They Got Acquired - $3M in revenue

March 18, 2025
​Read on web​

Fun news: We're planning a dinner series for TGA readers. 🥳

Picture a small group of founders who are building with an exit in mind, all coming together for an intimate conversation. Best case scenario, we'll have a sponsor cover the cost of your meal, too.

If you'd like to participate, reply to this email and let us know which cities are convenient for you.

We'll probably start in DC and NYC and branch out from there!

Next up in this newsletter...

• How an agency sold to a public company
• What kinds of businesses Saunders Street Capital wants to buy
• 3 lessons from founders who've sold
• Our tool stack for 2025 + costs (in the P.S.)

Keep scrolling 👇

What surprised this founder when she sold to a public company 😯

Many founders sell their company because the move fits into a financial need or plan.

But sometimes, life simply takes you in and out of phases where running a company may or may not be a good fit.

Fleur Hicks exited her first business, the digital media agency Pass It On Media, in 2011 to focus on motherhood.

Just over 12 years later, another life shift would push her to sell her next business, M&A consultancy Onefourzero.

Onefourzero grew out of Hicks’s experience with her first exit and years of consulting with other firms on exit preparedness. The UK-based company provided buyer-side digital due diligence for private equity and venture capital firms.

Yet even for a company that guided other businesses through mergers and acquisitions, when it came time to sell in 2023, the process posed unexpected challenges.

Here’s what her due diligence experience was like selling to a public company:

​Why this due diligence expert was surprised when she sold her business to a public company​

Sponsored by

Sell your company to a buyer who keeps your company's magic (and awesome team) thriving

Ashley Emerole, Principal at Saunders Street Capital, is looking to acquire and operate a great business for the long term, especially if you:

• Have a great team committed to excellent service
• Serve a loyal and diversified customer base
• Are growing and profitable
• Bonus, but not required: Your end-market serves education or government institutions, women, or parents

Ashley brings experience as a media and telecom investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, and she previously worked for the City of New York in criminal justice budgeting and policy and as an adjunct professor at CUNY John Jay College.

She's a passionate and energized entrepreneur, looking for the right business to buy.

Here's what you can expect from working with Saunders Street Capital compared to traditional private equity or a strategic buyer:

Ready to discuss exiting into your next adventure ?

3 lessons from founders who've sold

As we were putting together our latest free report, 13 Content & Media Deals, we asked:

What are three lessons we can learn from this report?

Here's what surfaced:
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🔵 It's tough to get the timing right.
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And I don't mean timing the market, though that's helpful, too.
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I mean timing:
1) Your business's performance
2) Your energy
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They're often intertwined. When your energy declines, sometimes the performance of your business can, too.
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That's why we suggest founders sell *before* you burn out.
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Talia Koren shared with us why she wishes she had sold her subscription business, Workweek Lunch, earlier. Here's her story.
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🔵 Reducing owner dependency increases your sale price.​
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One great example is how Caitlin Pyle brought in a CEO to run her training program, Proofread Anywhere.

Two years later, she sold the business for $4.5M.
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She had some health challenges to focus on, so she hired the CEO, who strengthened the business's systems and processes.
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Meanwhile, Pyle set up email campaign sequences that eventually freed her from the pressure of creating new content all the time.
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They were able to eventually remove Pyle’s name and face from the day-to-day of the company, building evidence that the business she built on her personal brand didn’t actually require her presence to operate it.

​Here's more on how she did that.
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🔵 Persistence pays off.​
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Every business has its ups and downs. Tom Wahlin experienced a big down with his travel gear site, Pack Hacker, during the pandemic.
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With travel halted, the site’s traffic, clicks and conversions dropped 60% within two weeks in March 2020, and Wahlin was forced to reduce the team’s hours.
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Over the next year, the team adjusted its content strategy and wrote about remote work strategies, staycations and even work-from-home gear.
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They managed to rebound, and Wahlin sold the site in 2023. Here's how the deal happened.
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💰 Our newest (free) report includes stories on these three deals, plus 10 more in the media space:

​13 Content & Media Deals ​

See you next time,

Lexi Grant
Founder & CEO
​They Got Acquired​

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P.S. A quick behind-the-business update: Here are the tools we're using + costs for our lean team in 2025.