How This Bootstrapped App Got a Fast, Clean Exit

Foreign.

I'm here with Sean, the founder of Street Tag. Sean, how you doing today?

Very well, thank you. Excited to be here talking to you.

Yeah, excited to hear the story. Congrats again on the acquisition you recently got acquired on acquire.com before we dive into that, you want to just give a brief introduction of yourself for those that may not know you.

Sure. I'm Sean Oceanike. I'm one of the founders of Streak Tag, based here in London, uk. However, we do street tech is used across England and United Kingdom in general. So yeah, that's a bit about me. I'm just, you know, a tech guy, entrepreneur, love my tech. And yeah, I'm sure I'll get to share a bit more about how Street Tag started back a few years ago.

Yeah, let's talk to Street Tag. Tell me what it do, what problem did it solve? Sure.

Okay, so essentially Street Tag, starting from the problem it's solving. So we started it initially to, which is pretty much the case to basically prevent and tackle obesity and making physical activity fun and enjoyable for people. So, you know, we're at the end of 2025 now, 2026 is going to come in, lots of people are going to want to sign up for the gym, get excited, but then after a week or four weeks, they're going to quit. So Street Tag, it's that middle ground that helps people to make physical activity fun and enjoyable for them in, in such a way that they didn't even realize they've been physically active, but because they're just having so much fun. So we gamified a physical environment and turned into a virtual playground to make physical activity to fun and enjoyable for people to want to participate in that. And we typically dove in a pretty much across the age spectrum, you know, from children to elderly people. Our oldest user is 80 years old, but it's predominantly used by families and, and their children. So in a way we use it to encourage active travel to school, so to prevent people from, to reduce driving to schools. So encourage people to walk and cycle more to school during school run time. And then also it's also used in workplaces and, and so forth.

Yeah, man, what an awesome app. Having, you know, probably really positive impact on a ton of people. You know, you work, work out, you feel good, you look good, and then for you, you know, you were able to turn that into a business. That's incredible. How'd you get the idea for this?

Yeah, so it actually started in, in 2017. Initially we were actually a hardware, not a software based Platform. So in the area where I live in, we call it, we call it in. In the uk, we call it borough. So I lived in London Borough, parking and Dagenham. So there was high obesity. And then they were going through a procurement process to source for ideas for people to tackle that. So I pitched an idea of having these boxes built and then we attached them to lamppost and then we give people in the local area basically cards that they tap on those boxes all around them so that we successfully got the funding to start that. But when we launched, unfortunately they were all vandalized. So that was the master. I mean, we could have quit right there and just call it a day. But then I managed to convince them to say, you know what? Like, you know, we can try it one more time because we 3D printed the boxes and put, you know, Arduino, put a bunch of electronics inside. Actually, you know what, give us, you know, six more weeks. Let's relaunch this. We'll make it metal boxes and then put a line pad alert to make it more secure. Then we launched again. It will vandalize us.

Oh, no.

Although. Okay, all right, so this is getting really close now. I don't know. Had one more chance, one more attempt, managed to convince them to say, okay, you know what, the local authority that, you know what, why don't we make it a software. And then we just have this QR code printed on a branded stickers and we place them on lamp post and then we create a smartphone app for people to basically scan those QR codes and move around and then basically encourage people to go around looking for this QR code on lamp post to scan them. And then each time that you get to the lamppost, you have to type in your email each time. So it was quite cumbersome. But we needed to get something launched. This was now January, February 2018. We went live with that. So I bought about three bikes, I believe, and I got some college students print more of those QR codes on the lamp post and said to them, you know what, I just want you to go around twice so that I'll pay you and just replace the one that I vandalized just so we can get six, six out of the program. And we successfully did that. And then the fact that people were willing to go through that process, download app, type in an email each time they get to the lamp. I was like, okay, there's something interesting here. And we managed to get lots of people that wouldn't normally be physically active that were obese to obese to now being active at the end of the pilot run. So the program just started growing from there and then of course we iterated the software and made it a lot, much better, which is what it is today is now virtual tags and a lot more interesting stuff.

Wow, what a story. That's some serious hustle to get those first users. I love it.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. And lots of, of course, I mean, not that we don't do that anymore. There was a lot of, you know, face to face interaction, like actually interacting with the users to make sure we get the early feedback and use that to iterate and improve on the platform.

That's incredible. Where is this app available? Is it just the uk? Is it local? Is it in other areas?

Um, technically it can be used across anywhere in the world, but we. Mostly because of our business model, it's mostly used in, in the uk. However, we have lots of people that, you know, whenever they go on holiday to us or to France or to wherever around the world, they will often take their street tag with them because they want to stay competitive and make sure they're climbing the leaderboard. So there's a leaderboard system to. So they don't want to miss out on all the points. Even while they're on holiday, they're still tagging, which is great, but it can be used pretty much anywhere around the world and we are scaling that to lots of places now.

That is amazing. Tell me about the business model. How does it generate money?

So our business model currently, which is ever evolving, especially as part of this acquisition, we're going to be expanding. Essentially we work with local authorities across the uk so they contract us over a year or two years or three years, however long the contract is going to be. And then essentially their goal is to, is to get people that are physically inactive within the local area to be more physically active. So we had to basically deploy the program to get lots of people. We talk, we do a lot of targeted work in, you know, in getting people to be more physically active as a result of the engagement of Street Tag. And at the end of it all we are get our data science team to basically showcase how the impacts that we've had, how we transition people from being physically inactive to fairly active and active as a result of the intervention that we brought in with streaktime. So that's what they pay us for, to deploy the program and get people active. So it's the leading.

Yeah, that is incredible. So you clearly had product market fit, you had Tons of people using the application, you were generating revenue. What made you decide to sell streetcag?

Honestly, like from the onset, like part of the goal from the early days was always been like, to be able to exit like, you know, anything between five to seven years from the onset of starting, you know, into the future. So when we reached that point, it was like a no brainer that actually, you know what, we've done really well. We've never had any outside investment to date to get to this stage. And so the appetite to want to exit was there. And then also just, it just, you know, you know, it's never easy running a business, you know, like, I'm sure you can testify to that. And there are lots of people that, you know also, you know, listening or watching this. So I just felt like, you know, we felt like the right time to do that and just to have, you know, fresh energy, fresh brain into the company, to shine a light into the company and to help us grow to that next stage. Because I'm still excited to be part of the company, but of course not necessarily as a, as a company director anymore, the CEO anymore, but I'm still pretty much involved in a capacity within the organization. But we just, it was just the right time. It felt like the right time to put up on, on the, on the acquired account.

I think that makes a ton of sense and I hear this from founders all the time because you as the founder know better than anyone when the right time is. And that can mean a ton of different things. It could mean, you know, you're burnt out or you want to move on to something else, or you're taking the business as far as you can take it by yourself or, or just a good time to cash in the chips. Like the Fowler knows when the time's right.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also like, you know, frankly speaking, like, it feels good sometimes it can be lonely in just running, you know, the ship, you know, like running this. Like it can feel lonely sometimes. And then also it just feels it's a much better position to be able to regardless of, you know, how the acquisition went down, like to sell it. I'm a founder that has built something and exited. Most founders don't get to last that long before they pack it in or something happened. They don't get to like actually reach that finish line. So it feels good actually to, to reach that line. And that's always been a goal of mine.

It's an incredible achievement, 100% even just get users of an app is an Incredible achievement. It's not easy to do. I think I read a stat that said something like, if your app has like a thousand users, you're like in the 1% of apps or something like that. Uh, because it's hard. Yeah, it's hard.

Yeah. I mean it's always the big, huge, mega top companies that often get the headlines. Oh, they've got billions of users, but actually they're like 0.00001% of startup that get to, you know, reach that milestone. Not that any other startup can't, but actually majority don't get, they don't get anywhere close to that. So to even have, you know, thousands of people to use our platform or hundreds of thousands of people is an achievement in its own. And then at some point we just, I just had to recognize that and say, okay, you know what, now feels like the right time.

100%. You built a massively successful business and I think you played your cards right and you know, you built something that someone wanted to acquire, which is a massive achievement. So I hope you realize that. Tell me about the, the first week on acquire. What was your expectations? How many buyers reached out? What was that like?

The first week I, when we signed up, I think though we did get like some of like, you know, support. We had a contact person that was in a communicating with us, but I felt very skeptical, like, really, is this going to work? But I think the thing with acquire.com and just googling any of a random like, oh, sell your business platform is that I've always sort of like seen you guys on X over the years, postings that I've always, you know, followed you like saying post and stuff. I thought, hey, this is, this looks cool. You know, like, this is good. Um, so I just had to test out is this actually real or just one of those platforms where you sign up for and then you have bots like potentially to make you in it to show interest in whatever you're. You're doing on there. Um, but yeah, it was, it was, it was very straightforward setting it up because actually funny enough, we, we had set it up a couple of years earlier and then after a while, uh, I remember selling my car so that you can never invest that money into the business to then, you know, kick off again. So I just say, you know what, like, take us off the platform for now, like just pause the platform. And then, then we came back months later, just gave ourselves like six to eight months of like, okay, get things going again properly before we go back on so we go back with something perhaps much stronger. Um, but yeah, like even the second time round when we listed ourselves on there, it was easy the first time around. Also we did have some interest actually we did and then we. In fact we had an offer. It's just that the offer wasn't right for us at the time so we turned it down. So we've. Surprisingly enough, because I attempt, I tried to list on other random site which I'm not going to mention, just to kind of compare the. The interest I found acquire.com like by far the best in terms of gaining, getting interest and traction in people wanting to learn more about a startup and having interest in conversation by far. In fact, on other platform we didn't have any conversation at all. It was just useless. And compared to you guys.

Wow. Well, as the founder of Acquire, I obviously love to hear that. Did you do anything to prepare for the acquisition? Did you put together documents? Did you put together P and L? What did you do to prepare?

Yes, yes. So we did, we put together some document and then I think I wasn't even that much familiar with Data room ish. But then through you guys and then some of the support links and then the conversation I was having with the support staff. Can't remember. I know there was a lady before the new person key or some. Someone that's in there but someone else before him as well or I don't know him or she. Sorry. But yeah, like I found that support really helpful in terms of whenever I need anything or if I'm confused about stuff, I always send in an email. So I'm not sure about this or usually they'll also. You guys also send us an email to say, oh, can you make sure you pull this document together. You can access this, this link to see some templates. Those template was always very helpful and then the rest is just a matter of just using, you know, using my own brain to add two plus two to try and figure out what we needed to prep in advance. And then some of the conversation we had earlier on like of course like helped the further conversation we had because then we know, okay, this was expected. I mean I've never had an LOI before. I only learn about LOI through you guys and then also we only. I've only ever got my first proper LOI through you guys as well. So that there's been. There's a lot of learning from that as well. And I think on any other platform I don't think we'd have gotten close. So KUDOS to you guys for in a point to get a really, really good package that makes the process super easy for founders like me.

Incredible. Well, we can't take all the credit because you built an incredible business. That's what does most of the heavy lifting. Tell me about due diligence. Was that enjoyable? How long did.

Oh God. Due diligence, my gosh. I think with the guys with the team, the organization that acquired us, they were. We spoke, like I said, we spoke to different people in the past on acquire.com but like I really, really, really genuinely love these guys. They're so fun to work with. Yes, felt long. But I think of course it was worth it. They needed to do their, you know, their process and then because they're American, they didn't have a. They've never acquired a company in the uk so they needed to also sell the holding company to take up that process and all of that. Um, so. But then the moment we realized that was happening, you know, that's. That's some investment from their side. So we knew that. Okay, yeah, this is definitely happening for real. It's not just like, because sometimes like they're so great to go with. Unlike some previous rude people that we think tracted free. And because, I mean, you know, us being from uk, I think this like British culture, there's a sort of like where we tend to be more like, sort of like can be respectful and laid back in our approach. Um, and whereas maybe perhaps other people from other countries are not so the case. So for some reason like we got on so well. I got on so well with, with the team. So I was always like felt relaxed to go through that due diligence, whatever they needed to do. And I learned from earlier on that is better to just be open and just say, you know, whatever it is about the organization share rather than, you know, some funny stuff coming up down the line and it's going to be giving me anxiety. I just wanted to sleep good and knowing that, yep, I've been honest and I don't want any sort of like funny stuff coming out. In fact, I remember when they reached out through our quiet.com we had. I'd replied and then stop a meeting. And then in that meeting, that meeting day, I just had a procedure done. And really I could have said, you know, I don't want to do it. Like I just postponed it or something. But I just thought, you know what, I'll just do it. And I was just because of the mood, I was in slight pain. I just I just gave said every all the good stuff of Kotobach and also said all the challenging parts like everything literally. And I then I remember talking to our co founder afterwards when we were catching up in the evening because of the time difference I was like, I just said it all like, you know, yeah, that's it. Like while we're in that catch up meeting, I remember receiving an email saying, oh, want to have a follow up meeting? And I remember thinking to myself like what I like, like are they serious? Like after everything I've said, like, you know, yes, we've built something great. But then there's also challenge as in most businesses. So I was very surprised and I reached out. Yeah, okay. Okay, this is interesting. Maybe I acquired.com is about to kachin us like into. Into the future and then yeah did it follow up. But yeah, it's the due diligence was worth it. And part of the lots of different conversation on the on acquire.com and then also the conversation, I think there's a checklist that I remember you guys shared in earlier on so that that meant I had been, I had created a data room on our Google Drive and I started setting things up in place just to make part of that process a bit easier. So half of the work was more or less done in a way.

Amazing. There's a few things you said that I really like. Number one, just getting along with a buyer is so huge. Out of all the acquisitions I've seen, the best ones are where the buyer and seller just get along. And there's a good quote by Warren Buffett where he says you can't do a good deal with a bad person. And there's parts of acquisitions where both sides are taking on risk. You're, you know, revealing all this sense of information about your company and the buyer. You know, they don't want to find out a surprise or something isn't as advertised or something's broken and they acquire the business and there's an engineer that has all the keys and everything, just stuff like that. So like you really need to get along with the buyer. You can usually tell them the first call and then yeah, being like super transparent upfront and honest about the good and the bad things about your business because when you get into due diligence, everything is pretty much going to come out. You know, if you had downlines or churn is really high or whatever the issues may be, buyers can really tell too. And they appreciate just the honesty and you know, being able to wrap their head around the business. And what you're really saying is, you know, I want this acquisition to be successful. I want you as a buyer to be successful. I'm serious about selling the business, and buyers really appreciate that. And so you get really good deals done. And then setting up the data room too in advance is massive because you want to be ahead of that stuff. So you keep momentum going so it doesn't drag on during due diligence and it delays closing and people lose excitement and then that's where deals fall apart and then a surprise pops up and everything just goes haywire when that happens. So great job. So you successfully, you know, sold the business. You found an amazing buyer, you got, you get along with them really well. You're excited to work with them. That's a, that's an awesome acquisition. So congrats on that. Did you do anything to celebrate when the deal closed? Did you go out to eat somewhere? Do you.

I think the first week, definitely not because I was just dealing in shock. I didn't know how to process it, to be honest. Like, I'd never been in this situation before. I didn't know how to process. I was happy. But then you just. I feel empty at the same time, you know, like almost sort of like, wow, okay. Because it took approximately about four months and yeah, I wasn't, I didn't know how to celebrate it in the first week. I'll be honest. You just, it was just a very weird feeling for me. But then week two, we went out for dinner, myself and my co founder to, to celebrate it, and we started, you know, started to open up about it a bit and discuss it a bit more. I think now it's, it's more like, like an everyday celebration thing for us now and especially for me. And I'm happy to still be part of the organization. And people have asked, I mean, like, oh, how do you feel now? Like, you know, you've always been your own boss most of your life. And I was like, I said, it's okay. I'm happy to be an employee for once. Like, I mean, during the. Right, like, you know, I want, I still want it to be successful, you know, like, I don't have any bad feelings towards the company or towards the new owners. I know I'm excited, like, you know, to be part of it. I want, I want it to, like, it's a legacy thing for me as well. Right. So regardless of what happened in the future, however long, I'm still going to remain a company. So, yeah, it's. I want to be able to sell. I'm in fact I'm glad I didn't jump over and in super celebration in the week one. So like I like this idea of like in it celebrating over time and just become time be so happy with the, the journey, next journey and the next chapter we're going through.

Yeah, I agree on multiple fronts. I think a lot of founders don't realize you will exit your. Everyone will exit their business at one point or another. It's just going to be up to them or it's going to be something that happens and the business goes a different way or it's just, it's very rare to pass a business along, your kids or something like that, especially a software company like you're going to exit your business and you want to be in control of that decision and not be you know, swayed by the market or you get disrupted which happens all the time as we all know as founders. And yeah, it's a weird surreal feeling like I sold a business when I was 29 to a private equity firm. All of a sudden I'm an employee too. It was interesting but best decision I've ever made because you know it is chapters. You know, I was able to move on, start, you know, acquire and do a bunch of other cool stuff. So I love that perspective. If you had to give a couple tips to another founder that's looking to get acquired, what do you think those tips would be? You have one or two main tips.

Main one definitely just be transparent from the upfront because that way you can filter who's who's serious and who's not, who you're likely to get on with. I think that's so underrated. It's just easier to just speak up front. Secondly, I think pre prepping some of the data room stuff because there's quite a few of them and from the list that you guys shared and it can, you can feel like oh my God, I'm, I'm too lazy, I can't be asked to do this. So like preparing that in advance is really key. It just helps, it just helps to do that. And then you guys have a thing also around every month trying to update the profile, the startup profile. So doing that as much as you can and just keep it refined and alive. And also sorry, one more like just try and respond as quickly as possible to some of the people that have interest in the company because yeah, we all have lots of things going on. It might you know, be doing follow ups is what I'm trying to get like just doing follow ups and just see like, you know, they might just have something critical that I just distract them in a moment. But just doing follow ups also helps and if they can help, if they know, you know, really interested, that's fine. You know, maybe they might have an interesting recommendation or suggestion that's also work. So those are my tips. Great advice.

I agree again on all fronts. The last point's really good is a lot of founders don't realize when you're selling your business, you're in sales, you need to follow up, you need to share new information. Information. I cannot tell you how many acquisitions I've seen close from like the fourth follow up one. You know, buyers looking at everything, they're looking at all the documents but they're also looking at, you know, 10 other deals and then it's this one message that gets them excited. It's new, these new updated numbers as new documents you put together. So keep following up until they say, hey, I'm just not interested. Just like sales, you need to follow up, get a lot of no's and then you eventually get a yes. So love that. Sean, what's next for you? You mentioned you know you're going to be working on this for a little bit. Anything else you'd like to add to that?

Honestly right now I'm just wanting to enjoy, be at peace and just sleeping better. You know, I have someone else to share the burden of, of the company with online was like pretty much just myself on my head.

So yeah, rivers go down, they don't have to call you anymore.

Yeah, well it's the after but it's not the same pressure, you know, it's not the same pressure. I have someone else to share that burden with. Like hey guys, there's something going down. Both we're not going to have that. I think now Jenny just want to focus on helping the company grow and of course I will be interested in other bits on the side, you know, wherever comes up or whatever that might be. But I'm in no rush at all. Just want to help the company to that with, you know, for that next stage journey. Really? I know that sounds boring but yeah, I just want to enjoy it. I want to soak it in, not just quickly. I rush onto something as oh, I'm leaving.

No, I think that's smart. Yeah, enjoy it.

I feel like we've built a really good, I built a really good relationship with the new owners as well. I don't. I'm a very loyal person when it comes to things like this so I'm determined to not let them down if that makes sense.

Yeah, totally your stand up guy. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Congrats again on the acquisition. Super excited for you. If people want to learn more about you and follow your story online, where can they find you?

So yeah, I don't post very much on X but I think just, you know, following on on X. Just my name and surname Sean Oceaniake. So that's S E U N O S H I N A I K e on Twitter or X and then also I'm also on LinkedIn and then also you can just email me if you really want to. Just my first name as streettag.co.uk that's it.

Right on. I'll put those in the show notes. Sean, thanks again for coming on.

Thank you Andrew. Nice to meet you. You too.

Cheer.