The Exchanges

Q Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to see how that plays out. Okay, so I want to get to the, the fun start, the, the fun part. So, um, you, you list on, um, acquired.com, uh, what kind of preparation did you do, um, before you actually, like, went on the marketplace and started speaking to buyers?

A Yeah, um, getting the books in order, I think is the first thing, like, we had, I, I kept Pretty solid, you know, P&L and notes and whatnot. Um, I just wanted to make sure I had to go back, you know, I was putting, like, our DigitalOcean bill was, like, 800 dollars a month. I just kept putting 800 every month because I wasn't going to go in and check what our actual bill was. It was, like, eight 82, then it was, like, seven 53. So anyway, I had to go back and, like, really get those numbers, like, hammered out and, you know, check all of our receipts on everything. Um, had to then, you know, think about, like, What is the, the right range here? So that involved actually looking at, like, customer churn, water flows, waterfalls, and whatnot, um, then putting, like, pen to paper on, okay, like, here's our revenue, here's our monthly growth, here's our churn. What do we even think a reasonable number is? And of course, as you well know, like, the numbers for, for small startups can be kind of all over the place, which is what we began to realize. Um, and then we worked with Paul on your team. He had a bunch of other Stuff that he needed us to do, like, you know, get approved for seller financing.

AI assessment note: “getting the books in order, I think is the first thing”

Q Um, but what got you into entrepreneurship? It sounds like you, you know, you, you were working on some tech companies and you made that leap. That's really scary for a lot of people. Um, what made you make, take that leap?

A Yeah. Uh, you know, I think Haley and I had a, We had a way interesting introduction to like entrepreneurship and in that we started it as a side business. I see you tweet about this too. And it's like, and actually a lot of, there's like a whole Twitter culture of like the solopreneur, like side hustler. And I actually like, I think it's a great way to build a business is just as a side hustle, because then you can be one foot in the door, one foot out and still make, you know, a paycheck. And get to build something you really love on the side. So, I mean, we built Growth Marketing Pro. I think she quit her day job three years in. I probably quit like four years in, something like that. But, uh, yeah, we really stepped into it as a side hustle with our blog.

AI assessment note: “we started it as a side business... we built Growth Marketing Pro”

Q don't want to give too much away, but, um, um, on the FOMO thing really quick, Andrew, you have the best FOMO technique of all. Well, hey, let's, let's, let me, let me ask you that in a different way. Uh, you go live on acquire.com. You're fully prepared. You have an M&A advisor, Paul, in your corner. If you have questions, um, What happened first, like, week or two?

A We, I forget the exact number of people, but like, we, before you guys even emailed the deal out, you know, I, maybe I'm getting my timelines mixed up. I think you guys didn't even email anyone on the platform yet, and I feel like we had people asking to be in the data room, you know, like approve, you know, you have to approve people when they, they come in or whatever. Um, and then you guys sent the email, I think, to the first 50,000 potential buyers or something like that. And we had like 50 people, um, sign a, sign a NDA to, to get into the data room. So it was like, it was a swell of people in the first 48 hours. Like I was pretty genuinely shocked. Um, we then had a couple of conversations like in the chat portal in the Acquire platform. People seemed pretty interested, got on some calls. Um, And truly got two offers basically before 72 hours were up, something like that. Got another offline offer from a firm who was sitting on the sidelines and had, had approached us, I don't know, six months before, and I had told them, hey guys, we're gonna list on Acquire, and you know, the date is whatever, June seventh or whatever our list date was, and then sure enough, June sixth, They email us and they're like, Hey, do you have like an updated P and L and like all this other stuff? And then sure enough, June seventh, they gave us an offer. So like, I don't know, the acquired pla…

AI assessment note: “got two offers basically before 72 hours were up, something like that.”

Q Yeah. Well, hey, let's, um, let's transition over to, um, uh, Growth Bar. Where'd you get the idea from it? What made you start that company?

A It was like serving a need that we had. So serving the need for, so for our marketing agency, we are creating content for a number of companies. And in every single case, the company is super different. So they're, You know, there's keyword research involved. There's like understanding what the business even does. Then there's the, okay, what are their, you know, guidelines for writing? Like, do they, do they talk about us in the, in, talk about themselves in the we voice, the I voice, what, and basically it's like a process that's super artisanal, and we were trying to make it a little less artisanal and leave a little bit less to, you know, guessing how are we going to get something to rank? So we basically started with What was like an editor interface that didn't have anything to do with AI. It was an editor interface that gave you, you know, essentially like the growth bar, the like toolbar that told you, okay, how optimized is your blog post for SEO? And then of course, when, you know, we heard about open AI, we got on the waitlist for their beta and, you know, the obvious next progression of that was, okay, like let's have the tool help you actually write An SEO optimized blog post as well as optimize the blog post. So it like really, it grew organically. And like I said, you know, it was, it was a side hustle. It was a side hustle of a side hustle. And then like, you kn…

AI assessment note: “It was like serving a need that we had. So for our marketing agency”

Q Nice. So, every entrepreneur has mistakes, struggles, obstacles they've gone through. Would you say, uh, your biggest, you know, obstacle, either building, um, Growth Bar or Growth Marketing Pro or just Anything else? What's your biggest mistake?

A Oh, good one. Good one. Uh, I mean, there's a million. I think, I mean, I want to, I want to say with Growth Bar, it was going too wide. You know, I think a lot of VCs and stuff will tell you, like, go narrow and deep on one product and one, you know, use case. And I think with Growth Bar, I think it's good advice sometimes. But sometimes you need to go broad enough in order for the tool to be useful, and for Growth Bar, that meant adding SEO features as well. Like, you know, it's an AI writing tool, but also needs to help you plan, write, and, and rank, and follow your rankings for the content that you're creating in the name of SEO. So like, we, I, you know, I don't know if it was like a real struggle, but it was like always trying to find that balance between broad and narrow. Um, and I think we went too broad in the beginning. I think we spent a lot of time and resources creating keyword research stuff from scratch that, you know, perhaps we didn't need to spend that time doing, and we could have refined the, the core product, which was the AI writing for SEO product. It's not a good answer.

AI assessment note: “I want to say with Growth Bar, it was going too wide.”

Q Nice. When did you, uh, okay. So that's awesome. I love it. You scratched your own itch. So, so, so, so to say, um, when'd you know you had product market fit? Did you have a moment where you like felt it? Customers were just coming in. Was it a slow round? Was it a day moment? Were we out on a walk one day?

A It's funny, my, uh, so like, Hailey and I are pretty good at acquiring customers, and like, Growth Marketing Pro had an audience already, you know, like it's, however many organics it had back then, 50,000 organic visitors a month to the site for all sorts of, you know, various marketing strategies and whatnot, um, and an email list. Of, you know, 15, 20,000 people, so when we launched, it was actually like, that was the moment I was like, oh wow, we've got a tool here, because we were affiliates for a bunch of, of other software tools, like webinar software, uh, landing page software, like the Instapages and Unbounces of the world, and, and all along, Haley and I were kind of like, we need our own SaaS so that we're not just taking 20% commission, we need, uh, something that we can get a hundred percent of the commissions on, And so, so that was the impetus originally behind creating a SaaS in the first place. So anyway, once we launched, we sort of were right then and there. We were like, oh, cool. We got to, I don't know, 5000 MRR in like a month or two, something like that. So we pretty immediately knew we had something. And, and right then and there, I was like, oh my gosh, we've got the thing. Now we just need to sell it more and more of it to our audience. But then churn starts kicking in. And like any SaaS entrepreneur knows that churn is like the total Death of the who…

AI assessment note: “once we launched, we sort of were right then and there.”

Q So I guess, you know, final questions, um, you know, if you had to, you know, give advice to someone looking to sell their, their business, um, uh, what's like the top three pieces of advice to give them?

A I say one, it's like, Bill, this is the worst advice. If I were a founder, I'd like turn this video off right now, but like build a good company. Like, it's really like, it's that simple. Like you try and, you know, show growth, show customer acquisition, You know, make your, your lifetime value better. And it's like at the end of the day, like you kind of need it all. Like everything is going to come out when, when a buyer looks at a business and in diligence and like, it's like every, every like flaw your business has is like a tick down. You're like, so it's just like, you have this number in your mind and then like, oh, your churn is a little too high. So like, let's actually just like take 20% off that. And then you're like, eh, your customer growth is a little lower in the last three months. Let's take 20% off that. So it's like, you really just like your whole business has to be complete and, and like, you know, there's, there's kind of nothing you can hide, so to speak. Um, I think the second thing is like, I still so believe in organic growth and, and not just SEO. I mean, definitely SEO, but like what you're doing with Acquire and you're like, you know, brand on, on social, on Twitter and probably LinkedIn and the other places. I don't, Go as much, but, like, organic growth still, particularly for, you know, bootstrap startups, like, you've got to find a way to reduce…

AI assessment note: “build a good company. Like, it's really like, it's that simple.”

Q if you were comfortable sharing the exact, everybody knows their exact, um, revenue. Uh, let's move on to the, the acquisition processes, but, Um, I, I really want to hear about, um, what, um, you know, so you, you built this great product, um, you found product market fit. It's growing. It's got, you know, six figures in your recurring revenue. Uh, what made you decide to sell the business?

A Couple things. One, we needed time back. Um, so our marketing agency that we actually, we had a fun process Haley and I, so Haley, my business partner, we met at a, at a startup and We started Growth Marketing Pro. We then, once we sort of fell into Growth Bar and started, you know, really investing in Growth Bar, she and I were looking at each other, and we were like, alright, we've got this agency, we've got this SaaS product, and there's only two of us, and the agency definitely takes full-time folks, and Growth Bar was beginning to take, you know, a full-time person, so we basically just split up the business, and I took Growth Bar, Haley took our agency, we hired a couple of people at the agency, Um, and we, we kind of said to each other, like, let's each just give this a go for, like, 12 months. Each of us run our own businesses. Of course, we, like, you know, there is plenty of, of chatting and, like, figuring out how to, how to, you know, how to grow each one of our businesses, but we, like, sat back and, and said, okay, let's see in 12 months who's, who's done better here. Um, after 12 months.

AI assessment note: “Couple things. One, we needed time back.”