New Micro Startups For Sale 🚀 - How Iceland Attorney Became Entrepreneur

Ilya Novohatskyi

Hey everybody.

This week, I chatted with one of our buyers, who told his success story.

From attorney to startup acquisition, and his first steps in the tech.

This is such an exciting story. It shows that your profession doesn’t matter and, in the end, it all depends on you.

Your passion and understanding of your wishes help you influence your life. Your freedom is in your arms, and only you can determine your financial independence.

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P.S. Today is a great day. After almost 10 hours on the road, I finally returned to my home in Kyiv.

Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

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Microns buyer success story: Iceland attorney

Hi, I’m Jóhannes, an Icelandic father of two girls, an attorney, a consultant, and an indie developer. For the past few years, I’ve been working in real estate development, as an attorney, and as a political adviser to the minister of education.

Although I haven’t been directly working in tech, I’ve had a keen interest in the field for a long time. My father has been running an IT company for most of his working life, and I’ve worked for him in the past, so I’m not a stranger.

Technological advances have and will keep transforming our lives, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of it. I’ve been fortunate enough to have two beautiful daughters in the past three years. It made me think about my priorities, time, and future. I wanted to build or acquire a side project in tech. I hope to be able to grow it into a full-time role gradually.

How did you come up with the idea to acquire Relica?

As an attorney and consultant, I’m used to primarily billing by the hour. Although hourly rates in Iceland are not what you’d expect for a fancy London lawyer, it’s still enough to make a decent living. However, I’m becoming less satisfied with selling my time with changing perspectives and priorities over the past few years. It’s a limited resource for all of us and doesn’t scale. The fact is, time working for a client is time not spent with my family or friends.

I’ve done some reading throughout the years, and I know it sounds cliche, but a book has stuck with me called The Millionaire Fastlane by M. J. DeMarco. I guess you could say the book itself has an “American-dream” vibe, but there’s some great writing about the importance of being able to scale your work.

So, late one night at home during my paternity leave last December, I got a notification on my phone telling me that I’d received this very newsletter. I’ve been subscribed for a while, but it had gotten lost in the avalanche of e-mails one gets every day. However, I opened it up this time and saw a listing that caught my eye - Relica.

Information and data security has been a vast and growing topic for several years now. After researching Relica, I could see that the product had unique features that made it different from other services in the same market. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a tough market, but there’s good potential for growth.

How long did it take you to make a deal?

After researching, I contacted Cory and Matt in December last year. They were forthcoming with any information I asked for, so we quickly hopped on a call. They gave me a crash course on software, business, and providers. After that, it was crunching numbers and putting together an offer. Everything was very transparent, which made our negotiations a lot smoother. The process took a couple of weeks.

Although I’d taken a couple of courses on programming and development during our discussions, I’m not a fully-fledged programmer. I went to law school, and I hadn’t done a line of code in my entire life!

An essential topic in our contract was a post-sale service period where Matt and Cory are responsible for keeping things in good working order. Having said that, I’m looking for a competent GO developer to help me on my journey down the line.

Did I bite off more than I can chew? That remains to be seen, but I guess the unofficial motto of Icelanders is “þetta reddast”. It means things will work out in the end, and I think it’s the critical cultural ingredient that has allowed this tiny island nation to prosper in unforgiving conditions.

What activities did you make right after the acquisition?

First of all, I had to thoroughly understand all of the cogs in the machine, so Cory and Matt were very helpful.

After that, I put most of my focus on strengthening the brand and marketing material. I’ve redesigned the Relica website, which I’m proud to say that I did independently.

Could you share your plans with Relica?

Right now, I’m learning marketing. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from friends and colleagues, and the main takeaway is that users need to get a sense of trust right away. Relica is designed without compromise for security and privacy, and the product itself is excellent. However, being a small fish in a large pond, there’s a lack of social proof.

Addressing that is what I’m working on right now. Some of our largest clients are in AI, machine learning, and robotics. Many are IT professionals, security and privacy-concerned power users, so we’re not just backing up your grandma’s family photos. Professionals rely on us for fundamental data, and we need to convey that message more clearly.

Because Relica is very reliable and mature as a service, my main focus is revenue growth. The goal is to be able to make Relica my full-time priority. More features will come further down the line.

Advice to our readers

Be bold. Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance or advice. Do your research, but don’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Your life is now, and your time is precious. Þetta reddast!

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