Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Casel: Acquirers prefer under-optimized businesses because perfection limits growth upside

Brian Casel · Startup Acquisition Stories with Brian Casel - Founder of ZipMessage · Mar 28, 2022 · at 10:41

Brian Casel, founder of ZipMessage, shares advice for first-time founders preparing to sell a business.

0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 25.0s
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“Just show your business work like warts and all, like all, like it's okay if there are gaps, it's okay if things are not on, you know, under optimized because that's the opportunity that a buyer is looking for. You know, they're looking, if you're a buyer, you're looking to buy a business that you can come in and improve and grow. You know, if you're going to buy a business, that's just running perfectly. It's going to be very difficult for that buyer to come in and grow it.”

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Insight
Casel: Experienced buyers sometimes drag out timelines to grind sellers down
“On the one hand, somebody who's more experienced, who's done more, more acquisitions in the past, they know the mechanics, they know the process. There's, you know they're going to ask for certain things and then they're going to do due diligence. Then we get …”
Brian Casel Mar 28, 2022 ▶ 15:05 Startup Acquisition Stories with Brian Casel - Founder of ZipMessage
Insight
Casel: Marketplace listing pages need high-level teaser prospectuses to close deals
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Disclosure
Casel divested five businesses in six months to focus on ZipMessage
“I did sell or let go of five you can call them businesses. Some of them are just really tiny projects, but some of them are, were actual businesses of mine. I let go of five of those over the last six months. And so right now I'm focusing on a business that I …”
Brian Casel Mar 28, 2022 ▶ 1:11 Startup Acquisition Stories with Brian Casel - Founder of ZipMessage
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Casel: Deal timelines on MicroAcquire ranged from five days to three months
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Brian Casel Mar 28, 2022 ▶ 13:55 Startup Acquisition Stories with Brian Casel - Founder of ZipMessage
Insight
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“A lot of the due diligence work, like getting my books in order, getting, you know, just getting the things that I know that they're probably going to ask for doing a lot of that prep work even before I listed helped, helped a lot so that by the time it got in…”
Brian Casel Mar 28, 2022 ▶ 18:02 Startup Acquisition Stories with Brian Casel - Founder of ZipMessage
Insight
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“Without, again, like without a broker, you're sort of on your own and, but that's by design, right? Like that's like, I chose to go without a broker intentionally because basically because micro acquire exists that, that made this path a lot more viable. But i…”
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