They Got Acquired - A community that sold for $1.8 million

April 2, 2024
​Read on web​

It can pay to be choosy.

The three co-founders of Traffic Think Tank, a Slack community for SEO professionals, cared deeply about who acquired their business.

“Frankly, we struggled to see a situation where we’d feel confident enough in the buyer for us to hand over the keys to the kingdom,” wrote co-founder Matthew Howells-Barby.

He, along with co-founders Ian Howells and Nick Eubanks, turned down a few companies that approached them about Traffic Think Tank, which was earning nearly $1 million annually from its $99/month subscriptions.

Then Semrush, the maker of a popular SEO tool, approached them.

Here are the details of the resulting deal, which we found in a public SEC filing:

• Price: $1.8 million
• Terms: More than half cash up front, with $360,000 paid after 12 months and another $360,000 after 18 months
• Sale multiple: 1.8x ARR (annual recurring revenue)
• When it closed: February 2023

Here’s how they scaled their company while holding full-time jobs and landed the deal with Semrush:

​An SEO community with 750 paying members sold for $1.8 million​

Sponsored by

A banking platform that's built for Profit First

It's cool to see how obsessed the bootstrapped community is with the Profit First framework.

If you haven't heard of it, Profit First is an accounting system (and book) that helps founders prioritize profit.

But Profit First is tricky and costly to implement with most banks.You need at least five checking accounts to follow the system, and old-school banks tend to charge fees for additional accounts or require difficult-to-maintain account minimums.

Then there's Relay, the banking platform that makes it easy to implement Profit First.

So easy, in fact, that the creator of Profit First uses Relay for his business.

The founder of They Got Acquired, Lexi Grant, recently left the traditional bank she'd used for years for business and switched to Relay.

Relay makes it easy to do all banking-related tasks from home, and it offers a robust free tier. No account fees, overdraft fees, or required minimums, and next-day ACH is free and easy.

In this video, she walks through her experience moving to Relay, plus how you can use it for a Profit First setup:

If a more innovative banking experience sounds appealing, try Relay:

Relay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and FDIC insurance are provided through Thread Bank2,3; Member FDIC. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted.

Behind the business (of TGA)

Do you subscribe to newsletters? Here’s a radical idea…

Respond to them.

Whoever sent it wants to hear from you.

You will make their day by responding. And it can help you foster new connections with smart people, too!

I once heard a newsletter writer who’s good at marketing (Chenell Basilio) say she responds to other people’s newsletters as a way of marketing her own.

She writes an authentic note about why she enjoys reading that particular newsletter, and includes the sign-up link for her newsletter in her email signature.

Best case scenario, they notice what you’re up to and become a reader, and maybe even an evangelist for your business down the line.

Worst case scenario, you’ve brightened someone’s day by showing some gratitude for all the free content they’ve sent you.

I was surprised at how much this this idea resonated when I shared it on LinkedIn. Have you tried it?

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​