They Got Acquired - 3,000 paid subscribers = 6-figure sale

February 20, 2024
​Read on web​

Freelancers regularly face two challenges: finding work and getting paid.

This deal put both solutions under one roof.

Study Hall, a community and newsletter for freelancer writers, sold to OutVoice, a freelancer management and payments platform.

The deal closed in June 2023 for 6 figures, providing an exit for Study Hall founders Kyle Chayka and P.E. Moskowitz, who wanted to exit the business to focus more on their writing careers.

“Media companies can and should grow beyond their founders and primary voices as soon as possible,” Chayka wrote on Twitter, “because people get burnt out and novelty fades.”

He and Moskowitz founded Study Hall in 2015 as a cow-orking space for freelancers in Brooklyn. They turned it into an online community and newsletter, attracting more than 3,000 paid subscribers by the time of the sale.

That was a solid niche audience for OutVoice to acquire and expand its business.

More details in our story:

​For the buyer of this newsletter and community, the value was in the audience​

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The rise of community deals 📈

Buyers are increasingly interested in purchasing communities.

Most of those deals tend to be strategic, where the buyer's business would benefit in some way from having access to that community or audience.

But there are also several community aggregators popping up as folks recognize the potential of this space.

In addition to the story above, here are a few other community deals we've covered:

👉🏽 MakerPad sold to Zapier​

👉🏽 Freelance Writer's Den sold to Jara Publishing​

👉🏽 Create & Cultivate sold to Corridor Capital​

👉🏽 Foodboro sold to Sylva​

If you're thinking about launching a community, here's my biggest piece of advice: create branding that does not revolve around your name, and operations that don't revolve around you.

Even if your main business is closely tied to your personal brand, it's possible to create a spin-off community that's more focused on the topic your members have in common, rather than focused on you.

That way, if you want to sell that community in a few years, you'll have an asset — ideally with recurring revenue — you can transition to a buyer.

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​