SaaS Acquisitions w/ Juan Fernando Rivero - Founder of Xmartclock

Foreign.

We are live. I'm here with Fernando, the founder and former CEO of Exmark Clock. He sold his business on microquire for 250,000, is that correct?

Yeah, is that correct? I sold it just three, three weeks ago. So I'm very excited about that.

So first of all, huge congrats on the successful acquisition.

Thank you.

More than anything, I love to just hear about the process. So I remember you listing on Microquire and then the next thing I get was an email from you saying like, I sold the business, which I was thrilled to see. How was your experience working with buyers, going through due diligence? What did that process look like? Just walk me through the acquisition from start to finish. You can give me the 60 second version or the 10 minute version, whichever one you prefer.

Sure. Well, first of all, I found you in Twitter. I had the idea to sell my business in mind for a long time. But to be honest, I didn't have a good idea where to find a buyer for this kind of business once I found you. To be honest, I had not a big expectations. I just list my startup in your website. But in few days I started to receive some questions from very interesting buyers and I had the chance to see their profiles in LinkedIn. So I saw they were really real buyers and very interesting people. I had the chance to have a chat with them and I think the 5 or the 6 buyer was the buyer that in the end become the new owner of the company. It was something like two months from the beginning to the point that I, I sold the company. But of course I had more than one month of negotiation with the buyer for the website, the microacquarian website. It was very, very easy and it is free for me. So it is an amazing experience to sell a company in a quarter of million for free. For me it was for free. So now I would like to become a buyer in the same website. In fact. Yeah, in fact I'm looking for other small companies because I see the opportunity to take a new and small project and then apply what I know, start to grow a new project again.

So I love that right there. And that was going to be my next question is why did you want to sell? And it sounds like you wanted to maybe take your experience and your knowledge and apply it to a new business or move on to something bigger. Is that correct?

Yes. Well, I was working in this project for three years. Of course in the beginning it was zero income, zero profit. And then in three years it was 7,000 per month in recurring Monthly and at some point I was looking for something new, something more exciting. I am a solo developer so I mean I'm doing all the stuff, bootstrap it, etc. So to be excited about the project is very important for me because I don't have a boss or something like that. I need to be self motivated and that was the reason why I was looking to sell my company in that specific moment.

That's awesome. And what did Exmark do? Can you just briefly explain the company sold in?

Yeah. It is a time clock system for remote employees. So employees can clock in and clock out using their mobile phone or even a tablet from remote locations. We are doing the GPS tracking and facial recognition. It is a time clock app.

That's awesome. I know the answers to those questions because obviously I have your website up right now. So congrats on the acquisition. I'm sure a lot of people listening might be wondering I might be interested in selling a company. If you had any advice to give to potential entrepreneurs looking to sell their business on Microacquire. What's like the top two things you would recommend to other entrepreneurs?

First one, don't be afraid to share information. Of course, take a look in the LinkedIn profile of the buyer. That is a good thing. I didn't share my profile with all the potential buyers. I share my profile with maybe 90% of the buyers because I take a Look in the LinkedIn profile before to share my information. But don't be afraid to share all your information, your numbers and be honest with your information. Always say exactly your numbers, always say the truth. If you have a problem in your project, you need to tell that for the, for the, for the buyer. And the, the second thing is it depends on, on your project. And I, I can tell you based on my experience. But maybe you will experience a time where maybe you, you can think, oh, I will not sell my company because I'm receiving a few buyers contact and maybe I don't find the good buyer but please give the system a few weeks more and then the right buyer will come in your door.

That's great advice. So really just being transparent with your numbers, your information, researching buyers before you grant them access to your profile and your private details and just being patient. It took me three years to sell one of my companies, so two months is. I would have preferred that. So that's great advice. So tell me about what's next for you. You got a quarter million bucks now you're looking to buy other companies potentially. Are you working on Another startup already. Every entrepreneur I talk to that has sold a company typically is already working on something or has something cool in the pipeline. Is there anything new that you have going on that you'd want to share?

Yeah, well, I believe all the solo developers, Bootstrap founders, have a few ideas in mind. In my case, I already started another project. This time is a very different thing. It's a chatbot for a website. Nothing new. There are a lot of chatbots for a website, but, well, I expect to have some different approach and also a different market. So this is my new project and I'm working on it already.

Nice. Well, maybe someday I can help you sell that on Microquire. We'll see.

Yeah, that is my plan. Yeah.

So, you know, final questions. You know, what do you like to do for fun, Fernando? Like give me a little bit of background. I know you're in. What country are you in?

I live in Uruguay. South America.

Awesome. So what do you. I see a workout ball in the back. What do you like to do?

It's not mine. Well, I like to play. Tennis is my favorite game. I like to play tennis.

Nice. What would you say your favorite startup is? Hard question. You can say any company but Tesla. Or you can say Tesla if it is.

I don't know how you say that in English, but it's N A S A NASA. Yeah, okay.

NASA. There you go.

Yeah. In fact, I went to NASA two, two years ago in a fun fact.

Yeah, fun fact about myself. I was born October 1st and so I share the same birthday as NASA. So. Oh yeah, so yeah, pretty big deal. And Mark McGuire, who's like a baseball player. That's about it. But that's awesome. Any podcasts that you listen to, any business books that you'd recommend to other entrepreneurs, you successfully sold a company you're working on, other companies, you're doing so much other stuff for entrepreneurs just starting out. Any podcasts you'd recommend or just business books or anything at all, Just, you know, help them, well, succeed.

Maybe it's not the answer that you are looking for, but this will be the first podcast that I will be listening. I'm not a post that guy, so I will recommend this one.

Yeah, well, I, I, I really appreciate you. I'm coming on Fernando, so we could probably wrap it up here, but congrats again on the acquisition. You're the reason why we started this market to help entrepreneurs succeed and get acquired without the typical headaches. So again, huge congrats. Really excited to see what you do. Next and looking forward to potentially seeing you again on Microbar.

I can be more happy. And all I can say is thank you. Thank you.

And hey, do you want to microbiome shirt? By the way, we got a bunch of swag that we're giving out, and I'd love to send you one. Sorry, do you want a Micro Choir shirt? I'd love to send you one.

Yeah, of course.

Okay. I'll send you a link to your email after we're done with this, but thanks again so much for coming on. Thanks so much for your support, and congrats on your success.

Thank you, Andrew.

All right, cheers.