Startup Acquisition Stories w/ Ramzey Nassar- Co-Founder & CEO at DOE Media

Foreign.

I am with Ramsey, who recently got Microcard for a pretty significant amount. We were just chatting before we started recording. Ramsey, thanks so much for joining the podcast.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Soil and Clay. Do you want to maybe tell people a little bit about what the company was and what it did?

Yeah. So Soil and Clay is an online houseplant website. So we ship healthy and happy mature houseplants from our greenhouse to your door, essentially. We started it right around October 2020.

Nice. And sounded like you scaled it up pretty fast looking at the revenue numbers.

Yeah, it was, it was definitely an interesting startup. This was like my seventh startup that I've had. And meanwhile I was running our direct response advertising agency like full time and, you know, we had to, I basically had to figure out how to ship live goods in the dead of winter in Chicago at a greenhouse 1 1/2 hours away from my house in the city. So after we kind of saw initial success, we had to, you know, scale it up. Long story short, we had like tens of thousands of orders and we had to ship it all within like, you know, a three to four month period. And we knew nothing about live goods or horticulture prior to. So it was definitely a learning curve, but it was a, it was really fun.

Yeah, I love the business and it just goes to show you, like, I mean, the exit seemed to be, you know, like a good one for you, so I'm happy with that. And just, you know, how simple of a website or, you know, service it was and the interactions you got so quickly, it's one of those, you know, there's, there's so much opportunity with startups and just finding like such a unique niche I think is awesome. So, so congrats on all that. So fast forward a little bit. You, you know, launched a business, you reach, you know, a point of scale, you know, what made you decide to, you know, potentially sell the business.

So I was doing this while growing my primary business, like 400% year over year, which is our agency. And I also launched like four other e commerce ventures at the same time. So it was really just a bandwidth thing and, you know, to scale it to the degree that we kind of envisioned and projected out. I just couldn't do it by myself or with my team. So we wanted to approach relevant companies with a plan because our plan initially was to raise like a Series A behind it. But we kind of bootstrapped this thing from the start and it kind of did it by ourselves. So after we realized like, hey, like, we're focusing on our direct response advertising agency. We decided to sell it or partner, and then we went down this journey. That's when I found out about Microacquire after Googling some things. And then we decided this would be the best thing. So we basically built a morphed deck that was kind of like a series A deck, but also an acquisition deck to say, here's our plan. And with the right infrastructure and team in place, this is what this thing could do, potentially.

I like that a lot because a lot of buyers are looking for, like, what would you do with the business if you would continue to run it? So laying out, like, potential growth opportunities for buyers is huge. So nice job on that.

Yeah. And real quick on that. What. What we wanted to do was stay involved. So we're actually still involved in the company. We're vested into the company and we still run the marketing behind the company. So we got to kind of keep our baby and do it at a greater scale. So I can't go into all the details, but this is a big opportunity, and the company that we partnered with, that acquired us has really big goals and is setting up a pretty impressive infrastructure to kind of attain those goals right now.

Right on. So you might get. They call it a second bite of the apple, so to speak. Have you heard that? Have you heard that term before?

I have, yeah. I hope. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sure you will. So my next question would be you list on Microbar. Can you walk me through just, like, how that experience went? How'd you find, like, the right. It sounds like you found a perfect buyer. How did you find that person?

My initial hypothesis and what I've done in my past exit was build a data room. I also emailed you, and you were helpful in giving me some guidance. And then I think you connected me to Paul at some point in the journey, or maybe post journey, but kind of followed your content. And then based on, like, what we do, because we work with a lot of, like, private equity funds and venture capital funds at our agency. So what I learned is everyone builds, like a data room, you know, whether they're raising or selling a company. We built like, a shared Google Drive folder essentially with, you know, a deck. And this is that kind of morphed version of a fundraising slash buy us deck. And the value proposition is to, like, why you should buy us and, like, the plans, like you said, like, a lot of the times, like, people just sell it and, like, walk away. But we kind of laid out the plan for them and gave them the vision which fast tracked the learning curve. So I would say we gave them a year to leg up versus kind of figuring it out themselves. So yeah, I just built a data room with the necessary financials, the deck, the legal, all the creative assets, the intellectual property, kind of like the whole gamut. And then I sent like 250 DMS on LinkedIn and through cold email at the same time while I listed it on microacquire. So I got two, like really serious inquiries on Micro Acquire. And I learned that, you know, with all due respect to, it's that, it's that it's what you built because there's a lot of people, there's kind of fishing and like learning about different companies on there as well is that there were some like, tire kickers that like, we're just inquiring to inquire. But I learned through that process and talking to them and like, you know, documented repetitive and redundant questions across multiple calls and stuff like that. It made it easier once I got like more serious fish on the hook. So I would say for Micro Acquire, I had like two serious inquiries. And then outside of Microacquire, I had like three serious inquiries. And then I basically gave everyone a timeline as to what my timeline was and said I have multiple people interested because I did have like, you know, a couple Lois, you know, letters of intent on the table.

Nice.

And then, and then, and then I flew out to the three people that I was like super interested in and just chopped it up and told them, here's what the plan is. And they told me what their plan is with it. And basically we talked about the numbers and stuff like that. And then ultimately it was my decision to choose, like, who I thought would do the best job with it. So I was fortunate to have multiple, you know, bidders or inquiries like serious inquiries. But I kind of positioned it to do that.

Yeah, there's a, there's a good saying. If you have, if you have one buyer, you have no buyers. So you always want. And I always say, even with, you know, tire kickers or people that may not seem, you know, qualified AmeriCorps treat them like they are potentially, you know, the buyer, because you never know. And what you want to do in those situations is I always recommend, you know, make the buyer perform. What I mean is, you know, you have someone inquire about the business instead of just granting them access. Ask a question like, hey, do you have experience in this space? If they don't respond back then Just ignore them. And then if they respond back, you know, second question I recommend is, all right, if we get to the finish line, how do you plan to fund this? You know, and you're making them perform in terms of, like, how interested are you? Or are you just trying to look at, you know, this business? So I like how, you know, you weeded out the people that weren't interested quickly and were able to find.

I will say, though, Andrew, there was a lot of inquiries from Micro Acquirer, like, as soon as I threw it up, like, I don't know, you probably have the data, but on the back end. But there were dozens of, like, inquiries.

Yeah.

So it kind of like weeded itself out as you started asking questions, which you guys also helped me with. Like, I think I shared, like, what I was, what I was doing. And you kind of like, gave your advice as well. So that was also, like, pretty helpful.

Yeah, that's what we're here for, man. Looks like it worked out. I guess my next question would be, and you kind of touched on this is, you know, for others looking to sell their business on Microacquire, what's like the one piece of advice, you know, you give someone?

Have your. It's a good question. I probably have like a couple pieces of pieces of advice on that one. But I think my first, you know, tangible piece of advice would be have your, have your shit together internally. Because as soon as you, like, go live, it becomes real. And like, the conversations can happen within the first, you know, 24 to 72 hours of listing it. So if you have someone that's like, interested, you know, have your. Have your templates, if you will, like, down. So have your first, you know, reply down. So I think when people are saying, I want more info, I would say, great, here's an NDA. Sign it. And then, you know, I'd say off of that, like, 50% of the people didn't. Didn't even sign it. So off of the jump, I knew that they weren't. Maybe they weren't serious or they were just kind of looking to grant access to the profile. Because I gated it based on your platform by, you know, asking them to request access. So that was number one, is just kind of seeing who's serious off the jump and making them sign an NDA. And then the Micro Acquire profile is kind of like. It's kind of like your LinkedIn almost, right. It's like, it's the first version of what they see, but it's not the whole version. It's the version that piques someone's interest is what I learned. And then if you have your data room set up properly and they sign the NDA, then there is no questions about it. Like, what I tried to do is just build a data room that, you know, allowed for little to no questions. I gave everyone the information up front and it really helped save like, time. So I would just say, long story short, I would say have your. Have your rebuttals and have your replies kind of templated out. I'm not saying, you know, stick to it specifically, but have your kind of cadence of communication and your process after someone inquires, like nailed down.

Yeah, no, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. And we see this a lot and this is usually a pattern. This is a definite pattern we see across successful acquisitions is just preparation, like actually putting some thought and some time into preparing, you know, proper financials. You know, how does marketing work? Like, all the questions that a buyer is going to ask, if you have it up front, like, maybe you have it in your head and your ideas, I'll just share it when someone's interested. But what that does is it doesn't really show to a buyer that you're serious about selling the business and you've taken the time to prepare a proper data room. I also like right off the jump asking to sign an NDA. I think that's a great move as well. And.

Honestly, now that I'm looking at my micro acquire profile, that that was after like a couple weeks, like, of figuring that out, because then I learned that people were asking questions and going back and forth wanting to set up calls. So I did that after. I didn't do that initially, but I did it like relatively quickly after my micro acquire profile went live.

Yeah. Another tip I recommend too, and I've been seeing a lot of sellers do this is once you create the data room, like create a video where you're just going through it yourself so they can get to know you a little bit. You know, because acquiring businesses isn't like buying a car or here's the keys. And you know, there's a little bit of a relationship aspect.

So that's just a lot of, A lot of diligence questions that you could. I love that idea. A lot of. There's a lot of diligence questions that you can kind of foreshadow. There's. While just going through the data room, I'm going to do that on one that I'm listing on microaguire.

Yeah. And also just being upfront about what you're looking for, that's another big question is like, what's an ideal outcome? We could have a whole other conversation about this, but I gave a range.

Actually that's a great tip. I gave a range depending on if I was involved moving forward or not.

Yeah, I like that because, you know, terms can, you know, sometimes better terms is better than a higher, you know, final sale price. Like if it's half seller finance and it's 20% or 10% extra final sale price compared against all cash up front, you get to, you know, fully exit. Like what are you really trying to maximize? So being, you know, flexible on terms, I think that also opens your buyer pool a lot as well. So I like that tip. I guess my last and final question is you got a ton of stuff going on. Congrats again on the successful acquisition. It sounds like it wasn't your first. What are you up to now?

Well, I have to give kudos to you Andrew, firstly because I mean you built an awesome platform and you know, have corralled an amazing buyer network. It seems of like real, you know, aggregators, small family offices, VCs, individuals looking to diversify their income. Like it seems like that there's like a growing list of like people that are interested in consuming businesses. So thank you because although I sent like 250 DMs, ultimately the, the buyer came from Microacquire. And you know, I just, yeah, we're thankful for you and the platform a lot. So appreciate it.

Appreciate that. Man.

What am I doing? Okay, that's a loaded question.

What's, what's the main thing you're doing?

All right, so yeah, I, I, I run a direct response advertising agency based in Chicago and Florida and we are a full funnel advertising and lifecycle marketing agency. So we work with a bunch of brands in different verticals running their paid search, Google and Bing, paid Facebook and Instagram ads, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Taboola, Outbrain, like all of the ad channels. And then you know, we're a Klaviyo Platinum partner so we do a lot on the retention and sms, email and SMS side of things. So that's like my full time job. We spent about 100 million last year. We have about 550 million in revenue generated since inception. A little over four years. And then, and then kind of on the side of the agency we have a venture fund. So that's where Soil and Clay was born, was through our fund so we have seven companies under management. We have one exit thus far, which is soil and clay. And we just started it like a year and a half ago. Ish. So we own an 80 plus year old candy company called Annabelle's Candy. We have CPG companies, we have an apparel company, we have a SaaS company in there. So we basically invest and, or acquire and or incubate brands.

Right on, man.

But yeah, the operations isn't our strength. Marketing is. So we like to stay on that side of the equation now.

Right on. Sounds like you got a lot on your plate, man. Well, dude, I'm rooting for you and it sounds like you might have a few acquisitions in your future if people want to get ahold of you. What's the best place to reach out?

Yeah, my email is ramseyrolific Media, or you can just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm active on Instagram, but yeah, email and LinkedIn is probably the best channel. I'm sure even with you, you probably get a lot of DMs, so. So yeah, I'm happy to help anyone though. Like, I give my time away for free. And like you like, just here to add value to the community. I believe that, you know, if we all help each other out, then there's, you know, something greater that we get in return.

Right on, man. Well, I'll put all that in the show notes, but Ramsey, thanks so much for joining me on this podcast. And dude, congrats again on the acquisition and I'm excited to see what you do this year.

Thank you. And thank you again. And thank your team, Andrew. And we'll do another podcast on the next acquisition here in the next 90 to 120 days.

I'm looking forward to it. All right, cheers, man.

All right, cheers.