Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Jeel Patel turned a $500 affiliate site into a five-figure buyout

Jil Patel · Startup Acquisition Stories With Jeel Patel, Founder of InvoiceOwl · Jun 3, 2024 · at 1:16

Jeel Patel, founder of InvoiceOwl, discusses his early background in affiliate marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) prior to launching SaaS products.

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“Going back to when I was 19, I started learning SEO through an affiliate site called Tomfw.com and started that site with 500 dollars, and within one year got a five-figure acquisition offer”

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Insight
Patel: Selling founders should prioritize transaction process efficiency over highest price
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Insight
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Disclosure
InvoiceOwl started its SEO strategy six months before building an MVP
“We didn't have the product. He started the SEO six months before we had even the MVP, like before even we started working on the MVP, we had started the SEO six months before that.”
Jil Patel Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 4:07 Startup Acquisition Stories With Jeel Patel, Founder of InvoiceOwl
Assertion Not checkable as stated
InvoiceOwl reached 1,000 paying customers before its acquisition
“So if you count the number of users, it was like, 13,000 plus users. But like, customers, customers would be in like, thousand or something range.”
Jil Patel Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 9:12 Startup Acquisition Stories With Jeel Patel, Founder of InvoiceOwl
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jeel Patel's Upper Route Planner has reached $500,000 in ARR
“Already doing great on it. We are at like half a million dollars in ERR.”
Jil Patel Jun 3, 2024 ▶ 22:12 Startup Acquisition Stories With Jeel Patel, Founder of InvoiceOwl
Insight
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“From, like, even if you're not planning to sell, just have, like, a documentation, which is just, like, in smallest things, like, how you set up a mix panel, how you set up, like, your database, and et cetera, and not just the bigger pieces, because people usu…”
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