The Exchanges

Q on, you know, making the jump in entrepreneurship. Just, you know, from a high level, what is, you, you briefly touched on it, but to my understanding, you know, in PR, you have press release sites, you have big databases of different reporters, lots of manual outreach and stuff. What did, and you had some parallels to that, but for podcasts, what did Podseeker What problem did it essentially solve?

A So like I said, yeah, if you're a PR person, like you have really good toolkits for those traditional media formats and they're using them every day, which is something, you know, I came to learn. And then I had just always been, you know, into podcasts like as a listener. But like I said, I also kind of, you know, reached out and pitched to, to some of those podcasts as well. So, you know, when I married those two data points together, like one, you know, I found it a difficult process and then two, You know, noticing that PR people were solving the problem in this other domain yet didn't have a way to solve it in, in the podcast domain. Um, that's when I realized, you know, that there could be something there. So the problem it solves is just allows you to scale podcast outreach. So if you want to reach out to podcast to pitch yourself as a guest or for an advertising opportunity, uh, or for a partnership opportunity, and you want to know that you're reaching out to the right podcast and you want to know how to get in contact with them. Like, you know, what's the best email to, To email them on, um, Podseeker lets you do that, you know, far more quickly than, than you could if you were just doing that manually.

AI assessment note: “the problem it solves is just allows you to scale podcast outreach.”

Q Very nice. So things are, things are going good. You have an interesting business. It's solving a clear market need. Um, when did you make the decision to, to sell it? Can you walk me through maybe your thought process on that? Why did, why'd you go and look for an acquisition?

A Yeah. So, so funnily enough, it was probably about a year ago. And this is where I can get into, you know, some of the Not necessarily downsides, but, like, there was a point in time where I realized, like, it was, it might have been a difficult product to grow in the form that it was in. Like, things needed to change about the product in order to, like, go into different markets. That's what my thoughts were at the time. And so, it was kind of like a bit of a fork in the road. Like, okay, I need to double down on this. And the other thing I should add, like, this is pretty much a side project, you know, the whole time I'm working on it. So, I'm not, you know, like, 12 hours a day on it kind of thing. It's like, you know, the few hours that I can kind of get to put into it. And yeah, it just sort of came to me that it was, you know, it was going to require essentially a full-time effort, um, in order to make it like a really big business or so, so I thought. And then one day this guy reached out to me, his, his name is Ben. He's, he's a great guy. And we just kind of got talking about, you know, him taking over the business with me being, you know, someone involved as like a minority shareholder. So he was going to buy out most of the business and I was going to, you know, essentially kind of consult with him. And that ultimately the deal didn't go through for, for a number of …

AI assessment note: “it was probably about a year ago... it was going to require essentially a full-time effort”

Q SaaS business. Rob Walling has some really, really good content on YouTube. Highly recommend checking that out. So, shameless plug. Shout out to Rob. But moving towards the back to the acquisition story. So, you list on acquire.com. You go live with your listing. What happens in the first week? Tell me about how many buyers reached out. What were your expectations? How are you feeling? Like, how'd it go?

A Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it, it definitely exceeded my expectations. Like I'd have to go back and look at the numbers, but like, I, I feel like within the first week or two, I, there were like at least, I don't know, like 10 people who reached out with, you know, who, who were genuinely interested and like, you know, on your platform, it tells you like, they've got the funds and like, we verified that they've got the funds. So, you know, they're all like, you know, there's not like kite, tire kickers there. I will say at first, like when I listed the business, I wasn't like, Desperate to sell it. Like I didn't, you know, like need to, to get out anytime soon. So I did list it at a much higher price than what it was worth, quote unquote, just because I was like, well, like, you know, let's see if there's any bites at that level and I can always come down. So that would, that was largely like the response that, that I got, which I, I, you know, completely expected was, Hey, really like your business. I'm definitely interested, but, but not at that price point, would you consider coming down? And for the longest time I was just like, nah, I'm not really interested in coming down. And so, so it actually sat there for probably like six months, but like, you know, just with, with people, you know, putting in lower offers than, than what I wanted, but like real offers until I, you know…

AI assessment note: “it definitely exceeded my expectations... within the first week or two... at least... 10 people”

Q growth opportunity or the great parts about your business and have that dialogue with the buyer that may eventually acquire you. But moving on to, um, how you find your, found your buyer. I love to, to know about that. How did, how did you figure out through all the buyers that sent offers that signed NDAs? How did you land on the The individual that eventually acquired the business.

A Yeah, so, so, for starters, like, we just got along, so we had a call, like, he was a really good guy, and I think, importantly, he, he just, like, he really knew what he was doing, and he kind of, like, laid out, like, he had acquired a business before, and he just really, like, laid out steps, and he just, he made me feel like, if we were to go through with this, that it would be as painless as it, as it could possibly be, and, like, I've heard enough Oh, you know, I've heard enough acquisition stories that have been wildly stressful and overly complicated to, to not have want to, wanted to go through that. Like we were doing before offline, like I've got, you know, I've got two young boys and like, I didn't want to essentially give myself, you know, another job in, in just going through the acquisition. And so that was definitely a big part of it. And also like, you know, what, while he didn't, you know, go for my like high ball price at the start, like, you know, it was, it was a price that I was happy with and that he was happy with. You know, he sees a lot of really great potential in the business and it just feels like it's, it's going to a really good home. So yeah, those are the main reasons.

AI assessment note: “he had acquired a business before, and he just really, like, laid out steps”

Q So hats off to you for, um, due diligence, due diligence in the bar. Cause it's a, it truly is a two way street. Um, I guess, I guess another question is, um, how'd you prepare for the acquisition? Did you, um, create like any docs or materials or?

A Yeah, not as many as, as would have been, um, ideal. I mean, we, we had all the docs that, that we kind of needed to do. Luckily the, the product itself is relatively Straightforward. So like, you know, the buyer getting to know the product was, was fairly straightforward. It's like a, it's like advanced search for podcasts. So that side of it was fine. And then the code, like I, I'm, I can write a little bit of code, but I'm, I'm no means a software engineer. So I wasn't totally across that side of things as well, but, but the buyer was, and so I just, you know, essentially gave him access to, to GitHub and he just kind of combed through that and, and, uh, had a look through it all. So that all went well, but in terms of like, Processes and things like that. There just wasn't a lot of that because of this essentially pretty much just me for, for the duration of the business. There's a fairly like passive business. Like I said, I had a, a, a job, like most of the time I was, I was doing this business. And actually this is something I didn't touch on earlier as, as one of the main reasons that I decided to sell the business was it was really passive for me. And I just kept hearing from like, you know, people I was talking to, like, Passive income does not exist. And like, if it does exist, like you, you better bet that it's, it's temporary because, you know, one of these like ex…

AI assessment note: “not as many as, as would have been, um, ideal.”

Q on due diligence and Asset transfers. I, I guess maybe for, you know, final questions. You know, you've been through an acquisition. Congrats again on the close. You found a great buyer. You built a great product. If you had just like three pieces of advice for other startup founders that might be looking to sell their businesses, what, what are the top three learnings that you would tell them?

A Yeah. So, so one of them is, is that thing that we were talking about is, um, Like, I'm really happy with how this acquisition went through. And while, whilst I haven't been through a nightmare acquisition, like I know they definitely exist. And like, I'm really glad that I didn't have to go through that. And so I'd say, you know, that that's potentially like, if you, you know, you had two buyers and everything else is equal, uh, apart from, you know, one's offering you less money, but you know, it's going to be a smoother acquisition and one's offering you more money, but it might be, you know, a bit more hellish than, you know, I would go with the, The former in that situation.

AI assessment note: “one of them is, is that thing that we were talking about”