The Real Reason Buyers Wanted This SaaS

All right, I'm here with Jacob Miller, the founder of Seen. Jacob, how you doing today?

Good, Andrew, thanks for having me.

Yeah, good to have you on. I'm excited to hear your story, but before we dive into that, do you want to give a brief introduction of yourself for people that may not know you?

Yeah, yeah. So my name is Jacob Miller, um, still consider myself a younger guy, 27. Um, I have been an entrepreneur in different things for quite a few years. Seen as something definitely more recent, but my background's in sourcing. That's what I went to college for. So did the 9 to 5 at a couple of Fortune 500 companies in the sourcing space. Got tired of that, started a side hustle doing mold remediation of all things. So black mold that's in people's homes. Did that on the side out of my garage. Flash forward, 4 years later, we have 6 locations and we're all over the United States and kind of pounding away on, on that. Yeah. And then more recently got into the, the software space, which, you know, for blue-collar or non-technical people out there, you know, I think it's, you know, become a lot more approachable with AI nowadays. But, but yeah, so on kind of a newer journey with doing some side things with, with software, and that's where you know, kind of crossed paths with Acquire. So.

Right on. Well, tell me about Seen. What problem did it solve? What did it do? Let's start there.

Yeah. So obviously being in the service business or home service business, you know, the business is all about getting leads, getting customers and the growing opportunity. And, you know, a lot of people are seeing it, a lot of the data is reflecting it is that people are going to platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot to find answers. You know, as opposed to Google. So the big gap we saw in our business is how do we show up on these platforms now that so many people are going there looking for who's the best plumber, who's the best HVAC technician in my area, as opposed to Google. And we talked to several marketing companies, even the ones we were using currently, got met with some pretty steep price tags as far as like what it'll take to get ranked on there. Or at least show up. A lot of it's still traditional SEO and so forth, but there was this baseline, like protocol that all of them were suggesting, which is backend text on the website, different things that are basically being generated by AI. And then they were also using AI to basically track that, like how much, how many more are you showing up in month over month? And thought to myself, man, this seems like something that could be automated, could be, built internally. Um, you know, we've messed around and built several pieces of software internally for our company Mold Warrior, which is the restoration business, um, just for like day-to-day activities. And we're like, yeah, like this is worth trying, um, versus paying $7,000, $8,000 a month for, you know, a service like this. So, uh, started building it out, um, probably like a 2-month span. We had a product that we were using basically every month internally. Seeing really good growth. And, you know, we have a thought, hey, why don't we share this with, with others, right? Other home service businesses. So that's when our internal tool turned into a publicly hosted URL that, you know, we face towards business owners and consumers.

That is killer. I love how you saw a problem in your existing business and that made it really easy to identify this as an opportunity.

Yeah.

How did you build the platform? I assume AI. What specific tools did you use?

Yeah, so it was a stack of a few different tools. Kind of the baseline was Lovable. So just a Vibe coding platform. And in conjunction with that, I felt like I was a genius at the time starting to use Claude Code and using Claude to actually like build out I'm not a, I've never written a line of code in my life. If you offered me $10 million and said, I need you to write one line of code, well, I wouldn't make $10 million. Like, there's no way. So yeah, relied almost entirely on Claude Code, Claude, just prompting and then taking that and building it into Lovable, just ideas to paper and then, that into, into Lovable, and, you know, 2 months later you have something that works. Um, yeah, so that is, that is incredible.

Uh, did you ever have any issues with the production version of this? Did you kind of crack open, say, the Lovable version at one point and move it over to, uh, one of the more like custom tools, or did you just completely vibe code this and release it?

Yeah, so this was completely vibe coded. Um, never made its way out of Lovable, which like I think looking back on it Now since the platform's been acquired and sold, they've moved it to, I think it's like Vercel, like a platform that's actually more customizable. But yeah, it lived solely in Lovable and, you know, at production, there was definitely some things that, you know, I would say needed tweaking and you're kind of working from behind trying to get those tweaked as you're hearing from customers. Seeing some of the bugs that are taking place. You can't check for everything. We wanted to get it out there as soon as possible to at least get that feedback, offer discounts if people are having issues, things like that. But yeah, I think at full production, Lovable's capable. I think scaling it and taking it beyond that, you'd probably wanna look maybe somewhere else.

[Speaker] 100%. You're actually the first person I have met that has built something on Lovable. Found customers and sold it on Acquire.

Yeah, that's crazy to me because the amount of— Yeah, I think the biggest thing is at the end of the day, and you probably see this all the time, but every day, every week, it's becoming increasingly less difficult to get an idea live. And I think the biggest thing is marketing and knowing what channels to market through, and how to bring that customer acquisition is where a lot of people fall short. And I didn't know it was going to be successful in that realm. To me, it was mildly successful. It got to the point where it was too much work and it was taking too much priority over other businesses I run that are more demanding, which is again, where Acquire came in to look at giving someone else the opportunity to to take it over and have a really good product that I felt like, you know, was scalable. Um, but yeah, that's— yeah, it blows my mind. I think, I think we'll see in the next, you know, next several months many more products getting launched, uh, through Lovable, and, uh, many of those seeing a lot of success. I think it's, it's becoming every day.

I think the one thing that's, you know, really, really became even more obvious with AI tools like Lovable and Vercel and Cursor is distribution and marketing was always the hard part. Actually getting the customers, building was the easy part. But let's talk about how you got customers. How'd you get the first handful? Did you have friends with businesses, same problem? Did you share it somewhere? Like, what did the initial spark look like?

Yeah, so it was all very boots on the ground, at least in the digital marketing world. So no Facebook ads. We didn't spend a single dollar on marketing. We— Facebook groups. So we were in several Facebook groups just like for our industry, so, you know, water damage, mold remediation, business owners, and basically just shared our story on there. Somewhat of a testimonial, but very natural, very like, you know, someone from this industry sharing their experience that's dealt with, you know, marketers that don't have your best interest in mind, that overcharge. You know, we had a very digestible monthly subscription cost. But yeah, Facebook groups. I think we made 4 posts across different groups and had roughly 22 customers that we acquired from those 4 posts. So yeah. And then it got to the point where it was like after those customers came on board, we were tweaking things, editing things. And yeah, so all Facebook groups. Yeah, never spent a single dollar on, on Facebook ads or anything like that.

That is incredible. I think, you know, kind of me reading between the lines, I think the reason why you might have been successful is you are the ICP. Like, you know, the problems that you have as this specific business owner, you know where other business owners of this type hang out. I mean, you could even argue, I think for a lot of founders that are trying to vibe code different SaaS products, they should go like work for free at a business and like Learn the problems and how do you network with other associates? And I think that alone would help a lot.

[Speaker:ANDREW_GAZDECKI] Yeah. It's not always the most exciting thing that's the most successful too. I think a lot of people are looking for the next huge idea. In my opinion, the huge ideas are going to be the next Anthropic or ChatGPT update, right? Having an interactive calendar that uses AI, that's low-hanging fruit. I think so many people, and I have a perfect example, I have a business partner that I'm building another SaaS platform with, and he has a friend, they're doing almost $200,000 MRR, which is crazy. And they're spending heavy amount of money on marketing, but they're in the hinges, like door hinges space. Nobody is gonna think to go after something like that, but they found a gap or, you know, a need for business owners and distributors in that space to get the right specifications and use AI for that. It's super niche, but it's hyper-focused and it's hyper-valuable to that industry. So yeah, I think the biggest piece of advice or the biggest learning from this is the profits, the customer acquisitions, those come between those lines. You may be in a space or have experience in a business or industry that you think is super boring, that doesn't offer a lot of opportunity. I challenge those people to really look inwards there, Look for problems that are easily solved by AI and build out a platform that can easily take care of that. It's not going to be hard to sell. If you know a real problem, it's not going to be hard to sell at all.

The riches are in niches.

Yep.

Especially the boring, unsexy ones.

I love it. Exactly.

Yeah. Tell me about why you decided to sell. You kind of touched on it where it was taking up a lot of your time. Was that the sole reason?

Yeah. I think it was kind of two pieces. So definitely a lot of time. I'm a perfectionist. So when it comes to building something like this, there's no ceiling. You can just keep adding things, you can keep making tweaks. And I find that I have a lot of pleasure in doing that, a lot of fun in building. And it did, it got to the point where it was like I was spending half of my day doing that for pretty— I mean, not to belittle, I guess, the success or to build a recurring revenue like that, but compared to other things that that I was working on or businesses I own, it was just a lot of time for not the same amount of reward. And then I started thinking like, "Man, this is something that there's good value here. I would love to give somebody else the opportunity to take this and really scale it and be able to sit back almost as a consultant in some regard, answer questions, help post-sale, and just watch somebody else take this." especially somebody maybe more technical, right? Um, I felt pretty capped out with like moving it to another platform and like furthering, um, the functionality. I felt like I, I was capped, um, and wasn't at the point where, hey, I want to, you know, start building a team around this and like really going after it. Um, so yeah, that's when, you know, I looked out— perfect example, like building a platform like Seen to Be Found on AI. I went to AI, hey, what are reputable brokerages or acquisition type of platforms where you can sell digital assets, digital businesses, or just businesses as a whole, number one option, it comes up as Acquire. So yeah, then I went on there, looked at what is it going to take to sell this, what kind of information, got everything prepared, super easy process. I think probably The more complex the business, the bigger the numbers, probably the more due diligence and so forth. But from the beginning to the end, it just made perfect sense. The whole process of having buyers reach out with an NDA, which I loved. And yeah, I think after posting it, I had roughly 7 or 8 people that had at least signed an NDA to get more information or to do some due diligence. Yeah. So that's what fueled me to get to the point of listing it, giving someone else the opportunity and doubling down on what I actually know, which is home service.

Right on. I think that's great. And it's such a win-win acquisition where you get some cash from the business and then someone that buys it gets this opportunity to potentially grow an even bigger business. You can keep using the tool if you wanted to as a customer.

Yeah. And we do. Yeah. And we do. Yeah. We use it. Like I said, we have 6 locations now. Every location uses it. Uses it. So yeah.

That was great. In terms of the buyers, how did you end up with the winning buyer? Was it the terms of the offer? Was it the valuation of the business?

Yeah. Again, at the end of the day, it was more about the person. So I think I had 4 serious conversations, 4 offers, whether they were verbal or they were actually offered through Acquire. But yeah, it really came down to the person. Business valuations, especially ones that are— We were operating for 4 months. It's hard to put a really good business valuation on that. Some people are aiming for a 5x multiple, a 10x multiple, super unrealistic multiples. I just wanted to get to me, it was like, "What's it worth to me to sell?" For me, that was like, 1.5 years of revenue, something that I felt like was pretty modest. But yeah, in meeting with the different buyers, the biggest thing was just the person, like how big of an impact is this going to be in their life? How hungry are they to grow it? You talk to people that already own 4 apps or 4 pieces of software, and this is just something they're adding to the stack. And then I had 2 guys that were very into this space, very hungry, looking to step away from their 9 to 5, I've been that guy, trying to find an opportunity that I felt like was good. And to me, this was really good. I wanted to give somebody that opportunity to scale it and have that value. So that's what finally did it. Ended up doing the acquisition with somebody in Australia, and I'm in the US, so that also speaks volumes to acquire as a platform, You have buyers and sellers from all over the world. I've never spoken to somebody in Australia in my life. And now we have kind of this budding friendship where he's messaging me all the time, running Facebook ads, scaling the business. And it's just been awesome. So definitely a win-win, and that's what I was aiming for. [Speaker:ROBERT_LEONARD] That's incredible.

It sounds like you gave this entrepreneur a great opportunity because sometimes acquiring a business can be one of the best paths for entrepreneurs. You're giving them something with traction, with You know, business model in place, the market opportunity has been identified so they can focus on sales and marketing. That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, yeah, it was something like going into it too. I never really, I didn't know that it would turn into what it is now too, right? Where it's like I have this, this contact and this connection. Yeah. So it's been very rewarding, both like spiritually and then, you know, also, you know, selling a business is always fun. So yeah, that's awesome.

You do anything to celebrate? You go out to dinner or find anything cool?

Yeah, I don't know. Nothing really. Probably, you know, like we talked before, before we got on the podcast, just had a baby 4 months ago. So I think that night I probably maybe went to bed a little earlier and then, you know, got a little extra sleep, but no, nothing crazy. Yeah, maybe had a steak.

I mean, that's an ideal night as a dad.

Yeah.

I can relate. If you were talking to a founder and they were looking to sell their business, do you have a couple of pieces of advice you'd give them?

Yeah, definitely. I'd say the biggest one is just patience. Patience in waiting and finding the right buyer. If you're serious about selling your business, you only get one chance to do it, right? And making sure the terms of that offer are to your liking, being realistic. With those terms too, knowing if you're expecting too much from those terms or too little, but really taking the time there, even more so on larger businesses. Yeah, patience. You're going to have money thrown at you and it's going to seem really appetizing to take that first offer, but usually that first offer is, you know, the terms are, it could be great, but yeah, you just want to be patient and see what all the offers look like, what the different arrangements look like. And try to remove money from the equation until the very last stretch, I'd say. And yeah, I mean, outside of that, I think understanding your numbers. I'm very traditional business guy, understanding your P&L, understanding your true value of the business too, looking at what other businesses have sold for maybe in your industry or your your niche and being realistic there. It makes for a lot more simpler process when you do go to sell. But yeah, outside of that, I think have fun with it too. Selling a business, again, you only get to do it one time when you build something. And if you spent several years doing it, it should be a fun process. And I think for a lot of people, they get put into maybe bad terms or a bad arrangement, it ends up being not a fun process, whether that's an earnout with unsatisfactory terms or things of that nature, it can end up being not a fun experience. So get knowledgeable, know your numbers, and consult an attorney if you need to. So yeah, I guess those would be the few learnings or the few pieces of advice I'd have.

[Speaker:ANDREW_GAZDECKI] Great advice. I agree with all of it, especially the patience and the realistic on valuation. That's actually the number one reason we see founders not selling is being unrealistic on valuation. But when you get it right, it's awesome. You get multiple offers and that's your opportunity to negotiate valuation upwards and get better terms. So totally agree. What's next for you? I know you got a much larger business you got to run, but you building any other SaaS businesses or anything like that?

[Speaker:ANDREW_GAZDECKI] Yeah. Again, a lot of things we're doing internally. We do a lot of work with insurance. So We're working on automating that whole process because probably 90% of the time it's a nightmare, a lot of communication back and forth with emails. So I'm setting up some cool tools internally for using Google's API to automate a lot of that, which is otherworldly to us. And yeah, relying on AI to even write out what those emails are, putting the details in there. So a lot of stuff internally. Just to help improve efficiency. I am a co-founder with a business partner on another platform that's in the sourcing world, so kind of where I first started. It's called spendfire.com, and that platform is basically spend intelligence for larger enterprise companies. So, you know, the biggest, the biggest issue a lot of these companies have is messy data. They're trying to save money on the items they're buying, whether it's for manufacturing or they're a distributor, and they may be buying nuts and bolts from 10 different companies, but their data is so messy, it looks like they're buying it from 2. They have no idea what their total spend is. So it's a platform that basically they can upload all that spend data, uses AI to categorize it down to like 3 different levels. Uh, cost is much more approachable than what's out there in the market right now. Because it should be. Like, it's AI, it should be efficient, it should be cost-effective, and it should make sense. So yeah, that's a product we're working on now and launching, in talks with like 4 different companies right now to onboard them. So that's exciting. But yeah, other than that, it's mold and water and dirty stuff, you know, outside of the fancy things that I'm sitting at my desk. Running a blue-collar, dirty business and also trying to build some software apps.

Right on. Gosh, there's so much opportunity with AI right now.

So much.

Excited to see you keep crushing it. It was great hearing your acquisition story. If people want to follow you online and hear more about your story, where can they find you?

Yeah. Feel free to connect with me on Instagram. That's probably what I frequent the most. Username is jmills_official, and then you can find me on LinkedIn as well. But yeah, always open to connecting, love collaborating with other entrepreneurs, and if I can help or be of any assistance, I love that stuff. So it's what I eat, sleep, and breathe.

So right on. You're a legend, Jacob. Congrats again on the acquisition.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew. Appreciate it. Cheers.