They Got Acquired - A home run 🏅

Oct. 28, 2022
​Read on web​

The first deal we're featuring today was a win for the founder...

And it was also a win for us at They Got Acquired.

We played a tiny role in this acquisition. Months ago, when Terrell Johnson was thinking about selling his content site, Half Marathon Guide, he came to us looking for guidance.

We put him in touch with a broker we trusted — and he ended up selling the business for 6 figures.

We now feature Johnson as a testimonial on our site:

"I had no idea how to evaluate [brokers] and what to look for, and Alexis’s guidance was invaluable in helping me find a broker that I found professional, personal and absolutely critical to guiding me through the sale of my site."

If you want guidance in choosing a broker or advisor to sell your business, we would love to help (at no cost to you). Just reply to this email.

Now here's more on how Johnson's deal planned out...

🏃‍♂️ After 16 years, the Half Marathon Guide’s founder reached a 6-figure finish line​

I want to call out one awesome detail from this story: the founder did not transfer his email list as part of the sale. He wrote a Substack newsletter about running that perhaps would have driven up the sale price if it was included, but he wanted to retain it and keep writing.

That showcases something many first-time sellers don't realize: you are in control of which assets you sell and which you keep. For the deal size we talk about here — 6, 7 and low-8 figure deals — the founder has a lot of power to shape the deal as they'd like.

I've heard of founders who've held back an Instagram account they cherished, or retained links on the website they sold to continue sending SEO juice to a side project.

We often think of M&A transactions as all or nothing, but the truth is, if there's an asset within your business you'd like to keep, you can probably set up the deal in a way that allows for that. Kudos to Johnson for making that happen.

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This sports writer hit a home run

It’s a typical complaint from writers who start a business: many want to write, not sell ads or fiddle with tech or do all the other things it takes to make money.

Sports writer Matt Brown found a creative way to pass the business side to someone else, while retaining the parts of the job he enjoyed.

He started Extra Points, a newsletter that covers what happens behind the scenes of college athletics, as a side project in mid-2019.

A year later he went full time on the project, eventually growing it to about $4,300 in monthly revenue and about 680 paid subscribers.

But he didn’t have the time to write and do all the other things that make a startup successful, like A/B testing newsletter headlines or making advertising sales calls.

So he decided to sell the business... and managed to do that in a way that landed him cash, equity, and an opportunity to keep writing.

All the details are in the story:

🏅 How this sports writer sold his newsletter and got to keep writing it​

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​
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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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