The Buyers Who Made the Move: What They Bought, How They Did It, and What Happened Next

All right, what's up everybody? You're live. Super excited for this webinar. We got some great content around buyers that have been successful on Acquire. It's going to be a ton of fun to go over. And with me today, I got Ramir. Ramir, how you doing today?

What's up everyone? It's great to be back. Let's go.

This is going to be fun. Feel free to put questions in the chat. We'll do Q&A at the end. So if you have any questions, feel free to post those. We'll absolutely do our best to get to those. And without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. So as I was saying, today's webinar is all about buyers. We do a lot of transactions at acquire.com, and we usually always talk about the seller in these transactions and how they're successful, but we thought it'd be cool to really look at the other side of that table, the buyers. And how did they do? What does success look like to them? So we're titling this The Buyers Who Made the Move, What They Bought, How They Did, and Where Are They Now? And just a brief introduction on myself for those that may not know you. My name is Andrew Gazdecki. I am an entrepreneur. I've built and sold multiple different companies. The biggest company I built was a company called Business Apps. I grew that to about $10 million in recurring revenue and had that acquired by a private equity firm. And going through that process just really opened my eyes to how difficult acquisitions can be, how confusing they are. And so I built Acquire as a way for founders to exit and really make acquisitions just easier to understand, more streamlined, bring technology into the picture. We've been around about 5 years now, done about a billion in closed transactions. And I always say I have the best job in the world helping founders succeed.

This is Ranir Nankwill. Great to see some familiar names here attending. My background has been in M&A acquisitions, capital markets, and investment sales for the last 12 years. Before acquire.com, I was an advisor at Empire Flippers, Fishman and Wakefield, and Marcus and Milchapp. I've seen all types of deals throughout my career, and I love helping clients navigate, avoid these pitfalls to just get a good transaction with the best price, best terms. And get a smooth transition and work with a lot of these clients over and over. And that's— that makes my day every single time.

I've seen you do it, seen you on many awesome transactions, especially on the larger end. But quickly going over what we're going to cover today, what everybody is here for. So where are buyers now? Quick look at some of our buyers and how they're performing post-acquisition. Really talk about what makes them successful, advice they would have for maybe some of you in the audience that are thinking about buying businesses for the first time. Going over what these buyers actually bought, whether it's a SaaS agency, AI, and everything in between. And these are going to be really real stories that we're sharing. We have a lot of different acquisitions that we do, but a lot of the times they're under NDA, so we can't share every single success story that we have. But we specifically reached out to a handful of buyers, asked them some great questions, checked in on them, and we're going to be sharing that with you today. We're also going to be going over what your money buys today. So real examples of different businesses on Acquire. We have an extremely large inventory. So whether you're just starting out and you're looking to acquire a business for $20K or you're an experienced buyer and you're looking at potential multimillion-dollar transactions, we have something live in the marketplace for you. So we'll definitely be touching on that. And then how deals get done. So more about the mechanics of a deal, the structure, the financing, the acquired product, how the acquire.com team helps every single step of the way from Negotiations to helping you source deals, to going through due diligence, really everything, because we want to see everyone that we work with be successful here. So we'll be talking about that and then live Q&A at the end. So if there's any questions that pop up or things that you want some additional context around, feel free to just put those in the chat and we'll do our best to get those answered at the end of the webinar. All right, Ranier, passing it over to you.

Awesome. So first section here, where are the buyers now? From cautious to committed. So 6 months ago, buyers were watching valuations, weighing in on AI, how that would affect the market, figuring out financing. Everyone's seeing interest rates all over the news, and now there's enough activity for us to look back and ask what actually happened. So who actually moved? Which buyers transacted? What did they buy? What got them comfortable in this environment to actually transact? How did they structure these deals? What happened after they took over and acquired these deals? And what would they do differently now that they've had all this time and went through the acquisition? That way, some of the listeners today could learn from some of these either mistakes or opportunities. And so we're here to tell you a little bit more about some of these buyers and what they did. So a little bit of everything. Here's what actually traded on our marketplace. Again, the business types and verticals that we specialize and focus on are SaaS, agency, e-commerce, marketplace and platforms, newsletters, mobile apps. The typical buyer profiles that we work with and transact with oftentimes are first-time buyers going through an acquisition, serial buyers that have transacted with us several times, operators that love looking for new businesses to scale and leverage, and strategic buyers are also on our marketplace. And the type of deal structures that we typically put together are cash deals, finance deals with seller financing or outside financing. SBA, the Small Business Administration, they're still doing loans. And typically what we've seen more recently is a mix of cash financing, what we call creative deal structures. So we can get as creative as needed, especially in today's market, to get deals through the finish line. Anything to add there, Andrew?

Yeah, one of my favorite things about Acquire is just the diverse mix of buyer profiles that we work with. First-time buyers, serial buyers, strategic buyers, private equity firms. I think it's a testament of just how much we can really help any type of buyer profile, whether you're looking on the smaller end or the larger end. Serial buyers are great to see as well. That just means that we did a good job the first time and they were interested in working with us again. I actually, I don't know if you caught this, Ranier, but I did a podcast with someone that I've fund 10 different businesses off Acquire. We didn't get a chance to include it in this webinar, but if you haven't gotten a chance to check that out, go on our blog or our YouTube channel. It's a really good in-depth conversation on how he looks at deals, how he structures them, all the numbers behind it. It was super cool. But again, just seeing these buyer profiles and being able to work with such a diverse group at Acquire, I think is amazing.

So at a glance, again, when we're talking about categories from SaaS to agency to e-commerce, marketplace and platforms, newsletters and mobile Every year, every market cycle, there's always different verticals that take hold, get, become popular that most buyers are looking for and searching for. In reality, all these type of deals are still closing. So there's some years where SaaS is the really top heavy, and then agencies right now we're seeing really get very popular and a lot of transactions in the agency space, e-commerce as well. And so all of these have different things that buyers look for when it comes to the moat, when it comes to sellers and buyers, what they're looking for and why they're looking to exit or why they're looking for acquisitions. When it comes to, let's say for example, SaaS, we've got a deep buyer pool there in terms of specialization. These typically close in a shorter timeline. When it comes to agencies, for example, buyers are looking for the proven cash flow, these relationships, these client retainers. E-commerce, again, it's a more productized physical product that let's say buyers are looking for. And again, all of these different verticals, there's a different buyer for it. We specialize in all of them and there's always deals to be done. There's listings on each of these verticals. Andrew, do you want to get into any of these specifically? Sure.

I mean, just off the top of my head, one thing I think has been interesting to look back on from this year is just how well SaaS has done. I think if you asked me at the beginning of the year, I might've had a different opinion or thought on SaaS, just given how much like negative news, like AI is going to kill SaaS, but we're just not seeing it. Like we've seen our best year in SaaS acquisition and, you know, that's everything from the really small, you know, built with AI tools to the multimillion-dollar profitable SaaS businesses. And the interest on these businesses has been incredible as well. And I think that's just a big reminder of just how important Building the brand, getting the customers, putting the revenue together. That's still the difficult part of building businesses. And I think a lot of the buyers we work with recognize that. And that's been a huge surprise. I mean, I think when I talk to people about Acquire in my day-to-day, sometimes like friends or family, they'll say, oh, how's that doing? And they're always surprised when I say, you know, SaaS is continuing to crush it. But other categories like agencies, that one's seen a lot of growth as well. There's a lot of demand from buyers. Just because of the new opportunities that AI has brought into the business where you can improve margins, you can improve the service that you're delivering, just run it much more efficiently. So I think, you know, the perspective that I'd encourage a lot of listeners to have as we go through this webinar or just as we're thinking about buying businesses, I know AI is this scary looming force in the background, but it's also a huge opportunity. It's a huge tool, something that every single operator can leverage in their business today. If you're looking at acquisitions, There's ways for you to improve the margins, improve the service, improve the product. So highly recommend shifting that perspective from this as a potential risk to this is a potential opportunity. That's all we've been seeing all year long at Acquire. All right, moving into section 2. So this is what everybody registered and is attending this webinar for, the buyers who made the move. So we're going to be talking about some buyers that have been successful with us, how they did it, and really what you can learn from them. I think that's The best part here. So the first buyer that we're talking about right now is an individual named Alex Britton. He has closed 3 different acquisitions through acquire.com, and they all continued to perform really, really well after the closing. The biggest thing for him was being able to start from something. As I mentioned earlier, getting customers, building the brand, getting people to care about what you built, all of that can take a lot of time and If it takes you 6 months to get to your first customer, that's 6 months of time that is potentially wasted compared to if you acquire the business, you're starting from a point where you can really build off what's already working in the business. And that's exactly what Alex did. So right here in the bottom left, start from something. Building software is easier than ever. Earning a customer base is the hard part. An acquisition starts with real customers who already care about the product, a foundation to learn from and expand. And so if you're an individual where maybe you're not the type to think of really unique ideas or you're more comfortable scaling a business, this is the type of path that I highly recommend. And for Alex, the unexpected win, sellers staying invested from negotiations through closing and well into the transition. Each seller genuinely wanted the new owners to succeed. And that's something that we always encourage at Acquire with the founders that we work with is we're always encouraging a transition period or offering to assist Just to de-risk the acquisition and make it a true success for both parties. And some advice that Alex gave for potential buyers, if you're new to this, start small. A smaller business with customers and cash flow is enough to learn how to evaluate, negotiate, close, and operate. Build confidence, then go bigger. This has been a path I've seen many, many different buyers take where they'll initially start with one smaller business. They'll learn the acquisition process, They'll potentially make a mistake here and there, and then for their second acquisition, they'll be much more comfortable acquiring a larger size business where they're able to take on more risk. So I love this advice, starting small, looking at something that could be potentially a learning opportunity. And on Acquire, we have businesses of every size. So this is just one example of a buyer that really succeeded with us, and I'm pretty sure Alex is going to be probably closing his 4th and 5th acquisition opportunity in the next year. So always love to see this. I think when I hear stories of buyers that have bought multiple businesses with us, it's really just a testament that we did our job well and they were able to succeed with the first business and they wanted to work with us for the second business. And in this case, the third business. Ranier, anything you want to add on this story?

That's all been great. And again, as Andrew has mentioned, it's start from something and something that has product-market fit where you're not having to start from scratch. And that way you come in month 6 or month 12, however long it took for them to prove that market fit, you can focus on the scaling of increasing the sales, making it more efficient, things like that. That's what a lot of our experienced buyers are looking for.

100%.

Awesome. So I'll get into this next one. David over at Airways Capital Partners, our team has loved working with David and his team. They've also done 3 transactions with us at Acquire, and what they've done differently is they've funded all entirely with their internal capital. They're not taking any external capital. Their one operating team now runs their entire portfolio on a shared infrastructure. They've really ironed out their diligence process and it gets sharper with every deal. And as Andrew mentioned on the last one, it's like once you get that first deal under your belt, no matter how small or how large, it really gets you going on how do I identify a good deal once it hits the market, how to make an offer on it and how to move forward with it quickly. Especially when you're competing against several other buyers looking for the same thing. And then once you have that experience under your belt, you can tell those sellers, hey, we've closed, this is our process. And that gives you a big advantage when it comes to competing on these very popular deals and listings that come out. And again, going to the skip the search and proving the market fit, building from scratch means hunting for product market fit over and over. Versus a lot of these experienced buyers that we've worked with, they already know that they have product market fit and their competitive advantage is that they could come in and scale the business quickly. So if you already have paying customers that have proven revenue, someone like David, that's an experienced buyer and their team at Airways Capital, they can go in there and execute and just leverage that their team and their process to increase those sales, make the the business more efficient and what makes the cut. So the scale lever when it comes to the diligence, and they already know how the business works, they're looking for these fundamentals of steady year-over-year growth, paying users, healthy LTV to CAC ratio, and a clear read on AI as a tailwind or a threat. As Andrew mentioned before, everyone's talking about AI. AI's on the news. Everyone thinks it's a headwind. But really, a lot of these businesses have it as a tailwind where they're making their businesses more efficient with AI. So we'll go into how AI and how it can be a tailwind for these businesses on the next coming slides. But one of the main things that David and his team advise for buyers is being profitable is not enough. Pass on the well-run companies when there's no specific or executable way to grow them. Instead, start in a size range that you're comfortable with, you can underwrite with real diligence, and not one that requires taking anyone for their word, but you can actually prove that you and your team can leverage the business and scale the business to greater heights because of your team and your efficiencies and your scale. So David, we've loved working with them, and just as Andrew said, we're not going to be surprised if they're on their 5th or sticks transaction with us in the coming months or year.

Absolutely. David is definitely one of our favorite buyers at Acquire. One thing about his story I like the most is just how much he's grown his businesses post-transaction. I believe he bought one business, let's call it for low 7 figures, and I believe it's into the low 8 figures now. Being able to take a business that's already working but apply their playbook, To more efficiently acquire customers, more efficiently keep the customers that are already using the product, being able to take that playbook and bring it to completely different companies. And when you have something like that that's working, he's able to just compound across his entire portfolio. And it's been awesome to watch working with him on, you know, 3 separate transactions that Acquire— definitely someone that I respect and has a path that I think a lot of buyers would love to create for themselves. It's just definitely possible. It just takes the right view into the market, picking up the experience as you go, and just having that predictable playbook. That's been my biggest learning from him was seeing just that playbook come into effect with one company, be really successful and be able to transfer it to a new company, have that also be successful and just keep moving. All right. Third buyer here. So this is Bill Macintosh. He is the founder of a company called Buildy AI, and he acquired a business called SuperDev, which was a business similar to, say, Lovable or Replit. It's one of the AI coding tools, and this is a super fast growing market. So being able to acquire a business to enter that space was paramount to Bill's success, and it allowed him to grow his business upwards of $1.8 million in annual recurring revenue fast. In his words, all of this was enabled by the acquisition. And it's been awesome watching Bill be successful in this market because it's such a massive one. And if he was on the side of maybe building the product first and then going to market and just initially finding customers, he may not have had the success he's had so far. In his words, he says 4 months as an attorney in the fast-paced SaaS world. Basically saying that when you acquire a business, you could move just so much faster because you're building from a platform that already has things working. You're able to essentially buy back so much time that would typically be spent building the product, establishing the brand, figuring out how to get those first customers. When he acquired this business, he was able to look at what works, really start pouring gas on the fire and really scaling the business up. So it's been awesome to see him be successful here. One thing that he said, the fear that stops buyers, Bill sees a lot of people worry that deal process will go wrong, with the biggest concern meaning being getting scammed in the transaction, which is an extremely valid concern. Obviously, when you go through an acquisition, this is the last thing you want to see happen. We worked with Bill very closely on this transaction, the seller as well, to really ensure that we had a win-win acquisition. And this is another big thing that we offer at Acquire is really just assisting both sides to ensure that both sides are successful, because that's what we want to see at the end of the day. And then in terms of time to market, Bill really emphasized the amount of time he was able to gain back and the speed he was able to achieve to enter this market. So on the top right, you can see 4 months saved speed to market. Buying SuperDev got Buildy AI into a new vertical extremely fast. New customers came in immediately instead of 4 months later had they built in-house. And in this world with AI, 4 months could Sometimes the opportunity is completely missed. So being able to enter this market extremely fast was paramount. And some advice from Bill, do not go at it alone. Working with Acquire really helps ensure the transaction goes smoothly and you get a great outcome. I think that's a huge holdback I hear from a lot of different buyers where they don't feel necessarily comfortable in transactions because they don't have the experience. And I think one thing to maybe think about is every buyer has to start with their first deal, and you don't need to do it all on your own. You can lean on the expert support we have at Acquire. We're happy to walk through anything you might be concerned about, whether that's how to structure the deal or really just how to use the platform and how to find businesses that might meet your deal box. Really, whatever it is that's holding you back, always remember that's people that have gone through the acquisition process just like you without any experience. We've helped them get to the other side. So definitely this being a story of a founder that owned a business, saw an opportunity to enter a large new market, didn't necessarily have a lot of acquisition experience previously, and he was still able to be successful. That's probably my favorite part of the story, and he's still going. This $1.8 million in annual recurring revenue, I wouldn't be surprised if it's at $3 million in annual recurring revenue by next year or sooner. Anything you want to add to this one?

Yeah, just one thing to add there. Bill says, do not go at it alone. And the great thing about acquire.com is you're not doing it alone. You have our support. And one thing, you know, coming into our marketplace is that our sellers are prepared. And that's what cuts the timeline to getting these transactions through to the finish line in an efficient manner, is that our sellers are prepared. They have the asking price and price range that they're looking for. They have their documents on our platform, their financials, SOPs, due diligence documents in our vault, so they know exactly how to move forward. And that helps buyers move efficiently because the seller's prepared, they're motivated to go through the transaction, all of the documents are in place. And then when it comes to a buyer, we're here to help you every step of the way in terms of having a timeline for the transaction, having the seller ready to execute, Having different deal structures ready in terms of what's a win-win for both the buyer and the seller. And again, our goal is to help both the buyer and the seller make it a win-win to get the best price, best terms, and smoothest transaction available. And we are here to help every step of the way. So neither the buyer or the seller is doing it alone. We're there every step of the way with both parties.

Love that. Well said.

And the next slide here, what they all had in common, is that they stayed within a category they understood. So if you're looking at SaaS, your expertise is in SaaS, keep focusing on SaaS, keep acquiring SaaS. That way your operational team can add more of these businesses in the portfolio. They know how the business works, and then from there you can keep compounding, scaling, and leveraging your expertise. It's going to be a lot more difficult if you're getting a SaaS business and then you get into e-commerce and then you get into newsletter and then an agency. There's just different specialization and expertise with every vertical. So just focus on one category, and that's the playbook that a lot of these repeat buyers have been so successful with. And then focus on the predictable revenue. They've all bought something with a clear operational opportunity. They know their value add, they know their clear advantage, and then they don't wait for the perfect business because in reality, there's no perfect business. You could be sitting on your hands waiting for the right business, But then if you don't know how to move forward, make an offer, someone else is going to go in there and make that offer and close the deal before you do. So just get moving. And again, we're here to help. The next thing is they negotiate around the risk rather than trying to eliminate it. Every business has their opportunities and every opportunity has their risk. So you need to weigh out and figure out how to limit your downside risk and also capitalizing on that opportunity. And the more deals that you do, you understand where you can add value as soon as you acquire the business. And with that experience comes with that momentum. So they have a clear buy box of what they're looking for, what fundamentals, if it's year-over-year growth, LTV to CAC ratios, you name it, you start getting an idea of what you're looking for as a buyer. And then the next one is they use financing or deal structures creatively to close the deal. Because every seller in their mind, let's say if you're a first-time seller, you think you want an all-cash transaction. In reality, that's, that they do happen, but in today's market, you're seeing a lot more creative deal structures with a cash component, seller financing component, earnout component, and you can get as creative as needed to make it a win-win situation, especially in today's market. And lastly, they all saw a clear path to improve the business after closing. That's the whole value add as a buyer. The real value and skill that you develop as you get more experience in the industry is you can quickly tell a deal from a good one versus a bad one. Once you see it on the marketplace, you start looking for certain ways that you can unlock some of this hidden value. That way you become successful post-acquisition and you grow the business, you scale and you leverage your team. And this is what has been common with a lot of our successful buyers, especially the ones that we've just covered. And again, these are not lucky buyers. They were all prepared ones and they were willing to make the move and strike when the iron was hot. Anything to add there, Andrew?

Yeah. One other thing that comes to mind that they definitely all had in common is they're super easy to work with as well. They all showed a lot of respect to the founders that they were speaking with and Really made it clear that they were great buyers to work with. They had a clear plan in place. You know, being easy to work with and being prepared are some of the biggest things you can do as a potential buyer. But all these are great, 100%. I love the clear path to improving the business post-closing and having an idea of, you know, how are you going to see a return based on your acquisition? I think that's massive.

Excellent. So then next slide here, what buyers are doing with AI after they buy. So not AI is changing M&A, it's more so how a buyer used AI once they actually owned the company. And so as we mentioned earlier, it's, we're seeing AI all over the headlines and SaaS is dying and all this and all that. In reality, again, you need to figure out how AI is making businesses more efficient. And that's what these buyers are doing when they're acquiring these businesses in today's market. And what AI has been doing is automating support, Improving the outbound, reducing the manual work that it once took several hours and much more manpower to do. They're building and launching their products faster. There's improved reporting. They're running the companies with leaner teams with AI now, and they're expanding their margins. So again, as Andrew and I have seen, especially throughout this year with all of this AI doom and gloom, a lot of these businesses are actually giving a lot of opportunity to use AI to make them more efficient, to move faster, to increase profit, increase revenue, make their teams leaner. So with AI, we're seeing a lot of tailwinds in reality. Anything to add there, Andrew?

Yeah, I love the framing of just seeing AI as a huge tailwind rather than a headwind, because it's so true. I think AI is probably the best thing to happen for entrepreneurs, especially if you're looking at buying a business, where you can go in and improve just so many different things or make the business more profitable or improve the product. The list is just absolutely endless and I think it's just the biggest opportunity I have personally seen in my startup career yet. So again, huge tailwind, not a headwind.

So the next slide here, how are buyers getting these deals done? So from the buyer side of the table, when it comes to these deal structures, what we've seen is some of them are full cash at close. So that gives the seller maximum confidence. You can get a clean handoff, no ongoing obligations, best for businesses with verified stable revenue. And again, the highest upfront capital, ideally full cash at close, those are the cleanest, but it's okay to have different creative deal structures. And what those entail are earnouts. So you pay a portion of the business of future revenue, future performance. This lowers upfront cost of acquiring the business and aligns the seller incentives to the transition so that if, let's say there's an earnout, the seller is incentivized to make sure that the business transitions well, that they're still involved to make sure that they get paid out on the remaining earnout. And then seller financing. A lot of people have heard of this structure where the seller acts as the bank. They're providing the loan for the buyer. So the seller carries a note, you pay over time. Useful if you want to have and preserve cash and the seller has high conviction. And lastly, we have an equity rollover where, where let's say the seller retains 10% equity, Post-transaction, and that way they get a second bite at the apple. If there's another exit down the road, the seller's motivated to make sure that the transition goes smoothly, the business does well post-acquisition, so that the seller's invested in the outcome as well. So we can get as creative as needed, and we've seen many deals with a cash component, earnout component, seller financing component, even an equity rollover component. So at the end of the day, these deals are creative in a way that makes it a win-win situation because every seller has different goals with their exit. Let's say if they want to finance or pay for, let's say, a new house, a new business venture, you want to make sure as a buyer you clearly understand what the seller's looking for and what an ideal exit looks like when they're looking for a buyer. And the cool thing about acquire.com is you have our support, of advisors like Andrew and I and the rest of our team where we can make it as creative as needed to get a deal across the finish line. So most deals blend these type of different deal structures. And for you, just define what type of preferred structure you're looking for, whether you're a buyer or a seller before you're entering these negotiations. Anything to add there, Andrew?

Yeah, I think just the importance of defining your preferred structure before entering negotiations is huge. Even if you're a seller too, just being able to articulate to buyers that you're open And then for the buyers on this call, I think just having a basic understanding of these deal structures here can be huge during an acquisition process because some sellers may prefer all cash at close. Some may want a higher valuation and be open to creative deal structuring. So being able to move forward with really any of these, I think, is the way to go. But having your preferred structure And making that known is great advice.

Excellent. So here we'll go into one of our preferred partners. It's Franchable. They provide SBA financing support, helping buyers and sellers navigate SBA financing earlier in the transaction. So for sellers, if you're going to market, reach out to someone like Franchable. They'll get your business prequalified, make sure that it's SBA eligible. They provide lender-grade financial projections. They review your P&Ls and tax returns. They have different lenders that will package and prequalify your business, and they'll provide the financing guidance throughout the closing process. And on the buyer side, know whether the business is financeable before you get down into like this road to make sure that you're qualified as well. The lender matches what they can perform and what they can quote you. There's loan preparation with the SBA that they help out with as well, underwriting support on the buy side, and then term sheets through closing so you know what to expect, what type of leverage, interest rates, LTV, et cetera. So the goal is to identify financing issues early to qualify these buyers effectively and move deals toward closing if you're using, for example, SBA. Anything to add there?

Definitely get prequalified before speaking with potential sellers, or if you are a seller, getting SBA prequalified can open up your potential buyer pool. So definitely do this research before entering into a transaction. It makes everything just go so much smoother, and it can also help narrow down what you should be looking for as well, because it can be kind of frustrating if you sign an NDA, you're looking to acquire a specific type of business, sign an LOI, Then take it for SBA qualification. You find out it's not a fit, then you have to start over. The seller's also frustrated. So definitely check this stuff out. Do your research before entering into an acquisition. You'll be good to go. SBA financing is great.

Excellent. So then the next slide here, what's coming to the marketplace? So more founders are ready to exit, more great deals for buyers. Again, profitable, proven businesses are coming to the marketplace as founders cash out. Start their next chapter. The owners are motivated, the books are cleaner, the opportunities are real. So profitable businesses, real revenue, real profit, and founders ready to hand off the keys. AI opportunities. Again, AI has been the big topic. AI-native and AI-enhanced products with paying users and room to grow. Streamlined agencies. If you're looking for agency-type deals, they're lean, systemized shops with recurring retainers that run without the founder. And scalable SaaS. So capital-efficient software with sticky customers and healthy margins. We have a ton of listings coming soon and a lot of great opportunities, and every price point is opening up. So it's whether it's in the 5, 6, 7, even 8 figures, from first-time acquisitions to 7-figure platforms, buyers are ready to get their first look. So get excited. A lot of great deals coming to the marketplace. We're here to help. Andrew, anything else to add there?

Yeah, I would just touch on how the activity on the marketplace this year has been just higher than we've ever seen. So whether you're looking for a profitable business, an AI opportunity, you're looking at agencies potentially, or newsletters or e-commerce businesses or mobile apps, or if you're interested in scalable SaaS, we have literally a large amount of each of these different categories. Whether you're looking small, you're looking really large or really profitable or something that's very specific to a certain industry niche, we likely have something available. So definitely check out the marketplace. We have new inventory that comes on literally every single day.

Excellent. So why this is a great time to buy. So entry points are more accessible. Lower multiples means that the same capital buys more real cash-flowing businesses than it did in, let's say, 2021. The market rewards discipline right now. So rational pricing favors buyers who do the work. Not the ones who chase the hype. Sellers are pricing to reality, so fewer standoffs over 2021-era expectations, meaning smoother negotiations and faster closes. And you're buying proven businesses. Every acquisition comes with years of product iteration and customer relationships already done. So long story short, a lot of our sellers, again, we've coached and advised them to expect what buyers are looking for, what deals are trading, what multiples are actually trading. What other buyers are looking for. So we prepare both the buyers and sellers on our marketplace so that the bid-to-ask gap is closer. And what we've seen, especially in this market with higher interest rates, the whole AI topic is really just managing expectations on both buyers and sellers. So by the time you both connect with each other, you both know what's realistic in the market, what can actually transact, What's a win-win for both parties? And again, our team is there every step of the way to reduce that friction to get you again the best price, best terms, and smoothest transaction. And the best time to buy is when the market has reset and the sellers are ready. So the time is right now. Anything else to add there, Andrew?

Yeah, and touching on the timing with the market, 2021 was definitely a crazy era for this. We saw sky-high multiples and it's taken a while to see those come down to reality. And I think we're finally there where we're seeing both sides, buyers and sellers, really in agreement on valuations. And it's really brought together a nice marketplace of eager-to-sell sellers and eager-to-buy buyers. So we're seeing a lot of great assets selling at really great prices. And I think the kicker there is just the opportunity with AI to improve these types of businesses, whether that's improve the profit margin, the product, the support or service. There's just so much opportunity with AI. So you're able to essentially buy these businesses, At fair valuations, and then the upside is arguably higher than it previously was. So it's definitely a good time to look at acquiring in this market. All right, so now moving into the product and the platform. If you haven't used acquire.com, we'll be going over some things that we do to really make sure that both buyers and sellers are successful. But specifically here, we'll talk about buyers. So why Acquire is different for buyers, and it really comes down to the platform that we provide and then also the service That our M&A advisory team provides. We have tools that help with every part of the deal cycle from finding new businesses that you could be interested in based on real acquisition criteria that you're able to personalize your own buy box. So you only see deals that are relevant to you, vet opportunities, and review seller financials. We also have tools that allow you to submit letter of intents, asset purchase agreements. We're integrated with escrow services to ensure that you close smoothly and safely. But one of the other big things is we're able to help you every single step of the way because we've been through this process literally thousands of times. And every time we go through an acquisition, you know, we're able to help both sides be successful because we've essentially seen every type of pitfall that you could possibly think of in acquisition. So whether you're an experienced acquirer or this would be your first transaction, we definitely have everything you could possibly need to be successful. And then at the bottom, the transaction workflow already covers everything from outreach through close. And behind the scenes, a big part of acquire.com is really our curated marketplace. So every listing that goes onto our marketplace, this isn't a situation where sellers just upload information, they click live, and they go into the marketplace. We actually review every single submission to the acquire.com marketplace. We actually only approve about 15 percent of the listings that eventually do go live. So we're asking sellers questions, we're helping them upload different missing materials, we're helping get things organized. So when they finally land to a buyer, it has everything that you've come to expect when you're looking at an acquisition opportunity seriously. So we review the business and the numbers. We help sellers get finances organized. We coach sellers on valuation and expectations. We prepare sellers for buyer questions and diligence. We verify sellers before listings go live. And then throughout this whole process, post going live, we're also continuing to coach both buyers and sellers to really ensure that both sides are able to get a deal done. We also do things like identity verify every single seller. We enable them to connect financials so you get a real-time view into the financial health of the business. We NDA gate all access to company information and private details. So really just creating the best acquisition environment we possibly can. So we have the tools and the resources and the support, everything you could possibly need, whether you're just starting to look for businesses or you're all the way at the other end towards closing. And then just knowing that you're viewing legit acquisition opportunities is one of the top priorities that we have at Acquire.com and something that we really pride ourselves on. So again, out of 100 listings that we receive at acquire.com, we only take 15 of those live. So you can rest assured that when you look at these businesses that they've had some diligence, these are legit businesses. And on the other side of that is we continue to do everything we can to improve the quality of just the seller interactions from the very beginning, the first conversation you have all the way through due diligence, all the way to closing. And I think just bringing all that together is really what makes a lot of what we do at Acquire successful. Ranier, anything you want to add to that?

Yeah. And again, from my personal experience, I've been at other marketplaces, other brokerages, and all of these points are extremely important when it comes to avoiding pitfalls, avoiding false starts, avoiding deals from falling out of escrow. When we get the sellers prepared and we get the buyers prepared, it just cuts all of that friction to make a smoother transaction experience. And I've seen it from other places and I've Again, at acquire.com, we just get more deals done and more efficient because of all of these points. So I agree with Andrew on all these.

Okay, moving on to more buyer support. You do not have to know exactly what you want yet. These are questions that we encourage every buyer to think through. What is your buy box? For those of you not familiar with a buy box, it's essentially what type of business are you looking for? What size? What does growth rate look like? What market? What size business makes sense? What categories do you understand? How involved do you want to be? What can you afford? Would financing make sense? What's your due diligence? And is this a reasonable deal? This all seems like a lot, but again, this is why, you know, we're here to help you and help you think through these things. Some specifics here. Size business, it could be a business in multimillions, or it could be something on a smaller end if you're just getting started. Categories that you understand, we recommend this. Because you want to acquire a business where you're able to grow the business and there's potential upside. So if you're a person that is an expert in sales and marketing, you know, that may also influence the size of the business because you want to acquire something that you could potentially scale. Maybe you have a strong background in SMB businesses or SMB marketing, so you'd probably want to acquire a business that would be near those spaces. How involved do you want to be? Surprisingly, a lot of the businesses that We work with will have opportunities where there's a low founder involvement. Those businesses are gonna command a higher multiple because the risk profile on those businesses are different. If you like to get your hands dirty and you want to really roll up your sleeves and acquire a business that you can materially improve, that may look a little bit different. But just thinking through questions like this can make all the difference when you go to market. Obviously, what can you afford? Do you need financing? Is it SBA financing? Would you need seller financing? What's your due diligence? This would be something specific to the business, but obviously every business financials going through how happy are the customers going through the code base. Is the business in good standing? We have standard diligence docs that we can also send you as send to all of our buyers. You can have a better understanding of what you can expect here, and then just knowing is this a reasonable deal? Are you paying a fair price? What do other businesses that are similar to this sell for? These are all questions that you're going to want to think through when you go to market because it's going to really help you narrow things down. So you're not just essentially wasting time talking to every business under the sun. You can really get focused on businesses that you could really see yourself acquiring. And then at the bottom, the human support helps you figure out what you were looking for. The product helps you find it and get the deal done. So again, if you have questions about potential businesses that could be a fit for you, or maybe you've come across a listing at Acquire that you're really interested in, but you just have a couple additional questions, you can reach out to the seller directly, or you can reach out to us at support@acquire.com. We'll be happy to walk you through our thoughts on the business, how you could potentially structure the deal, maybe areas to really focus diligence on. And is this a reasonable deal? How should this be valued? Because again, everything we do at Acquire is we don't view ourselves as successful unless our customers are successful. So really anything that we could do to you successful as a potential buyer, we'd be absolutely happy to help with. Ranier, you want to add anything to the slide?

Nope. That's all great there.

All right. So getting to the end here. The rush does not wait. Deals move fast on the world's number one acquisition marketplace. Position yourself to act immediately when the right startup goes up. This is definitely true. I see this all the time where we'll have one startup go live on acquire.com and we see 40 NDAs immediately signed and offers come in, you know, the following week. So I cannot understate how important it is to be prepared as you begin to look at businesses because the best opportunities really don't wait. So wherever you're at today in your acquisition journey, I hope this was helpful and I hope there's some area that we can help as well. Feel free to reach out to us at Acquire. We'd be happy to talk through really anything that's on your mind or potential things that, that you could use some assistance on. Because again, the rush does not wait. If you haven't already browsed thousands of verified SaaS and agency listings on Acquire, You can make offers, you can sign NDAs, you can send LOIs, really everything you need to get the deal done. So definitely check out acquire.com. And again, thank you so much for joining the webinar and we'll definitely do some Q&A now. So if you have any questions, feel free to put them in chat and we'll answer a few questions and send you on the way. How do you think that went, Ranier? That was awesome.

That was great. That was awesome.

It's fun to do buyer content. So first question, Ranier, I'll toss this one over to you. With interest rates where they are today, are buyers still using SBA loans heavily, or are you seeing more seller financing and creative deal structures?

That's a great question. So interest rates, we're all seeing out on the news, they're ticking up, expected to raise even 25 bps later this year as well. SBA deals are still getting done. I would say in this market, we're seeing a lot more creative deal structures with, let's say, cash upfront, Seller financing, earnouts, that's more common. The bigger deals that are SBA qualified, they're still getting done, but just being open to different deal structures, I think, is the most important, whether you're a seller or a buyer, getting creative as needed in, in today's environment. But again, we can get as creative as needed. We've done different types of deal structures. If you have any question on how to structure deals, We're here to support and we can get as creative as needed. So to answer the question, yes, SBA deals are getting done, but I would say more so than not, you're getting creative deal structures with seller financing, cash upfront earnouts.

All right. This next one for you as well, Ranier. How has Muse changed the way buyers think about acquiring SaaS businesses? Are buyers more worried about AI risk now or more excited about what they can do with AI after an acquisition?

So Muse, again, that's been all over X on the feeds and AI, all of these different tools are making everything more efficient in people's personal lives, business lives, professional lives. I would say, again, as we mentioned in the earlier slides, it's really identifying AI if it's a tailwind or a headwind for some of these businesses. And more often than not, it's a tailwind where it's making these business opportunities even more attractive Because you're able to make your teams leaner, your overhead expenses lower, you're shipping products faster. At the end of the day, what we've seen this year throughout this whole AI narrative is deals are still getting done, and that's more so because you're able to make businesses more efficient on a leaner team. I've seen headlines of these one-person businesses that are doing 6, 7, even 8 figures. And we're going to continue to see that.

Yeah, well said. I mean, I would just say the proof is in the performance. We're having our best year here at Acquire. I think that is probably the biggest takeaway I can share on how buyers are feeling about acquiring SaaS businesses. So generally viewing it as an opportunity and for those viewing it as a risk are sitting on the sidelines. All right, next question. If I'm a first-time buyer with $250,000 to $500,000 to invest. What size business should I realistically look at? I'll take this one, Amir. I think, you know, for that range, there's going to be a large array of different businesses that you could potentially look at. But I would encourage you to figure out what type of business you'd want to acquire first rather than just the size, because the size is one part of the equation. You can buy, you know, an unprofitable business that's on the larger size, Or you can buy a really profitable business that's going to be on the smaller side for about the same price. But I think you, I'd encourage you to look at a business that maybe is in a specific market that you have industry expertise on, has a business model that you have experience with. So maybe your background is in accounting and you have connections with other SMBs in the finance space or something like that. You could potentially look at SaaS tools that Could be a good fit for those types of customers. It could be an agency that specifically sells to that customer base, but there's going to be a large array of different businesses in this amount. I would narrow down what interests you most, where are your skill sets, and how could you find a business that really aligns all those 3 things? Anything you want to add to that one, Ranier?

Yeah, if I can add something, if it's your first time, it's totally okay going with a smaller acquisition. Get to know the process of what an acquisition takes and then post-acquisition of growing the business, and then take larger swings later on as you get that experience. Just like you see from our previous buyers that we mentioned, once you get that experience of finding, identifying a good deal, negotiating, going through the acquisition, then start swinging bigger, start taking more leverage, higher LTV. But if it's your first time, really get to know the process Before you swing really big, unless you're an expert in a lot of these things that we mentioned, it's okay to be conservative. There's nothing wrong with that. And then once you get your second deal, then your third deal, then start leveraging and swinging for these bigger deal sizes.

Good advice. All right, next question. I'll take this one too. What's the biggest mistake you see buyers make during due diligence? I mean, one big mistake I see is buyers not having a clear plan of what due diligence is going to look like. Being week 1, we're going to focus on finance. Week 2, we're going to focus on product. Week 3, we're going to focus on operations. The process gets really drawn out. They forget to do certain things. The founder gets impatient, deal falls apart, and it was kind of just a big waste of time. So we've talked about this a few times on this webinar, but just the importance of just being prepared throughout the whole process before You reach out to a founder to before you sign an LOI, to before you go into due diligence, having a plan every single step of the way makes every deal just go so much smoother. So I would say just buyers just being unprepared, doing due diligence, not necessarily knowing what they're going to be doing and when, not communicating that clearly to the seller, not setting expectations correctly. Ranier, anything you want to add to that one? What's a big mistake you think? Buyers make during due diligence?

I would say verifying the revenue and expenses, especially when there's a lot of add-backs or normalizing different parts of the financials. Really go line by line with the sellers to see what is normalized expenses, normalized MRR, ARR, what's repeatable revenue. Get an idea of the churn, really get an idea of those financials. And don't just take that number that you see on the listing and say, okay, this is what it throws off and it's It's consistent, really look under the hood in the financials and see what's normalized. That's, that's one thing I'd highly recommend.

I like that. 2 quick questions. Uh, one from Pablo. Is it possible to sell software with no clients on acquire.com? Just all the code? It's definitely possible. We call those pre-revenue startups. It's just really difficult to find a buyer. You know, my best advice there is do whatever you can to find potential customers. If you're serious about an acquisition, it can be really, really tough. But you are allowed to submit it. We'll definitely take a look. And then Jacob has a question. Which books on acquisition of digital assets would you recommend buying? And who are your role models and mentors to learn from? Please drop them in the chat as well. That's a fun question. You know, surprisingly, there's not too many books on acquisitions off the top of my head. I can't, there's a few on like dealmaking negotiations that are really good. I'd have to look at my Audible account. I'll, I'll see if we can get a recommendation out to you, but Rainier, do you have like a book recommendation, Brad recommendation?

I would say just go on YouTube. There's tons of different founders that have different exits. There's tons of different podcasts that talk about their experience. But at the end of the day, it's all theoretical until you go through the process yourself. So as much as you can do on books, podcasts, YouTube interviews, things like that, the real experience and growth will come through reaching out to these sellers on these listings that we have at Acquire. Talking to them, going through these buyer-seller calls yourself, going through the underwriting yourself. And there's tons of different support that we can provide throughout this process. And I think that's going to be the best way to learn is to just do it.

100%. I agree with that. We do have a course. It was actually, it used to be a paid course from this individual, his name is Ryan Culp. And then we acquired the course from him and we made it free. We'll send that your way. I think that'd be awesome for you to check out. All right, last question here, Nir. You ready?

Let's do it.

All right. Are SaaS multiples actually coming down, and what kind of multiples are good for SaaS businesses trading for right now?

Yeah, I could take that one. Sure. So at the end of the day, multiples are an indicator of the strength and level of risk for a business. The higher the multiple commands stronger fundamentals. And what I mean by that is you have year-over-year consistent growth. You have a diversified client and revenue pool so that there's— what that means is there's no one big client that commands the revenue, and if they leave, then a large chunk of your revenue is taken away. You want to have good fundamentals, which commands a stronger multiple. And what we've seen, to answer the question of are we seeing multiples come down because of the interest rates, because of what we're seeing in the, just the main headlines. They've come down a bit, but at the end of the day, deals are still happening. And one thing that I would really highlight is for buyers and sellers to not look at that headline deal consideration of just that dollar amount, is to really get an understanding of what the deal structure was and what the story of a deal is. Just because some deal sold for a high 6, 7, or even 8 figures, Doesn't mean that it was all cash. A lot of these deals that we're seeing in today's marketplace that do transact have some sort of creative deal structure. So cash upfront, seller financing, earnouts, et cetera. Don't just look at the multiple and the overall total consideration. There's so many more important aspects of the deals that are happening today.

That was a killer answer. I digged it. Okay, 2 more, or actually just one more quick question. Do you see software engineers purchasing businesses for the first time as solo owners? If so, can you talk about their experiences? I think that would be, that'd be a super fun potential webinar topic where we go over specifically solo owners and solo founders. But yes, we see that quite a bit on Acquirers, other engineers buying other software companies that are very hands-off where there's no formal sales process involved, or it's built on a codebase that both the buyer and seller are familiar with. So absolutely. But one thing I would just set expectations with here is, you know, really when you acquire a business, the goal should be to, to try and grow the business. So having some marketing experience, sales experience is going to be paramount to making it successful. So typically when we think of, you know, technical founders selling to technical buyers, we're selling businesses that may not have a lot of marketing upside, meaning the original founder hasn't done a lot of marketing. The technical founder's buying it, probably isn't interested in doing a lot of marketing. But the big success stories that we see is where there's a buyer that's technical, they're also familiar with sales and marketing. They're able to acquire businesses where maybe just one marketing channel has been stood up and they're able to explore another marketing channel and double the customer signup rates, stuff like that. So that's really where I would focus is it's extremely important to understand the code base, extremely understand how things work technically, But when you can combine now a marketing and sales experience, that's when you become really, really dangerous, especially in acquisitions. Um, that looks like it's it. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for, for joining the webinar. I hope you enjoyed this content. Have a great week and hopefully we'll see you next time, next webinar, next month. Thanks, everybody.

Awesome. See you everyone. Take care.