Buying and Selling Startups on MicroAcquire - Andrew Gazdecki, Founder - Replay

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder of MicroAcquire and Author of the new book Getting Acquired: How I Built and Sold My SaaS Startup. Andrew, and I talk about his entrepreneurial journey building MicroAcquire, and some of the insights he's seeing when it comes to buying and selling startups.

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Interview Transcript with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder of MicroAcquire 

Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Andrew Gazdecki who is the founder of MicroAcquire. And Author of the new book Getting Acquired: How I Built and Sold My SaaS Startup. Welcome Andrew. 

Andrew Gazdecki: Thanks so much for having me, Brian. I'm excited. 

Brian Ardinger: I've got my MicroAcquire socks on. So, thank you for that. I'm super excited to have you on to talk about the craziness that is the startup world. And you've had a front row seat for a number of years as a multi-founder. And now with MicroAcquire, let's talk about what MicroAcquire is and how you got into the business of helping startups sell to other folks.

Andrew Gazdecki: MicroAcquire, for those who aren't familiar with it, is the largest startup acquisition marketplace in the world today. We have about 150,000 buyers registered. We've helped over six hundred startups to get acquired that combined acquisition total is 400 million at this point. Almost half a billion. We don't charge any fees. So, you can sell your business on MicroAcquire completely free.

So, I started that business, candidly, as a side project. I just felt that needed to exist. I'd previously gone through two acquisitions, and it was just a mess. Everything from finding the buyers to, there's so much education today on how to grow your business. How to learn sales. How to recruit. And how to fundraise. But then there's nothing on the exit. Which is arguably the most important part of the founder's journey.

And when I sold my first business, which we can talk about, if you'd like, it was a business called Business Apps. Spelled BiznessApps, and kind of the light bulb moment went on when I sold it. I just got a ton of emails and texts from friends that we're also running startups and they were like, how'd you get acquired?

Like, how did you find the buyer? What was the process like? It was like hieroglyphics everyone. Including myself when I went through the process. So, what we're really trying to do at MicroAcquire is democratize startup acquisitions and just make the process easier and more transparent for founders. And also, buyers.

Brian Ardinger: So, talk a little bit about the types of startups that are being bought and sold on the platform. And how has that maybe changed since when you first launched? 

Andrew Gazdecki: Well, when we first launched, lots of small startups, you know ranging from, we would sell business, and we still do today, but 5k startups, mostly side projects. And since then, we've really expanded, I guess, up market. So, our largest acquisition is just under $10 million. 

We have buyers on the platform now that can facilitate acquisitions in the hundreds of millions if the value is there. Yeah, just started with humble beginnings just because I felt this was something that was so needed for the startup ecosystem. Because the other routes to sell your business, unless you're most founders think like Google shows up with a check and hey, you did it. Like you won the lottery. 

There's this saying most startups are bought, not sold and that's just not true. You know, you really need to sell your business. And so, the other routes were expensive, borderline highway robbery, and that's, that was really kind of like the main purpose of me launching MicroAcquire to really give another option for founders of this other business. 

And if you're curious about the other options, you can hire an investment banker. They're going to charge a big fee. If your startup is too small for an investment bank, because most investment banks will only work with you if your business is of a certain size. And you know, maybe you can get li