've never done that before, so she told me exactly what docs I need to have ready, and, um, so I was fully ready for diligence probably two weeks before I signed the LOI, um, but I think the scariest part of the whole process is, like, once you sign the LOI, um, now the buyer has all the power, and, like, if they back out, now you have to go back to the other buyers. Who knows? Um, so I talked to her about having some Like, breakup clause and the LOI, but I don't know. It ended up feeling not right, then it wouldn't be significant enough, so. Yeah, that's true.

AI assessment note: “For sure. Um, She was really helpful as well as I had”