093: How to Sell Your Online Business with Alexis Grant

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Hello my friends. Before we dive into this conversation, this is one of those inexplicable times where my audio did not pick up from my good mic but instead from my laptop. Alas, this episode is so not about me. I think you're going to learn so much from my friend Lexi Grant, who just launched her new company. They got acquired about how to build a business that you can sell someday. Or even if you have no plans to sell. How to build something so seamless, systematized and streamlined that the fact that you could sell it means it's that much more easeful and profitable for you to run. Forgive my audio on this one. I still hope that you love everything Alexis has to share. Without further ado, onto today's show.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello. Hello my friends. Oh my goodness. You're in for another treat today. This podcast is just pure selfishness on.

My part of bringing you my favorite people.

I'm here today with Alexis Grant, AKA Lexi. She's one of my longest time friend tours in this crazy online space. We've been friends for over a decade. We're Marco Polo buddies.

Brainstorm buddies. We used to be in a mastermind.

Group together, a little mini pod of fellow solo pluspreneurs. It's been incredible watching her journey. She is now the founder and CEO of They Got Acquired a media company that tells stories of small acquisitions and the founders behind them. The ones that the big entrepreneurial press rarely covers. So Lexi's now focused on sharing stories of companies that sell for $100,000 to $50 million revealing the insights behind those life changing exits for the founders, the ones that don't always follow the Silicon Valley narrative. The reason it's been so inspiring and by the way, they were featured in.

The New York Times and I was.

Like, that's my friend. Lexi has sold two businesses. So it's interesting because we started out doing really similar things. And then I've watched her get acquired by the Penny Hoarder and it was an aqua hire. So she and her whole team, instead of them being one of her social media marketing agency clients, he acquired their entire team and then they were exclusive to the Penny Hoarder, saw her do that for a couple years and grow that business. They later, Penny Hoarder had a big exit, so we can talk about that. And she also returned to her OG platform, the Right Life, and ended up selling that as well. So two meaningful exits that now have inspired her to work on they Got Acquired, which has a fantastic podcast that goes with it too. Lexi, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jenny. You did the best intros.

Oh my gosh.

Can I hire you to do all my intros?

Yes. I was thinking this is the longest intro ever. But part of the reason I want to give listeners a little bit of the backstory, because Lexi's podcast, it's so good. Her producer Laura interviewed her and I want to link to that in the show notes. It's the episode of they got acquired from April 4th. It's perfect. Like they have summed up Lexi's journey perfectly. So I don't want to tread that ground. Actually, listeners like, I encourage you to go listen to that.

I want to start Lexi with one.

Of the questions that we batted around asynchronously in Marco Polo, which is the emotional side of selling a business. For a lot of people here we're running creative and as you described them and focus on online businesses. And I bet a lot of people don't even consider selling their business because it's so close to their heart. And, you know, it's a big enough deal to leave corporate and start something you're passionate about and put your name on it and your blood, sweat and tears. And I'm just wondering, it must have been such a pivotal moment when the Penny Hoarder asked about acquiring your business. I think I'm just curious if you can take us to that moment and the emotional journey of that fork in the road.

Yeah, I mean, I think I like a lot of other founders in the times that I've sold the business, it's hard to Part with something that you've built over the years. The Aquihire, I didn't really have that same feeling because it was more like I was building on something that we had created rather than handing it over to someone else. Because I was basically bringing what we had created and just bringing it in house with the Penny Hoarder and then using that as an on ramp to keep building. So in that acquisition, it was more feelings of like, you know, I was just really excited about what was to come and all the things that we'd be able to do as a team, you know, with more resources behind it. And that ended up being true. I got to do a lot of things there that I wouldn't have done or wouldn't have learned on my own, running my own agency. My second sale, when I sold the Right Life, which was what's called an asset sale, where I built a website, a content site for writers, and handed it to another owner and then they kept running it without me. That was a little different because that was something. I launched that site in 2013 and I sold it in 2021. During that time, I was also at the Penny Hoarder. I wasn't like working on that full time throughout those years. It was a side project, really, but I'd still grown, really. It was a project that I'd put my heart into and that I really cared about. So that was almost more of a bittersweet feeling when I sold it because I knew that I wouldn't be working on it anymore. I think with my personality, though, I'm really a forward thinker. I think about what's next instead of what happened yesterday. And so I was really looking forward to what's next. And my goal with selling that website was to free up time so I could start something new. I really saw a lot of the positives to it and not as many of the negatives. But of course, it's still hard to hand over something that you've done to someone else. And the truth is, I think everyone who sold a business would tell you that even if they really respected the person they sold it to, that new owner is always going to do something differently than how you would have done it. They'll never do it exactly the same way you did. So a big part of the selling process, even though we don't always talk about this part as much, is emotionally getting over that and feeling okay with that transition.

That would be so hard because I've seen.

I've watched certain businesses get acquired and then I See what choices they make. And I think the original founder would.

Have never done that, you know, and I'm just a bystander in that process.

I know you don't give specific numbers, but with the Penny Hoarder acquiring you, that was a mid six figure Aqua Hire.

Yeah, that one I haven't put a number on.

Okay.

I purposely don't put a number on that one because we agreed we wouldn't do that. But the second one, the Right Life, that was a six figure asset sale.

And do you say how much when you say six figure, do you say how much you sold the Right Life for?

I'm allowed to say it was mid six figures. Oh, okay. That's as much as I'm allowed to say. Yeah.

Of the Right Life.

Yep. For the Right Life. Yeah, that was what our contract agreed.

Sorry, I got them wrong.

That's okay. So for the Aqua Hire. An Aqua Hire works a little differently where I mean they can be structured lots of different ways. But the way that we structured it was got some money for selling the business. But then of course you get to negotiate a salary because you become part like I became an employee again when I joined that company. And then you know, typically in an Aqua Hire you also get a little bit of equity if you can negotiate that as well.

And so with, let's say something like the Right Life, where you've felt this over time, I think what's interesting, I did a lot of reading on exits just because it was an area of entrepreneurial studies that I had not learned much about.

Thanks to you.

Now there's more about that and more stories being featured that aren't just big venture backed startups that have exits. But I had not learned a lot about individual kind of smaller businesses and exits. And specifically you're focusing on online business and I'm just so curious. A lot of the literature says that in order to sell a business, there's authors like John Warlow who writes books like Built to Sell, the Automatic Customer. He even wrote one, what's the title? The art of selling your business. That by the time you create a business that's sellable, it's actually so valuable to the owner that there's a temptation to hang onto it because everything's recurring revenue. You have a good sized clients, a good sized base that all the things that make it compelling to sell make it also compelling to keep as kind of a lifestyle business income generator. Did you ever have that question in your mind of whether it could just work for you? Let's Say you install a CEO instead of selling either of these two businesses.

Yeah, I mean, you're totally right. And John's books, by the way, are really a great resource, so I'm glad that you mentioned them. But, like, a lot of people find this when they go to prepare their business for a sale, they end up doing all the things that they put off over the years or they didn't realize they should do, and it turns into something that's a business that's more enjoyable to run. There was a woman I was chatting with. This happened to her last year. She contacted me because she was thinking about selling her business, and she knew that I had sold one in a similar space. And I talked through with her. I was like, wait a minute, what if you just got yourself out of the business a little bit? Systemized it increased your revenue in these three ways you might actually want to keep it. And she did all those things, and she realized she still ended up selling it eventually. But she did hold onto it longer than she thought she would because that's exactly what happened. So a lot of the best practices, like systemizing your business or finding ways to increase revenue, getting yourself out of specific roles as the founder, all those best practices, they're best practices both for selling, but also for keeping your business. For me, I just knew I didn't want to hold onto the right life. I was ready to do something new. And I don't know, I'm not one of these people who can have a million different projects and still feel good about it. Especially since I became a parent, I have drastically decrease the number of projects I work on because I can't split my pie in that many ways. And so right now, I'm like, really focusing on not adding other projects to my plate because I want to put as much energy as possible into one thing.

It also seems like once you get over the emotional rollercoaster of selling a business, you've done it now twice. So focusing on the next thing, it's like, I don't know, probably each subsequent.

Time made it a little easier to.

Just deal with the whole process. I'm also curious about regret, because a lot of the questions about, should I sell? Let's say with a penny hoarder, you got an offer that came out of nowhere for your business. And I've heard other people on your podcast say the same thing, that all of a sudden one day someone says, what's your price? What would you sell for? Did you have concerns with either your social media agency or the right life about will I regret this? What if I regret giving this thing that I built?

And I know you said you're pretty forward looking, but I'm just curious. And I know with the right life.

They ended up flipping it right after buying it and that you couldn't have seen that coming. And yet it's part of the process too.

Yeah. I'm not the kind of person who I feel like I don't have a lot of regrets. I tend to think of everything as like a learning experience that got me to where I am now. So I think about any mistakes I made. They're like, helping me do better in the future. Like, I think one thing that I wish had gone a little bit differently with the penny order sale was three months after I sold the company and went to work there. I had my first kid and then I had another baby 20 months after that. And so it was like a really busy time in my life. And if I could have adjusted the timing, I would have preferred to not have that huge career opportunity at the same time as having my kids because I felt like it was just a really hard time. I wasn't sleeping a lot and I didn't feel like I was doing my best job at either my work or being a mom. But that's something I didn't really have control over. And that happens to a lot of women who are in their high earning potential years. We might also be when we want to have kids. So I just did the best I could with it.

Yeah, sometimes you or Sarah Peck, who runs Startup Parent, that podcast and platform.

Ooh.

I'm just so thankful for you grappling with some of these challenges because there's nothing I love more than a Lexi. I can't even call it a rant.

Because it's so freaking justified.

But when you and Sarah are like, this is what's wrong with these systems makes me so happy because we need to change them and we need people like you who are in it and.

Really analyzing, like, what's broken.

Mm. Yeah, I know. I feel like I think about this often, even though my oldest kid is almost 7 now. And also, like, I've had it better than a lot of people because even at the Penny Hoarder, you know, I helped create that culture. I had tons of autonomy, I had a lot of responsibility. But I also could take days off if I was sick if I needed to. So sometimes it's the pressure that I put on myself and the expectations I put on myself is like, I want to do a great job at whatever I'm doing. And it's like just realizing that the energy that I had before I was a parent, I mean, I still have that energy, but it's divided up differently now. Like, I don't have as much of myself to put into work as I did before I was a parent. That's how I see it. I know not everyone sees it that way, but that feels true to me. So I just think about how can I divvy up that energy a little bit differently?

I know. I think about when you and I first met, the whole trend was like, have 10 streams of income, have as many diverse streams as you can. And then now I'm with you. The privilege is to focus. The privilege is actually to pare down all that and do less and less and less, but try to get more and more traction with it. Last question I want to ask you. That's kind of looking back a little bit, but what about the cringe factor in either scenario? Did you have a potential cringe factor of my name is on this? Like, whether it was bringing your team over to a whole new business and even topic area. I mean, I know that Penny Hoarder was already a client or with the right life, where sometimes I worry. There was a point, I mean, let me be transparent, where I was thinking, should I sell Pivot?

Should I sell that part of the business?

Because the reason I got interested in this conversation is that I had built everything. The entire ecosystem, all the architecture, all the ip, everything was there. Licensing, membership, podcast, newsletter, it's all there. But the one thing I didn't want to do that I didn't have the energy to do was just, like, go all out on growth. And so I was really debating, you.

Know, I don't want this beautiful ecosystem to die on the vine.

But yet I'm not the person. I'm a builder. I'm not a grower or maintainer in that way. And now I still clearly have Pivot.

And free time, and I'm sort of juggling both. These are now my two things.

But one of the things that was holding me back was cringe factor that this, my name is on this, and I built these, even though I did try to take myself out of the forefront. Like, it's not a personal brand, and I've been clear about that since the beginning with Pivot. It's an idea brand. Anyway, I'm just curious your take on that, of just the cringe factor of your name on something. And then what if the new owner flips it or spikes it into the ground.

Do you worry about reputational impact?

I do a little bit. And I think you have to think about how you structure the deal to protect that. So, for example, if you don't want your name on something.

Afterwards because you're worried about it, we write that into the contract anytime you're associated with a brand. If you sold a business, you'd want to have a clause in there that says, this is how long they're able to use my name during a transition and in what capacities they can use my name, and this is when they have to stop using my name. Like, all those things should be really clear in the contract. But there's also different ways to sell a business. Like, you don't have to hand something over and say goodbye to it forever. There's plenty of situations where an owner might sell something, but they stay on to continue to work on. And in that case, you might even have an upside. So you might have profit sharing or you get some equity and so you get to participate in the upside of the business going forward. But in that case, you're still not totally in control if you don't own it anymore, but you have hand in what the brand does going forward. And so you can help shape that. So there's lots of different ways you can structure it, but there definitely is that risk of, like, I'm handing this to someone else. You don't have 100% control anymore. And like, no matter what happens, they might do something different. And like you mentioned, after I sold the Right Life, I had a future envisioned for the site and they ended up reselling it, which I didn't expect. Once it's not yours anymore, you're not in control and that's kind of the end of it. So I think, like, the better conversation might be, how can I structure a deal so it supports my own personal goals. We actually just did a podcast. I don't know if you heard this one, but that we did a podcast interview with Lauren Gaggioli. It was this number seven on they get acquired podcast. And she had a personal brand and really thought that she wouldn't be able to sell her business because it was a personal brand and she thought it wasn't, like, big enough. Basically, she was bringing in about $60,000 a year as a course business, but it was tied to her personal brand and she was helping people with prep for sats and acts.

Oh, yes, I did listen to that one.

Yeah. She ended up selling it for about $180,000 and I thought that was really interesting because it just goes to show that even if you're close to your business, there's a way to structure a deal so that it doesn't have to revolve around you. And part of that is I think even though it was around her personal brand, like the company still didn't require her to be in it to run it all the time. So there is a distinction there, but it's still possible.

I know. See that one was such an interesting example because I thought to myself, I do offer a product where one next client could yield me that amount. And so I kind of pulled back from the idea of even selling it because with licensing I just need another.

Client and then I still own the business and can keep generating more clients.

Theoretically, knowing that my energy isn't really in outbound sales.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Maybe we can talk a little bit about the Right Life. I know you had written ebooks, had you over the years kind of pulled Alexa's grant out of the Right Life in certain ways. Like I know you were running it and everything, but did you make a concerted effort? Was there a moment where you decided I'm going to be behind the scenes on this one now? Because in the beginning, of course it started like so many of us did.

It was your travel adventures and your.

Ideas and it was more you centric.

Well, actually for the Right life. So it's interesting you asked that question because the Right Life was never really about me. Like that was always on its own domain. And from the beginning I tried to not make it about me because I wanted to see if I could grow a brand that wasn't about me. And I think people who knew that I ran it, People who knew me knew I ran it. And I got a lot of people onto that email list from my own personal email list. So I'd write what we were doing to my subscribers@alexisgrant.com, so I moved a lot of those people over there. But I think someone new to the brand who didn't know me and came in, they wouldn't recognize it as being heavily tied to me.

Yeah.

And I might be conflating the two. I might just like, well, you know, you know me, it's all a blur looking back to me. But you're right, now you say it, I remember that.

But the thing is, I actually would do that differently now. And even with they got acquired, I'd say I'm more the face of the brand for they got acquired than I was for the right life. And that was an intentional choice because here's how I think about it. Even if you want to build a big brand that doesn't revolve around you and doesn't have your face on the COVID you have to start somewhere. And especially for a content company, you have to start with trust. And you need to get people to trust you. And people are much more likely to trust a person person instead of a brand. And so when they got acquired, I'm not afraid to be the face of it for a while. As we grow and my goal is as that trust increases and our audience base increases and I built a team that can help run it, we can pull away a little bit from me being the brand and the brand can become itself. So I think there can be a transition there. I'll always be on the about page as the founder of the site. But like right now, for example, in our newsletter, we send newsletters on Tuesdays and Fridays and every Tuesday newsletter has a section at the bottom that's called behind the business. And it's basically a note from me that's like something that I found interesting about growing the business or like I really like sharing behind the scenes business stuff. So that part's fun for me. And I had started that section even before we launched the site when it was really just me writing to people that we were starting to collect people of email list. And it was me saying like, here's what I want to build. Here's my goal with this site. It was really a very first person newsletter, like getting people ready for the launch. And once we launched, I initially flipped a switch and I was like, now this email is from the brand. But then I realized I was like, this is silly. Like, people really like the behind the business stuff, and it's a way I can show them what we're building and a way to increase trust. So I ended up leaning back into that and I think we'll keep it for as long as it makes sense for the brand.

Yeah, it's true. I love what you're saying as well, because as I think about this, even I launched Pivot without my face all over it. But I had built up five or six years of brand equity and trust, let's say, with all my previous efforts. And I interviewed MBS on this podcast a while back about his transition out of CEO role. He too started in front of the website on the proverbial front page, and then slowly kind of moved toward the back as he then transitioned out of that role or knew that he was preparing for that. So I love how you're phrasing that. If it's not all or nothing, this binary thing, this on, off, switch that in the beginning, it is really helpful to do that. I love the behind the business stuff, too.

That's why I'm having so much fun with free time, because the whole thing is behind the business, where I used to just send those updates to Pivot list behind the book, behind the business.

Let's talk about hiring. Because you're so good at it. And I have always been like, oh, the same way as my approach to dating. Like, oh, serendipity. Just the right people will fall into my lap at the right time. And that has happened to me many times with hiring and specialists, contractors. But it seems like you actually have a real skill and aptitude for finding talent and talented people, bringing them on, onboarding them, teaching systems and creating value, not just in the product that your business sells, but in the team that you built. And I see you doing it as we speak with they got acquired. Please take us into your mind. How are you doing this?

I laugh because I guess I would say I'm good at this, but I find it really hard still, and I find it really frustrating. My dad used to tell me there was times when I was complaining to my dad about parts of work that I didn't like. And he said to me something like, just because you don't like doing it doesn't mean you're not good at it. Which is like a good reminder to me, like, just because something's hard doesn't mean we can't also be good at it. Like, those three things can both be.

True and also Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you love it or you enjoy it.

Exactly.

Or should do it.

So it works both ways.

Yeah. And I feel like that's really true for me with hiring. The part I do love is I find it really satisfying to get a team together that works well together and that can grow together over time. And I love supporting people in their careers. So even now, some of the people I'm working with before they get acquired are people that I've worked with over the years, trained in other capacities. So I always look for ways to lean back onto people that I've worked with before if it makes sense. And it doesn't always make sense, but for the roles it does make sense for. That's helpful for me because it just also a much faster way to get to a successful team because you know how certain people work and the value they can bring to the team.

Do you have some magic sauce about your job descriptions and interview process that allows you to determine who those rock stars are going to be?

No, I try a lot of people who don't work, that's my magic sauce. And it takes way too much time. In fact, right now I'm like thinking and scheming on like, how can I hire a full time writer? And our financials don't really support that quite yet, but hopefully they will soon because I'm spending way too much time trying to bring on the right freelance writers. But I think it's really just screening them, trying them out. I think if there is a magic sauce or a special sauce, the piece is being able to identify people who have a lot of potential as a writer and who are almost where you want them to be and who you can help become that a writer or that a team member. So I enjoy that, trying to spot those people and then over time just giving a lot of feedback. And to me, when I review, for example, a writing post, if I assign someone a post to write for us to see if it's aligned with what we're looking for. Sometimes I can tell right from the first post I hand in that it's not a fit. But if I think it might be a fit, I really wait until I give them feedback and then I see how they implement the feedback. Because to me the test is really can they implement feedback and can they do it better the second or the third time around? Not are they going to nail it the first time? Because nobody's going to get your voice and your style perfectly the first time, especially if it's like something specific to a brand. So to me it's like, how well can someone adjust when you give them feedback?

Yes, I had that issue once with a VA many years ago, but no amount of feedback resulted in a changed output.

So that was really interesting.

It was like we were giving all this feedback on something and then it just didn't improve. So we're like, we're stuck. You know, that's where you can't proceed if there's not an ability to integrate feedback.

Yeah, and it's so hard. I mean, I struggle personally with telling people that it's not a fit. For as many times as I've done it, I try to help myself out by setting the expectation up front. Like I say, hey, look, we're going to try through pieces together and you can see if it's a fit for you. And I could see if it's a fit for us and you'll get paid for all those things. It's not like I'm asking them to work for free, but you know, I'm not committing from the outset until we try working together to see if it's gonna work.

Yeah, I think that's so smart. I've been thinking about that more and more as well because I did get.

Lucky so many times with connections or things.

I realized I tend to just throw people into the deep end of my business, like zero to a hundred and it doesn't make sense. It's not fair to anybody. And it's so much better to do a project based, paid project even as part of the application process. And so I love how transparent you are about that.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. I also really love help people develop once they come into the team. And this is I think why some people are happy to work for me again and again is like they know that I actually care about them as people, which surprisingly lacks in a lot of businesses. But I want to know, like, what do you want to learn when you come work for me? What can we do to make your resume the resume you want? Like what are the skills that you want to take away? And, and sometimes that's connecting with other freelancers. Like so a lot of freelancers, they work on their own all day and they want to have a network or a small team and feel like they're part of something. Not everyone wants that. Like some people just want to do their work at hand in hand. But what I try to do is figure out like what is this person's motivation, what would make Them happy and outside of just like the work, like, what are the things that they really want out of the job? And is that something I can provide for them? Because if I can and it works for them and they do great work, then it's going to help me keep them for the long run.

Who do you think is a fit to even consider selling their business versus who might just benefit from hanging onto it and having it be their trusty lifetime buddy of income generation and lifestyle business?

I do think it'd be tough for people who are true solopreneurs who are actually running the business on their own. I think you can make a transition, but you have to give yourself plenty of transition time so that you could hire other people who can run pieces of the business for you. And it's like something that can stand outside of you. So, like, I think that could be the biggest blocker. But most businesses, even if it's entirely reliant on one person right now, it could be built into something that's not. So the question is, do you want to do that work to get it there?

Yes. And it does seem like a lot of work. Not just getting the business to a healthy enough point where it's not. There's no key person risk, like the business disintegrates if the owner steps aside.

But also the due diligence, like, oh.

Just hearing on your show, like the.

Lawyers and the paperwork and sort of cleaning up the mess, like the attic of our business where everything lives.

It's a lot of work, but if.

You clean it, I mean, you want it to be clean, even if you're not going to sell the business and it makes your life, like, more enjoyable. Like, think about the things that, like, is there anything you dread about your business? And like, how can you make that better, more streamlined, or have someone else do it? All those things are going to make your business more sellable at the same time. Mm.

Have you ever heard of the book Buy then Build?

I have, but I have not read it.

It's really good. My brother recommended it to me. It is so fascinating. I gotta find the author's name and.

I'll put the link in the show notes.

But this guy's basically saying, buying a business. Walker Diebel. That's his name. How acquisition entrepreneurs outsmart the startup game. And so he talks about how starting a business has so much friction, so much trial and error. You spend a lot of money, whereas acquiring a business, you can if you vet it well. Like, look at the business Lawrence, that you featured Someone could buy that for 200 grand and like, I just spent 200 grand in a year on my.

Business, you know, So, I mean, I think that's also something that we never.

Talk about are these tiny acquisitions in terms of acquiring. And I'm curious, now that you've sold twice, do you ever think about acquiring someone else's delightfully tiny team?

I did think about it when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next after I sold the Right life. And some of the things that are interesting to me are like, I think it'd be fun to acquire like a tool, some sort of software, like a SaaS or some small tool, like even a chrome extension. Acquire something that somebody has built who had technical expertise and I think it's really valuable, but they haven't done the marketing or the growth and then try to grow it. That's the kind of thing I think would be fun. But generally, honestly, I love the beginning stages. I like building something from scratch. It's super satisfying to me. I'm not sure I'm the right person for that kind of acquisition because I would be missing out on the parts that I really like.

Yeah, I could see maybe in your case, you're going and you acquire a podcast production team or something where it's like you're still nurturing them and nurturing your show. That's another question I have for you. So here you are starting another venture. How do you decide how much you want to spend? And we know there's these chicken and the egg conundrum, as I call it in free time, but these trade offs between, like, you have a narrative, awesome podcast, it's a lot of work.

I was listening and I go, oh my goodness, I know how much work this is. And that's why mine are just super simple. Because if it was even one iota.

More complicated, I know I wouldn't do it. And so I'm wondering how you decide where you want to invest and how much you want to spend in these early days of starting something in order to clear a threshold of professionalism and quality that matches your vision while still being mindful of like, you know, you're bootstrapping.

Yes. Yeah, it's a hard question. I'm bootstrapping. I would like to be revenue funded, but you know, we're not covering our own expenses yet. So the way I started was I put money aside from my last sale and said, hey, I'm going to spend this money to start the site. And I have a tweet Somewhere that laid out like a pie chart that shows how much I spent to get to launch and what I spent it on. I think it was like $30,000. It was a lot. And it's more than I have done with my previous companies. One growing pain here for me is especially after working at the Penny Hoarder, which is my last full time role, we had tons of resources. That was also a bootstrapped company, but we did very well. So we had a lot of resources and I could do things the way that I wanted to do in them. And I had a huge team of full time people. Right. And it's been a challenge now to shift back into like lean early stage. Don't have a huge team type of business because there's so many things I want to do, but it costs money and time and effort and I just can't do it at that level yet. So there's definitely a gap between how I would like to do things and what we're able to do at this point since we're bootstrapping. But basically I set out a number initially of how much I wanted to spend in the first six months and then decided I'd revisit at that point and say maybe we're covering our expenses at that point or maybe we're on our way to covering our expenses. Or I could just get a sense of whether the brand is taking off and do I want to keep investing in it.

Can you say either what that number is or range? A general range?

Yeah, I'm trying to think. It's definitely morphed since I started. I want to say it was like.

60K for 6 months.

I should give those exact numbers because I feel like that'd be a great Twitter thread. So what's happened is we ended up earning money. Different levers you can pull. We ended up earning more money than we thought in the first few months because I ended up selling sponsorships that did really well. So we launched in February, we're in May now, and right now we're spending about 12k a month and we're covering about 7k of those costs. I sold some sponsorships. I'm able to cover a lot of our costs, but there's still a gap. We're still losing money every month, but we're about to start releasing our first paid products which are going to be reports that are coming out of the database that we're putting together. You know, on the front end, it's a media company because we're sharing the stories of acquisitions but on the back end, we have a database that's about 1200 deals so far and growing. Wow. Yeah. All these acquisitions. So basically my goal was to get to the point where we could start releasing the reports and we had enough readers so that they start buying the reports. And I hope that this will help us bring in more revenue relatively quickly, but we'll see.

I love it. I mean, so exciting. And six months is not a long time, but you're already seeing traction.

And you got covered in the New.

York Times almost immediately, I should say.

Because we haven't talked about this live in person yet. But thank you for sending me the story. And it was funny, Jenny, because I got so many emails after that story went live in the New York Times on tech column because they sent out a newsletter and it was in the newsletter. It was like dedicated to it, which was amazing. But you were one of only two people who sent me a picture and was like, I saw you in a hard copy of the New York Times.

That's right.

So it just told me so much about your personality because I was like, oh, yeah, of course she's still reading the physical copy, like with a coffee, you know, on the weekend.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

The inky paper version that blackens my thumbs.

And you know what's funny is that.

I get so excited when I see.

A friend quoted and then I think to myself, I don't know if they even know they're in the inky paper edition.

No. Yeah, I didn't know until you sent it to me. Yeah.

Because, you know, this is funny. I was in a poli sci grad school class when I was at ucla. I was still an undergrad and my thesis was on how web based news was going to change how we interpret the news because I was like so obsessed with the paper version and I was upset by the web changing the.

Order of things and the headlines and stuff. And then, oh God, it's like I didn't even know what was coming in terms of clickbait and all of that.

But then to this day, I think like Oliver Berkman, who was on this podcast, he wrote 4,000 weeks. He had a front page of the New York Times book review article. But if he just saw his review posted online, he might not know that his review was the front page that week. I mean, that's so cool. So I'm always happy to send you the paper version of any features.

I love that that made you smile. Yeah, it's awesome.

We'll be right back. Just after this.

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Yeah, we were talking about Runway and well, you know, because we trade polos all the time.

But I'm currently in that really interesting.

I'm going to call it Trapeze Bars. But a lot of the time it feels like I have a jumbo jet that's like about to nosedive into the.

Ground and I have to somehow, somehow like crank the handlebar up at the last minute. But the reason it's a jumbo jet is because I'm building something that could fly to Australia with no stops. You know, something that is meant to be lasting, but it's a tricky dance.

And so I just love hearing how.

You'Re thinking about it and just burn.

Rate and how much money and time.

You'Re willing to invest.

It always changes too. Like, you think you have a handle on it and then there's a shift and you're like, oh, I've got to shift with that. Or how can we change to adjust that? Yeah.

And I'm also so stubborn. Like, I don't like to do things just to earn the money to then turn it around. Like I've done that before. But lately I've been increasingly stubborn of just no. As we talked about, I don't want to get distracted. I don't want to dilute my focus. So I'd rather sweat more and then almost take on more risk. Do it the way that my vision is compelling. I'm not saying it's going to work. What do I know? But that's just the urge that I'm noticing in myself lately.

You've done this enough times now that you know, you know to trust yourself.

That's what my friends say. They're like, you always freak out like this. You always can't.

You always get down to zero where.

You'Re like, everything's gonna fold and then it works out. So I always appreciate. Thank you for reminding me.

Tell us about these reports, because this database sounds fascinating. You're creating a database of sales under 50 million, is that right? Okay. And then what's the lowest sale? Would you report on a sale that was like, hey, Lexi, I'm gonna sell you my biz for 50 grand?

We do 100,000 as the lowest.

Okay.

And I think eventually we might wanna expand. Cause there's been a lot of interesting ones that we've passed on because they were lower than 100k. But for now, I need to have, like, put it in a box somehow. Yes. There's so many things we could do.

Well, let's also be clear that the business has to have an online component. So we're not talking about selling a brick and mortar bagel shop. I love how clear and specific you are. Online businesses that have sold for 100,000 to 50 mil.

Yep. And since 2017. Although we're trying to focus on more recent ones, but that's the box since 2017.

Oh, right. And because it has to be adjusted.

For inflation and stuff.

What's going to be in the report? Because I know it's tricky with this stuff because Sometimes there are NDAs around the deal and one or both sides don't want specifics shared. So what type of information are you collecting?

Yeah. So, well, we go directly to the founder, the person who sold the business, and say, can we write a story about you? Or we're going to write a story about you. Do you want to have input? Because often there's lots of stuff out there already on some deals. Like, there might be stories that were written already, there might be a press release, maybe the Twitter thread or LinkedIn post. Anything that has a little bit of detail, we collect it and then we ask them if they want to answer any questions. And we send a form over to the founder that asks for lots of things, but most of them are optional. So we basically give them a lot of flexibility in terms of what are they comfortable answering. Because you're right, lots of founders have NDAs, or they're just not comfortable saying certain details, but they might be comfortable with other things. So, for example, like with my sale for the Right Life, I'm not allowed to say exactly how much I sold it for, but I can say mid six figures. And I find that's the case for a Lot of the founders that we're covering, sometimes they can give a specific number and you know, the more they can do that, the better. But if they can't do that, they might be able to say it was high seven figures or it was low six figures or something like that, or even just it was seven figures, something to give us a sense. And the way I see it is like even if we don't have every single data point, it's better than nothing because we're the first to collect any of this information. And you can get data sets around much bigger companies like this. But if you want to find information on smaller companies, until we started building this, it really didn't exist. So in my mind having any bit of information is better than nothing.

Will the report be aggregate data or also features?

I'm just so curious.

I think it's really fascinating.

It's funny you asking this. I'm really excited about it because I just got the draft back for the first one. The first paid report we're going to do is going to be about content companies that have sold. Partly because that's like my jam. I get excited by that stuff. But we've covered, we'll probably have about maybe 15, maybe 20 that have sold in the last couple of years in the six and seven figure range. And so we'll put all that information into a report and then the person can purchase it. And it's designed really nicely so it's easy to read and it's fun to read. And yeah, so that'll be our first report but then we're hoping to have to cover lots of other types of companies. So like we might do one on E commerce companies, we might do one on SaaS. I have one that we're actually probably going to give away for free just to get something out there that's just like a sampling of companies that have sold in 2021. So it might be something like 21 companies that have sold in 2021. And then people can get a sense of like, what are the reports, like what's the value? But my long term vision is I would love to be able to have a website that allows anyone who needs this information to come to the website and log into the database on their own and filter through the data the way that they want to use it and pull the information that they want. And I could see that being a subscription offer in the future, but for now we're going to just try little bite size pieces and see what sticks.

Also, it's an Incredible network that you're building. There can be speed dating. There could be networking. Of people who have sold. I read Finish Big by Bo Burlingham. He wrote Small Giants, and the big theme of that book was that a lot of people have a crisis right after they sell that. The ones who don't have their next thing already lined up, the beacon that they're super excited about, they have an identity crisis. Because the thing that they've been building, like, even we've seen all these stories of Adam Newman and WeWork. I am the WeWork founder or Travis Kalanick with Uber. It's like, that's their identity. And then the exit can be this crash landing on the other side into.

The void of just who am I.

Without this business that I've given everything to? So I think you could have some really interesting connecting these people and just like, even support on the other side.

Yeah, for sure. I'd love to have a community component. It's just a question of, like, when will we get to that? And what does it look like?

Yeah. And this is just me, like, with.

My nose pressed against the glass.

Yeah.

I don't know why I think it's so interesting. Like, I still have no plans to do anything. I was very fascinated. Listeners, you should check out any interview that Andrew Wilkinson has done.

He's the founder of a company.

I don't know if they're on your.

Radar, Lexi Tiny Capital, or they're called Tiny, but the website's tinycapital.com I'm going to put it in the show notes. I saw Andrew Wilkinson at breakfast at ted, and I had a total fan girl moment.

I was like. We were staying in the same hotel.

I was like, it's him. And I'm like, hi, Andrew. You know, you don't know me, but I've listened to you on so many podcasts. I was like, I just love the way you think. And, you know, I wrote to you guys about Pivot. And then I'm like, and by the way, I know how weird this is. I have two podcasts for six years. Like, I know what it's like when.

Somebody thinks they know you and they don't. And it was so funny. It was so funny. But I was like, a very happy nerd celeb sighting that I saw him in person. That's funny.

Yeah.

I wish I knew more what to.

Say whenever I see these business heroes, but I really.

All you can say is thank you. They don't need another friend, most likely.

Yeah. It's funny, though. You've been on both sides of that coin, so you know what it's like.

I know, I know what it's like.

But I'm like, Andrew, we've never met, but you've been in my earbuds for at least 20 hours, if not more.

You know what I mean?

I know you.

What do they call it? Parasocial relationships?

Yeah, we all have those.

Yes. Well, you listen to this show, so you know that I'm gonna end with a permission slip. But right before that, I'm just curious, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think is still very opaque in this space for small business owners that I should have asked you or we should be asking ourselves?

A big ethos of what we're doing is just that you don't have to subscribe to, like, the startup roles that everyone talks about on Twitter or Silicon Valley. We like to share stories of underrepresented founders. And to me, that can mean a lot of different things. And it can mean someone who bootstraps, it can mean someone who's only working 20 hours a week. It might be a woman or a person of color or an older person. So just knowing that you don't have to fit in the mold and you can still build a great company and if you want, build one that you.

Can sell, I love it. And if you could give business owners permission to do or drop something altogether, do something differently or drop, what would it be?

I would give permission to drop the traditional work week because so many of us have learned, like, the hours just don't make sense and they don't work for many of us. So we're about to go into summer, and this summer we're going to have the same work or similar work week hours as we had during the pandemic, which is a Wednesday through Sunday schedule. So we're off on Mondays and Tuesdays because that's when we can get childcare and that's what works for our childcare provider, which is another family that's watching our kids. And since my husband and I are both self employed, we can work a non traditional schedule and it still works for us. So I think being able to see outside of that box, don't let yourself get put in the box because structuring your hours differently might work better.

I love it. You know, I share the same tirade.

Of busting loose from the factory system that it becomes ingrained, it just becomes assumed.

I've been on a rant of this a lot lately with the podcast tour the other thing is, as a business owner, and I know you know this, it's harder to work less. That's the challenge is to work less. The badge of honor is I figured out how to create systems automation and hiring. That's the hard part.

The hard part isn't, I think at a certain point, it's no longer the.

Hours you put in. The hard part is continually reducing that and getting more creative. So it's not easy.

I feel that hardcore right now, like the first year of building a business. Cause there's so many things I want to do and there's just not enough hours. And I always want to add a tack an hour on here and there. So it's like, what is enough? That's always the question, what's enough?

Yes, what is enough? And then I'm always asking, what's the nonlinear breakthrough like? Even trying to grow the podcast, I'm like, okay, I could grow 10 listeners a week at XYZ. I'm like, that sounds so tiring.

You know, what's the nonlinear breakthrough?

Who knows? Got to get myself in the nyt, the inky newspaper.

Yeah, it's a grind, as you know, building anything from the beginning is a grind. It's just slow, steady growth.

Well, I'm really, really excited to see what you're building.

Thank you for building this, listeners. I encourage you to listen even if you don't plan to sell your business. Listen to they got acquired because it is so fascinating to build. Healthy businesses, as Lexi said, are easier for you to run, but that even generate outside interest. Even if you said no to every business suitor, it's still interesting to hear what people did, what they sold for, what their life is like on the other side. What's their number? The number that does get them to sell. I think it's just a very fascinating part of the conversation that is totally missing from the space. So I'm really glad you're providing it.

Thank you so much, Lexi.

Thanks, Jenny.

Thanks, everybody for listening.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

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