It cost $500/month to run & sold for millions

September 1, 2023
​Read on web​

Matt Sly wrote a letter to his future self in 5th grade and handed it in to his teacher.

Years later, while out on a run, he let his mind wander. He thought back to that letter but couldn’t recall what he had written.

That’s when the idea for FutureMe hit him. How hard would it be to build software to deliver letters to the future?

Sly, a software engineer, explained what happened next in a LinkedIn post:

“So I registered the domain futureme.org, and over a few weekends, hacked out FutureMe v1 with Jay Patrikios. It was 5 php files on a shared $11/month server,” he wrote.

Sly’s side project grew in spurts over the next two decades, eventually earning annual revenue in the mid-6 figures – and costing only $500 per month to operate.

In 2021, Memories Group Ltd. approached him about a purchase. Sly ended up selling for mid-7 figures.

See our full story of how this founder kept his side project on simmer before selling, plus a big challenge he then faced:

​This letter-writing app, a 20-year side project with only $500/month cost, sold for millions​

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We explain: SDE + why it matters

Starting as a teen, Bryan Clayton built his Nashville lawn-mowing operation into a 150-person landscaping business with $7 million in annual revenue.

But when he wanted to sell Peach Tree Landscapes, he discovered he had a problem: The business didn’t appear profitable enough to fetch the price he wanted.

Clayton attracted a serious buyer, competitor Landscapes USA, but the offer was too low. It took a painfully long, two-year negotiation process to close the deal.

“I was absolutely scarred from going through this,” Clayton said.

The problem that kept the two sides from finding easy agreement lay in a key figure known as SDE, or seller’s discretionary earnings.

SDE often trips up first-time sellers. In this post, we review:

• Why it matters
• How to calculate it
• How to increase it (so you can sell for more)

👉🏽 What is SDE? We explain seller’s discretionary income, plus why it matters for your sale​

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​

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P.S.​ Earlier this week we opened the wait list for our upcoming live workshop on What to Do Now So You Can Sell For More Later.

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Get on the wait list for the early-bird discount when we launch: