Declining a $1M offer was the right move...

June 10, 2022
​Read on web​

COVID-19 lockdowns snuffed out many businesses.

But for companies that could quickly transform products into virtual offerings, the pandemic was a boon.

Before the pandemic hit in 2020, Creative & Cultivate was focused on in-person events for women professionals and entrepreneurs.

When the spread of COVID-19 pushed everyone online, founder Jaclyn Johnson pivoted to virtual events, which allowed the bootstrapped company to continue to grow.
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And she sold a majority stake the next year for $22 million.

💰 After pivoting from in-person to online events, this community sold for $22M​

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Declining a $1M offer was the right move...

Success is never a straight line.
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Nick Fogle and Baird Hall's main project was struggling when they stumbled into a more profitable business.
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They shifted focus to grow Wavve, a tool that repurposes audio content into short videos, and it quickly drew a $1 million offer.

But instead of taking the money, the duo focused on reducing their customer churn. Two years later, that move garnered them competition among buyers, favorable sale terms, and a more lucrative offers.

🔄 How to increase your valuation? These SaaS founders did it by focusing on churn​

Coming soon...

Four months post-launch, we're preparing to offer our first paid products.

Our long-term vision is to offer a proprietary database of acquisitions where the deal size is between $100K and $50M. You'll be able to search through that database as you like, narrowing results according to details like sale price, industry, type of company, broker used, and more.

But that searchable database is a ways off. As we build it, we want to test our hypothesis — that you'll find this information valuable — by releasing reports that look at slices of that database.

Our first one is coming soon and will feature 21 companies that sold in 2021 for 6 or 7 figures. When you download the report, you'll get a Google spreadsheet with all the metrics associated with these acquisitions, plus a beautiful PDF that tells the stories of how they sold.

It's a broad slice, intended to give you a sense of the value our reports provide. This first one will be free.

Later in the summer, we'll release our second report: 20 content companies that sold for 6, 7 or 8 figures.

We plan to continue releasing slices that look at SaaS companies, companies with female founders, and lots more ... but first we want your reaction to these initial launches. Are these reports truly valuable to you? What do you want to see more of? What could we do better?

Our goal is to use this data to monetize the brand. We'll sell the reports, and also offer sponsorships of those reports to partners who want to reach our audience.

The content we share resonates, but now is the real test for product-market fit: will our audience pay for access to acquisition insights? This feels like a turning point for the company, a chance to discover whether the audience we've been growing wants to access our premium offerings.

You can help by sharing feedback. Like what you see? Let us know. Wish we took a different approach? We want to hear it.

You can always reach us by replying to this email, or by DMing me on Twitter.

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​
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P.S. ICYMI: Our most popular story last week was on this industry newsletter that grew for decades with a lean team.

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About us 👋

Our mission is to redefine startup success by showcasing companies that sell for $100K-$50M. Learn more about us or follow us on Twitter.

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