Andrew Gazdecki - Founder of Micro Acquire Speaks on Building Start-Ups and Getting Acquired

All right, welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we have Andrew Gazdecki, the CEO of Microacquire, on the show. Thanks so much for coming on, Andrew.

Yeah, Casey, thanks for having me. And probably actually CEO of acquire.com coming up pretty soon here.

I was gonna say, I mean, you recently acquired acquire.com I know that you've been, you were tweeting about it the last week, week. And I wanted to start with that because, I mean, that's a huge rebrand, an exciting rebrand, in my opinion. And I'd love to hear sort of how that came about and how long you've been thinking about it. And, you know, this is kind of in my eyes as someone that's not in the business, like pre transition, it sounds like. So would love to dive into that.

Yeah, definitely. So it, it's been a domain I've been chasing for two years, or I would say I've been in touch with the seller or the owner, I should say, and just had negotiations or a conversation, dialogue open. I was, I took my first vacation of the year two weeks ago in Hawaii, and he kind of came out of the woodwork and I'm just like, sitting by a pool and he's like, hey, are you interested in buying it? And we came to terms. And then I started, you know, I wanted to make sure that, you know, people who are familiar with the Microcore brand supported it. So before actually acquiring the domain, I ran polls, I asked. I'm sure he probably could have, you know, pushed up the price, but we had an agreed price, so he was aware of, you know, what I was doing, so to speak, because I said, like, hey, we're, you know, we could be going into a recession. This is a big purchase. Do you care if I just kind of make sure this is the right one? So did a little bit of, you know, rebrand in public, if you will. Just as for fun, to confirm, this is a good buy. And, you know, the. The last poll showed 76 in support of it. And I've always been 100% in support of it because we want to be the marketplace where startups, both micro and macro, are acquired not just for 10k, but also for potentially 10 or 20 or $100 million someday.

Yep, I love it. I can say I'm a huge fan of acquire.com and I'd love to kind of dive in if someone there's. I actually saw a tweet today from the founder of Teachable, and he talked about the value of these domains when Starting a startup. And now he had, he got teachable. And that was a transition from the previous domain. How do you think about it as a, as a founder about, you know, OG domains, these short, more, you know, hard to acquire domains. And what are you excited about with the rebrand?

Yeah, I mean, I think it just shows a lot of credibility in your company and some credibility. I think a good example of that would be Ring.com is probably my favorite, actually. Mint.com too. So Ring.com before was called Door. Or something like that. And Jamie Semenoff, the founder, paid. Guess how much you paid for Ring.com?

A million dollars.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And he almost bankrupted. He paid. It was everything in his bank account. And his reasoning was, you know, if we want to play on the same level as, say, Nest, you know, we need a strong, you know, brand name. And Ring.com was the one. And so he kind of pushes chips all in on that. And I've always been a big brand marketer in terms of how people perceive your brand, and I think that's just extremely important. And we have competitors now with microacquire ranging from early acquire, tiny acquire, easy acquire, soft acquire. That's the funniest one. And I'm, I'm rooting for all of them. But, you know, we kind of create. And then also on the flip side, there's so many different companies with micro in front of its name, such as Micro Ventures, Micro Founder. So we've seen kind of wordplay on our company name in multiple different directions. So we felt this would be a good way for us to differentiate. And the second example I gave was mint.com so mint.com originally was called, I believe, my mint or something dot com, and their main competitor was called, like, wasabi or something that was hard to pronounce. And I believe Aaron Patzer was the founder of Min.com I could be totally getting that wrong. So I apologize if I, I, I just got the Mint.com founder wrong. But he was so adamant about acquiring the domain mint.com because mint.com is a personal finance app that was acquired by Intuit for, I think, 200 million. But his thesis around the business was to really make this work, he needed a brand name that really, as soon as you heard it, you say, wow, okay, I can trust this company. Because when you have, like, a really, really strong domain name, you naturally kind of gravitate towards that perception. And then the competitor, they were neck and neck, and you've never heard of the competitor. But mint.com. they, the story kind of goes that, that critical move in terms of how they position the company and with the strong brand is how they were able to, you know, earn more trust from consumers and say their main competitor. So it can be, I mean, go both ways. I mean, you also see companies called like bebo worth like $10 trillion. So I mean, it all depends, but by no means is it necessary. But I do think it's interesting and it was a domain I was chasing, so just to kind of round it out, you know, I, I think it's, it's awesome when you see it like, oh, that's a badass domain. Um, and for us it's a, it's a clear roi. But I mean for a lot of brands, you know, I think when you have really, really long, you know, names, they don't really instill that sort of confidence to the user. And I think the shorter. And like you said, there was a tweet about it recently talking about, you know, strong premium domain names because, you know, people do gravitate towards the way I kind of think about it in another way. I feel like I'm kind of rambling now, but it's kind of, it's kind of like buying like, like a piece of prime real estate in Times Square where like you got the corner shop in Times Square that when people see it they're like, I don't know what the rent is on that, but that's a, that's got to be a business that's doing well.

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree and I know that from firsthand as well. So my startup that actually recently got acquired, it was called mediakits.com and we tried to be very niche where it was a tool that allows creators to create a media kit with real time data and analytics, sort of like a digital resume. Took us a while, but we got mediakits.com and that was sort of our differentiating factor of like a very niche tool for creators. And it worked out for us. And just I always did my co founder place so much emphasis on that and I thought it was a super powerful move. And then one example was I had Harley Finkelstein on the podcast the CEO of Shopify about a year and a half ago. And the first thing he, he said when we were in the interview, because he has at Harley on Instagram, different context, but like OG username on a platform and I have. So we just have our first names and we hit it off for like five minutes just on that, you know, like Digital real estate conversation. And I think not only do they carry value in certain situations, but especially when it comes with a company in a huge rebrand, like, like what you guys are doing, that's super exciting and I'm super pumped for you guys. So just to switch the conversation, when I first came across Microacquire, I was so intrigued at what you were building because I think it's something that, you know, as a 22 year old founder that recently went through an acquisition myself, when I used to think about acquisitions three, four years ago, I, I never pictured the opportunity to, you know, have a marketplace for that, right? You think private equity, you think bankers, you think all these different things. And I read your book and I personally know some of the, you know, the story of Microacquire. But for people that may not know what led you to starting Microacquire, your previous acquisition of your past company, you know, what was that transition period that sparked the idea to launch Microacquire in the first place?

Yeah, pretty simple. So after my first acquisition, so I've, I've built and sold two different startups, one called business apps, that was kind of like a life changing acquisition, if you will. And then I made the typical, you know, entrepreneur mistake and immediately started building another company and worked on that. It was in the crypto space and worked on that one for about a year and then sold that to a strategic buyer just because I wasn't passionate about the, the market, if you will. But when I sold business apps, I had like 20 friends reach out to me and be like, how'd you get acquired? How'd you find the buyer? Doesn't Google just show up to your house with a big check and say like, hey, you got acquired, like we picked you and it's. So it couldn't be further from the truth. And you know, getting, having business apps acquired was like a three year process for me. And that was just through. I originally worked with an investment bank. We had offers, turn those down. And I remember saying like, hey, you guys have like the best job in the world. Like I do all this work and then you show up in the, at the end and you get. Their minimum fee was 800,000 of the transactions closed. So I was 25, young, passing the deals, but kept in touch with a lot of the buyers that we had met and just constantly kept them updated like I was selling the business, you know, like you, you want to be. If you want your company to be acquired, you need to build these relationships early. Especially if your business is at scale. And it's going to be, you know, a significant purchase because your buyer pool decreases the decrease, the larger your business gets. And so I just thought to myself, all right, we got all these books on marketing, fundraising, sales, and literally nothing on arguably the most important part of the founder's journey, which is the exit. And so I thought, all right, what if we just get everybody in a room, everyone who likes acquiring startups, Because I was acquired by private equity. And so I started learning that world. Like, oh, there's these companies that buy companies. Like, this is fascinating. And there's a. There's thousands of these types of people. Interesting. Oh, this is a trillion dollar market opportunity. Interesting. Current options to sell your startup are either with bankers or with, you know, business brokers that, you know, take sometimes pretty high fees. So I thought, you know, there was a lot of opportunity to just opt, optimize, automate, streamline, standardize. Just the whole process, end to end. For acquisitions. Like, from the legal aspect, what is a letter of intent? Asset purchase agreement, what is that? How do I get one? Even just finding an M and a advisor if you need one, where do you find one? How do you know if they're good? And then just finding a buyer, that's the hardest part. How can we get startups in front of hundreds of thousands of buyers in a week instead of, you know, years? And so that was kind of just the idea for the business. At first I didn't think it was going to work because who lists their business on a marketplace? But I just took all the information or experiences that I went through selling business apps. So key things like it needed to be private because I remember the moment when I told my team we were being acquired. I got questions ranging from, am I, am I becoming a billionaire or a millionaire? And then other people are like, am I, am I fired? Everything in between, like, it was just like, oh, my gosh. And then, you know, we close and, you know, the rest is history. But I knew it needed to be private because if your team or customers find out, obviously that's something you don't want, or even investors, if you have them. And then also just putting control in the hands of entrepreneurs. So allowing entrepreneurs to, you know, control who sees their company, who they give access to, their data room, if you will. And then again, just providing access to a large amount of buyers in a quick period of time. So, long story short, just democratizing acquisitions and just making it easier because it can be so difficult to find that buyer. And there's a Saying if you have one buyer, you have no buyers. And then if you find a buyer, what do you do? Do you know all these terms? Then you got to go out and find an advisor. Where do you find them? Or if you want to maybe. I ran my sale process myself, but I, you know, was able to kind of cobble together all the information I need to know. But what if there's a central repository? There was just this big missing gap in the startup ecosystem and I, and I just couldn't believe no one had addressed it. And I thought it'd be awesome and really fun to fill that hole.

No, that's an incredible story. And just seeing what you've done and now, as you said previously, the competitors that are coming up, I'm excited for what you're building. But when you were first getting started with Microacquire, what were some of the challenges? Was it finding the buyers to trust and vet this community of startups? Was it getting startups to list their company on the platform? You always hear this idea of the chicken and egg problem. What was it in the early days that was more challenging? And how did you push through that and overcome that?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, typical startup growing pains of just so much to do, too little time. So I launched Microacquire as a solo founder. I funded it myself entirely for about two years. And that meant I did all customer support, I did all vetting of listings, I did all product management, I wrote every single newsletter basically working from like 4am to like midnight some days. Just because I thought it was so much fun, because I'd see all these cool startups come in and I interact with these, you know, really interesting buyers. And it was just a way that gave me access into a part of the world of startups that not a lot of people get to see. Because when you think of startups, you think of multi billion dollar companies. Venture back. That's typically what you think of when you think of the startup ecosystem. But there is a long tail of startups where I see some website that just removes the background of an image to make it a transparent PNG and they're making like a million a year in profit. I'm like, what is going on? So I just thought it was so fun for me just because I'm kind of a startup nerd. But some of the early challenges, I would say just, you know, we still have challenges today, I'll start with that. But I would say probably the, the hardest early challenge was really building Just kind of, you know, the product into something that founders and buyers would trust in terms of. And a big part of that was just vetting the listings. It was, you know, making sure that the listings were quality, that they weren't scams, they weren't businesses they didn't own. So I had a lot of back and forth emails like, hey, can you like add a few letters to your website? Or something like that just so I know you own it. You know, we have, we have more sophisticated ways to prove ownership now. But just bringing, you know, trust and security into the marketplace initiative, I think was, was probably the most, maybe not the hardest, but it took the most time in terms of, you know, ensuring that because we, I knew that if, you know, someone got scammed or something like that on the marketplace, that would just be detrimental to everything and just defeat everything I'm trying to do. So we spend a lot of time thinking through trust and security and transparency. Transparency. And then, yeah, going back to the chicken and egg prom, talking to a lot of people all at once is just shockingly difficult to do. So I'd say, luckily I can type fast. I was able to, I would just live on live chat and answer questions from both buyers and sellers and everyone in between. But when you build a marketplace, you're kind of like throwing this party all at once. You need to get everybody there all at once. And so to kind of initially get that going, I ran like a huge cold outbound email campaign and I would just ask people if they were looking to buy startups instead of sell startups. So if you're looking at like, hey, we have this marketplace where you can buy a startup. And then a founder would read that and they'd naturally go, well, can I sell it? And so that's where we got our, our initial supply first and then launched on Product Hunt. And then it just kind of, I think we, we benefited from some tailwinds too.

When was the exact, like, launch date for Micro Acquire?

For those that may not know, January 20, 2020. That's when I launched it on Product Hunt.

Okay, very cool. And I wanted to bring up because I, after stumbling upon Microacquire, I, you know, you go down these rabbit holes on, on Twitter and I started seeing all of these different early founders not only wanting to go sell their company, but they said, hey, I'm going to go build something that I could list on Microacquire in 60, 90 days. And I even have friends, like, that's.

Their, they want to go do that.

One, two, Three times a year, right? Like, they want to build a profitable bootstrap SaaS company, go sell it on Microacquire. And it's become, in my eyes, as a young vendor that's had these conversations and has seen this a lot on Twitter, like, this new thing and opportunity that wasn't even there before in terms of, like, hey, this is an end goal. I can build this SaaS company, get it to 5, 10, 20k a month in revenue listed on Microacquire, and sell it. When did you start seeing that happen more and more? Since launch. Because I feel like the last 612 months that I've been. Been following your journey and came across medical require. I've seen this more and more, and I'd love to hear from your, you know, from your side of the equation, like, when did you start seeing this? When did this become in your eyes, like, a new thing that you're like, wow, people are actually catching on to this and it's working.

Yeah. I mean, all that stuff is extremely. Just humbling and I think just awesome to see because it's.

It's cool.

It's like, yeah, something, and, you know, it's. It's motivating to be people, you know, I think one of my favorite parts about micro require is, you know, regardless of, you know, if we succeed or fail or however you define that, I think, you know, it's awesome knowing we've inspired some entrepreneurs to just do stuff. I think that's kind of the biggest hindrance for a lot of entrepreneurs is just taking that first step out of either, you know, I'm gonna build something and not waste a bunch of time. And I think just knowing there's an outlet to sell that business, whether you do a great job and now it's time to cash in the chips, so to speak, or maybe you move on to something else and you want to sell the current product that you're working on or anything in between. So when did I really see it start working? Probably, I'd say six months. I mean, to me, I remember, like, the first acquisition closing. I remember that was probably the moment when I was like, whoa, okay. Like, wow, that, like, you actually bought something off this website. Like, that's amazing.

What was the first amount?

What was the first acquisition?

Yeah, it was the amount of the first acquisition. Do you remember?

Oh, it was. It was small. I think it was like a 5k or something tiny, you know, Migro. It was a micro acquisition, but still, I was. I was. To me, it was like a $5 million one. I was like, this is incredible. You know, it's kind of like the feeling when you first customer, like, whoa, okay. So people are actually using this, they're meeting each other and then they're buying stuff for, you know, thousands of dollars. And then it slowly started moving up to, you know, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. And now we routinely see million dollar transactions, multimillion dollar transactions, and then just, you know, the support from people who I think are, you know, just serial builders, they just like to build great products, sell them. We've had entrepreneurs sell five plus products at Microguire. So that's been really fun to see where it's kind of like a new, like you said, like a new sort of, you know, opportunity for entrepreneurs where you can build a product. If you're a builder, not a scaler, you build it and then sell it to a scaler and both parties are happy.

Absolutely. It's so cool. It's like I've even had friends come to me like, hey, I've been looking at this deal on Micro Acquire, like just running ideas by me. It's very, very cool to see. To take a step back to your previous company, business apps. When you started that company, was your end goal to be acquired in a certain amount of time? You know, I think nowadays, like going based off our, based off our last conversation, you know, a lot of young founders, they, they see this new outlet like, hey, I want to start, I want to build something, sell it in six months. And just I. That's my sort of path. Like for you, how are you thinking about business apps in the early days and then when you initially, you know, got that acquisition offer and, and really were going down that lane, were you looking to sell and just what was that whole journey like from start to finish, if you know that journey?

Yeah, definitely. To answer your first question, no, I was, I, I had a goal in college where I literally stepped foot on campus and I said, I'm never getting a job. I have four years to figure out how to not get a job. I had been an, I'd been an entrepreneur since, or I knew I was an entrepreneur since I was, was, you know, a teenager. You know, I had built a number of different things. I'd sell stuff on ebay, you know, kind of all the cliche stuff. So I would build a different company every year. When I say company, I mean just something just trying to learn. And every company got a little bit more sophisticated. And then I kind of just got lucky with business apps because Business apps for those listening that know what it is. It was a drag and drop, basically a no code iPhone, Android app builder. And it came out like right when the iPhone came out. So the timing was impeccable and the MVP of it was terrible, like only I could use it. And so I built that business initially to just not get a job. That was my only goal. Like I just wanted it to be. I envisioned it as an agency because before that I had a job board that connected mobile developers with businesses. And I kept seeing the same business requests, or I should say app requests being made. And people were paying $50,000 mostly like luxury hotels and restaurants for like a simple app. And I was like, oh well there's like do yourself websites, like why not a do it yourself app builder? And so I made a template with the features that everybody was asking for. My thought process was, okay, if I can get, you know, 100 customers, I don't have to get a job. And then, you know, 100 customers turned to 200 and 200 to a thousand. And it just grew faster then. But the, the be. I feel like every business I've started, when I think back, you know, it starts with kind of humble beginnings. I didn't start it with like this thing's going public. Like this is, you know, I'm going to build a billion dollar thing. And just, I think that's kind of how product market fit works is, you know, you search for it and then it just kind of, you, you just feel this pull. And that's what happened with, with business apps. But answering your second question, I, once I, a year in, I knew it was something special, like we had something on our hands and this was kind of like my, my, my ticket to a better life, if you will. So I was like, I'm going to maximize this. This isn't a quick flip. This isn't like a six month project. I'm going to see how far I can, can take this one. Because we went from 0 to 3 million in, in the first two years, I think. And then after that from year two to four, we went to 7 million in annual recurring revenue. Yeah. And I was like 23, 24. I didn't know what I was doing. Like it was, it was weird. But anyways, so when I, when I decided to sell the business, it was a conscious decision where I repositioned the business more attractive to a wide variety of different buyers. And I started vocalizing that, you know, we're going to be, you know, looking to sell the business. I'D been in the business for about a decade, getting tired. I'm already working on like another startup. So I was basically like, hands off, like the business was running itself, essentially. I could have just stepped out and just let the business cash flow or something, but we got an offer that was really hard to turn down, and so we took that offer and that was that.

And that's, that's so cool to hear. And when you brought up, you know, like, starting this company on the, on the launch of iPhone and apps and all these things, like, the timing was great and like, thinking back to then, like, did you see that in the future of like, hey, App Store, all these apps, everyone's gonna have an app? Because that was a whole new vertical of sort of like what a business needed. Like, was that how you were thinking about it? And then how do you think about that now in terms of new vertical where the timing could be ripe? I know you see a lot of companies and, you know, probably more than lots of people. So, like, what do you think about in the same context of seeing the App Store and the opportunity there in today's market?

Yeah, good question. So one, one principle I always. Or one, if I ever have a quote, I hope it's this one. Or maybe, maybe not. But I always say to really succeed in entrepreneurship, you want to make. And you can succeed in many different ways. But this is what's always worked for me, is making an obvious bet to you that is not obvious to everyone today. That will become obvious over time. So to me, with business apps and every small business potentially needing a way to connect with their customers, where they were, and that's on their mobile devices, that made complete sense to me. And at the time, there was no way for a small business to build an app outside of hiring a custom developer, paying a bunch of money, which was immediate blockage to 99.9% of small businesses. So I knew this was like, had potential to build a big business, but I didn't have the confidence or really the experience. I had never built a big business before, so that, you know, it's kind of, you know, I wasn't like, oh, I, I got this, like, you know, it, it just transitioned into a larger business than I, I ever expected. But it was that unique insight that I got from the job board to like, I had basically unique insights of what do these businesses need, how do you properly design apps, how do you get them approved by Apple, all these unique things from a previous business. And, you know, that kind of translates over to Microquire as well, where, you know, the product that we brought to market was, you know, pretty different from other, you know, models in terms of selling your business. And that came from personal experience. So unique insights. And then looking back, you know, without putting too much thought into it, because I've never, you, you never want to be completely stubborn in terms of your thinking. But now that I think about it, the bet I made was, you know, entrepreneurship through acquisition would be a rising trend. And so with both of those businesses, I kind of, you know, like you said, timing is so important and the timing was just right on, on both of them. So I, I hope that answers your question. And that's kind of how I think about just the importance of timing is if you see something that's really obvious to you and it's going to be obvious to everyone in a year, make that bet today because that's how you catch the tailwinds and succeed.

Absolutely. Looking ahead into Microacquire Acquire's journey, what are you most excited about and what are things that you see as a natural vertical integration that you could speak on today? Just thinking about the future of Microacquire.

Yeah, I think just there are so many software companies that people have just never heard about. I think, you know, specifically the bootstrapped ecosystem and the amount of businesses get are that are being bootstrapped today. And I originally bootstrapped business apps. So you know, when you bootstrap a business and you sell it for 10, 5, $1 million, you're a millionaire. Congrats. But if you raise venture capital, you know, it's a different story. You know, maybe you'll have a good outcome, but typically not because of, you know, like liquidation preferences with investors or whatever terms you have or how much capital you raised. So I think that market is going to continue to grow and I think there's a long tail of software companies that you'll just, you're never going to hear about on Twitter because they're not, they don't care. That's on their growth channel. They're just, you know, maybe focusing on SEO or something like that. And these are multi million dollar businesses being ran by like five people. I think that's, you know, a trend that we're going to see continue. So what, what I think is most exciting for me about Micro Acquirer is just, you know, building a startup has somewhat been democratized. With no code platforms, you can get an MVP out in a week. You don't need to know how to code getting the word out about your startup has never been easier. There's just the playing field has just been leveled for so many people all around the world. And I think that's going to increase the amount of tech startups being created. So I guess put another way, you know, 20 years ago if you were an entrepreneur, you'd probably start a small business or a restaurant or something like that. But fast forward to today. I think you're going to be starting, you know, some sort of bootstrap SaaS company or E commerce company. Maybe some will, you know, raise venture at some point. But I think that's going to become kind of like the default where you try to, you bootstrap it as far as you can go and then you kind of have a, you know, should I go big or should I kind of cash in the chips or stay bootstrapped? But that's kind of where I think, you know, the narrative of Silicon Valley is going to go and is going to change. It's going to change away from, you know, hey, you got to become a unicorn and go public. And that's the only way to be successful as an entrepreneur to more of just, you know, you can actually make the same amount of money by bootstrapping a company to, you know, 5, 10 million revenue as if you built a billion dollar company and raised multiple rounds of financing. So I'd say just like that, part of just a whole startup ecosystem gets me the most excited. I know it's not a feature, there's a ton of features. I'm excited about that we're rolling about out at market, excuse me, acquire.com but I think just the opportunity that's being created and accelerated and just entrepreneurship like.

The narrative shift, right. You see it as this obvious thing that many other people don't, may not see right now. And it's very cool to hear that perspective. A couple more questions before we wrap up here. Andrew, you know you started business apps when you were in college, is that right? And you're a young founder. When you think about the opportunities today, if you were 19, 20, 22 years old like I am, what are, you know, some unique opportunities and angles that you'd be spending time on if you were to go back and start over today with the knowledge and expertise you have and more. So just the advice to yourself if you were to be, you know, that age again in today's market.

Yeah, good question. So the first thing I would do is I would take a couple steps back and really figure out what market I want to be in. So I think the market that you pick is one of the biggest deciders of if you're going to be successful or how easy it is to enter that market, or do you have a wedge into that market, or do you even like that market. So just figuring out what you like, I think is extremely important. Like, for example, you know, if you build a CRM for dentists and you hate dentists, like, and you got to talk to dentists, all that, you're just going to hate your life. So I'm a big believer that, you know, you want to write down all the stuff you don't want to do. I would sit back, I would probably start a podcast. I'd probably start a blog. I'd probably, you know, get active on social media and just really kind of like observe and learn from different people and then figure out, you know, and then I'd probably make some small bets to figure out, you know, what I like to do, what I don't like to do. And then I'd go in. So I wouldn't come at it with blockchain is the future. I'm going all in there because I might not like that or I might not have the correct skill set. So I think, you know, a lot of people think entrepreneurship is this game of, you know, you think of an idea and you just go after it and you hustle and, you know, you win. But. But really it's kind of a game. Like, if I look at my career, and I am nowhere near as successful as some of the people you've chatted with in the past. But it really was a series of small bets, like just making little dinky businesses and learning and figuring out what I'm good at, what I'm bad at, and what I like to do and what I don't like to do. And that's kind of shaped my thinking. So I would just take a step back, figure out, you know, where kind of, you know, you think you would be able to have some sort of unique insights, have the most fun. Cause it's super hard to compete against, you know, someone that's having fun when it's worked at the other person. And then I'd make a move. So basically move slow and then move fast when you figure out what you want to do.

Love that. That's super insightful. Um, last question before we wrap up here is, you know, you get this. You get this new domain. You're rebranding the company. What, what does your day to day look like? And how do you stay not only Excited, but just optimize for, for growth and happiness and productivity. Like, what are some of the things that you do on a daily basis that make you. You that you'd want to leave the, the listeners with today?

Yeah, totally. Um, I would say, you know, making time for podcasts like, like yours, because I enjoy meeting awesome people like yourself. I go to lunch with my wife every day. That's a non negotiable. You know, picking up my son from preschool every day. That's non negotiable. So, you know, and then also, like, I like writing a lot. I, I have a journal that I write in once a month that kind of helps me keep perspective and that's also how I kind of assembled the book. It's a great way to really figure out what's a problem and what's not a problem because probably whatever you're worried about today, write it down and then look at it in 30 days and you'll be like, oh, that. Oh, that's been fixed. And then, you know, just hanging, hanging out with, with the fam. You know, I got a, I got a three year old, so yeah, I'm, you know, just a, a guy with a startup and you know, I like to live life too.

I love that. Well, Andrew, I, I've absolutely loved having you on, on the show today. It's an absolute pleasure. Where's the best place where everyone listening can follow you, learn more about acquire and just stay along for the journey.

Acquire.com I need backlinks that thing now that this is going to be an SEO mess getting that thing over. But Twitter, LinkedIn, my email, andrewquire.com love that.

Well, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Casey.