The Exchanges

Q That's great. I like that. Let's talk about, um, GoIndexMe. What, uh, tell me about the product, what it do, what problem, what problem did it solve? Who's it for?

A Uh, so Goindex.me is a micro SAS that I built in 30 days. It solves the issue of indexing pages. Um, it's related to Google mostly, uh, because Google is the dominant search engine, uh, but it also, uh, would have eventually, um, interacted with other search engines like Bing. I didn't get to that point because I sold it, but that was the initial plan. So the issue is that you work on your content, you create this beautiful website with thousands of pages, and Google just doesn't show that content. You keep refreshing Google, and there's nothing there. There's like, 25 pages getting indexed, and all of the other content that you have built remains untouched. The official, so to speak, solution is to go into the Google Search Console and manually request indexing for the new pages that you have created. For one, that is limited to 10 requests per day. So if you have thousands of pages, that's simply unfeasible. You can never actually go through all of them. Your life will expire before you end up indexing all your webs, all of your pages. And secondly, it's, it's, it's not a guarantee that something will happen. So sometimes you need to re-request indexing. So keep on talking to Google. Goindex.me fixes that by using official Google APIs. That do the same thing, but on a larger scale, you're no longer limited to 10 requests per day. Actually, by integrating, um, you know, variou…

AI assessment note: “Goindex.me is a micro SAS that I built in 30 days. It solves the issue”

Q Gotcha. How many customers did you get for GoIndexMe before you ended up selling it?

A Uh, about 150. So it was a relatively small, um, website. It was growing steadily. Yeah, so that's the number. Approximately 150. In fact, the total number of users lifetime was around 500. Uh, but they churned a lot. So that was one of the issues I had with the website, the large-ish churn rate. Because as it turns out, Most people don't have huge websites, so it's quite rare to see a website that has more than, let's say, 5000 pages. That, that's a large number. And the tool itself, even on the lowest tier, so the cheapest option, indexed 6000 pages per month. So that's such a large number that most users would just come in, use it, the tool would do its job, and they would churn, because they would no longer need it. After a month. So that was one of the, the main headaches I had.

AI assessment note: “Uh, about 150. So it was a relatively small, um, website.”

Q Wow. That was, um, that was really straightforward. Did you have any like hiccups or speed bumps or delays or things that you thought were confusing? Maybe during due diligence or finding the buyer or anything at all?

A Uh, no, on your part, everything worked great. So the website is excellent. I really didn't have any questions or absurd, uh, problems with the website itself. Uh, there was something on my backend. Um, I didn't really set everything up correctly from the beginning, so some lessons learned there. Um, if you have side projects, keep them separate. So because I elicited it for sale, I also had to move some virtual machines around and Uh, virtual private servers. Um, but, but that, but again, that's, that's like general advice. If you're preparing to sell your company, make sure everything is completely isolated. So ideally you just hand out the username and the password and it's all transferred. It's done. Uh, that took a little tiny little bit of effort, like one day, something like that to set everything up correctly and make sure it works. Uh, but other than that, no hiccups. The person who acquired Goindex.me. Uh, they had previous experience acquiring various other startups on your platform. So this is, I think, their eighth acquisition, uh, numero ocho, now eight. So they told me that, you know, you have to, uh, have a USD account, blah, blah, blah. This is going to be, uh, you know, the due diligence is going to take, like, this amount of steps. So they walked me through it. As well. So I was, I felt like they were the one acquiring, but they, they guided me. So everything…

AI assessment note: “there was something on my backend... other than that, no hiccups.”

Q Gotcha. Tell me about the experience on acquire.com. You listed the business. What did the first week look like? How many buyers reached out? Were you surprised? What did that look like?

A Uh, so it was a very interesting, um, experience. Uh, this time, the same as last time, uh, things went quite fast. Um, I think this is the second time that I've sold to the first comma. So the first person who interacted with me, uh, eventually got to be the buyer as well. Um, that, that also happened during my last sale. So I listed the, um, Startup. Go index me on, on acquire. Less than a week later, I got contacted by a person interested in, in acquiring the, the startup. I signed the letter of intent that, you know, the startup got delisted temporarily. Uh, we, we went through due diligence quite quickly, like in a matter of two or three days. Everything was clear. Everything was set up. Uh, we went through one-on-ones, um, videos back and forth to clarify a few things. Um, escrow was quite quick. Uh, a quick tip here from the, uh, the buyer is to use USD as your bank accounts currency because apparently, uh, escrow works faster if you have USD versus Euro or some other currency. Uh, but all in all, like, from the beginning to the end, Um, Monday we had our first conversation and by Friday it was, uh, completely sold. The, um, cash hit my bank account, the username and password, everything was transferred. So it was really, really, really fast.

AI assessment note: “Monday we had our first conversation and by Friday it was, uh, completely sold.”

Q I agree with all of it. Um, tell me about your next, the next thing you're working on, your next venture. What is it? What does that do? If you'd like to share it.

A Yeah, I can share a few details about it, but it's, it's not yet super crystal clear. Um, the idea is that social media is harmful to your mental health. There are plenty of studies around that. There is no single social media website that is the worst. Um, they all, they all have their own ways of, um, attacking your, your brain. If you're using social media lightly, um, the solution is quite simple, just use it less, uninstall the application from your device, uh, you know, close your account in extreme scenarios, whatever, but if you're using social media for business, uh, whether you're an employee of a company and you have to do that, you have to post on social media and interact with other people as your job, Or you're an entrepreneur, and social media is the engine. It's the way you're growing your business. When you're forced to use social media, you're kind of forced to deal with this negative mental side effects as well. There's a lot of negativity. There's a lot of showboating. You're no longer keeping up with the Jones next door. You're keeping up with the Jones in Hollywood or whatever. It has A negative mental effect using too much social media. What I'm trying to build, so the, the next venture, the one I've, uh, I've been preparing for by selling Goindex.me, uh, is called socialdetox.ai. Okay, it's, it's, uh, it's based on a large language model. Uh, it's an aut…

AI assessment note: “the next venture... is called socialdetox.ai. Okay, it's based on a large language model.”

Q Awesome. I mean, it sounds like everything worked out great. How'd you hear about acquire.com, if I can ask?

A Um, this is a very old story. I have, well, I have to remember because I've been browsing acquire.com for ideas, um, quite a lot recently, but before that, I think I just found you on Google. So back to Google, I think I was looking for a place to sell. Flippa came up, Not, not really, uh, it had some bad reviews. Your website, and I think your, uh, your Twitter profile is the one that convinced me. Uh, so at that time, I'm not sure if you're doing that lately, because I'm not active on social media, but at that time, you are quite active. You're posting a lot. Um, there were many success stories on MicroAcquire back in the day, so I said, you know, let's, let's give this a try. Yeah. Nice.

AI assessment note: “I think I just found you on Google. So back to Google”

Q Awesome. Let's move on to, um, the acquisition part. When did you decide it was time to sell the business?

A Well, the whole point of this business from the get-go was to use it temporarily to earn some, uh, cash to bootstrap my next venture. Uh, so for me, uh, bootstrapping, uh, is more like building a business around your life. Whereas raising VC or P capital is more like stretching your life Around the business. At least that's how it feels to me. So I wanted from the very beginning to get some cash, you know, some to have, um, um, so I could begin my next venture. So the whole point for Goindex.me was to make it quickly and sell it fast so I can, um, fund my next venture. Uh, I built it in 30 days, launched it, um, grew it with ads for another four or six months. And then sold it through acquire.com.

AI assessment note: “the whole point of this business from the get-go was to use it temporarily”