Alexis Grant

Turned the most common questions we get from founders into a one-hour course on How to Sell Your Business. It's just $99, and if you join THIS WEEK ONLY, you'll get an invite to a live call to discuss it. theygotacquired.com/sell-your-busi…

@dvassallo @TheyGotAcquired Brilliant, thanks for that! We'll get it into the newsletter next week. TheyGotAcquired.com/newsletter

@alexisgrant @TheyGotAcquired Just posted on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/posts/danielva…

Small Bets is joining Gumroad! Yes, I sold Small Bets. I’m going to keep running it myself, but Gumroad is now the 100% owner. It’s a good deal for me, and it should only bring more benefits to the community. Details - $3.6M sale price. - 50% cash / 50% stock options. - Cash payment in 2 parts: $900K received last week, $900K in 12 months. - My options vest in 10% increments every 6 months. - I will continue to run Small Bets for 5 years. If I quit, I lose any unvested options. - I will also be helping part-time to make Gumroad better. - I won't take any salary*. My goal is to help Gumroad (the company) become a $10M profit/yr business and make my equity return a $200K+/yr dividend. * technically my state of WA is forcing Gumroad to pay me a minimum wage of $69,500/yr, but I’ll use that to exercise my options. Valuation - Gumroad had already acquired 10% of Small Bets last year for $500K. - $3.6M for 90% = $4M valuation. - Small Bets made almost $500K in profit last year excluding Gumroad fees. Based on 2024 earnings, this sale would represent an 8X profit multiple. Under the Gumroad umbrella, we expect to grow this business to $1M in profit within the first 2 years, which would be a forward-looking 4X profit multiple. Future - I will continue running Small Bets myself as its own autonomous subsidiary. Basically, nothing changes. I still decide what happens there. Of course, that could change in the future but Small Bets has had 41 consecutive cash-flow positive months, and if that performance continues I see no reason for me getting kicked out. - Payment processing is likely becoming a race to the bottom, almost a commodity nowadays. Gumroad wants to be doing more than just payments to remain a valuable business. - The goal is to eventually turn Gumroad into a community rather than just a payment processor, where new and aspiring entrepreneurs get help starting and succeeding with whatever they want to do, even if it doesn’t involve using Gumroad’s products. The plan is still fuzzy, but that’s the direction. Small Bets will act as a laboratory for these ideas. - Small Bets has already shown the value of a support network and how having people with first-hand experience in your corner can help beyond what any AI or piece of software can. We will try to scale this concept further so that Gumroad can help creators with much more than just payments. - And if you’re one of the 6,692 lifetime members of the Small Bets community, thank you so much for trusting me and supporting my project. You will continue to benefit from all the goodness we’ll add following this partnership. Ask me anything!

Our newest report is live! 👉 14 SaaS Deals It's free — and a great way to learn about how to set up your company for an exit. 💵 Grab it here: theygotacquired.com/reports/saas-d…

.@alexisgrant did us all a huge service when she launched @TheyGotAcquired , to showcase, celebrate and advise on business exits/acquisitions on a spectrum from $200k to $50million - because you don't have to have a Silicon Valley-style billion-dollar unicorn exit, to deliver life-changing money for founders. I've been recommending signing up for They Got Acquired newsletters: theygotacquired.com to EVERYONE - most recently, to the Blackweek audience this morning in my keynote 'Why The Future Of Advertising Is Black Women'. But Alexis and I had never met IRL! That changed on Monday evening, when she invited me to join her and a bunch of brilliant women for dinner at @harvardclubny pre-them all attending the @amediaoperator Summit the next day. Thanks Kristin Kenzy for hosting at your alma mater's clubhouse - LOVED the old-school environment, @monkey_47 martinis (perfectly mixed and GIGANTIC) and menu (oysters and prime rib is my idea of heaven). Everybody, Kristin has a newsletter with the truly superb name of 'Drunk Business Advice', which I obviously signed up for IMMEDIATELY and you must too, here: drunkbusinessadvice.com So much fun to meet Alexis, Kristin, @machowning @twentyfirstdig ; @ChristinaTinNYC @theinformation (who's interested in connecting with media operators based in or focused on Asia - Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Japan - hit her up!); @miscmel @ThePersistent_ - sign up for their newsletter here: thepersistent.com; Kristine Wyatt of @MorningBrew; @becsherm @Workweekinc; @JenniferHollett @TheWalrus ; and @cpaulosrcp @TheWellNews 😍 #AMOSummit

Love the angle for this workshop: FINISH STRONG. Goal-setting for 2025 with the amazing Angela Parker. angelaparker.com/finish-strong-…

When things feel hard, I remind myself: If it was easy, someone else would've done this already.

Last month we dropped a revenue-generating product to focus all our energy and resources on They Got Acquired Data, our M&A platform. Going ALL IN.

Switched from ChatGPT to Gemini, because it's native within Google suite. Love having the sidebar within Google Docs especially, since that's where we create our content. Should I do a quick video to share how we use AI in Docs? Helpful to anyone?

Catching up on everything now that kids are back in school. I keep finding myself writing, "Sorry it took me so long..." And then erasing that and writing instead, "Thanks for your patience with my reply."

@thesamparr We went next door to Slovenia this summer and it was beautiful and family-friendly. Lake Bled might be a good spot -- nature, lake, restaurants, walks. Bohinj was also lovely (smaller). If you can get away for a couple days, the Julian Alps are right there and amazing!

I’d love to do a week in Croatia this Oct. Rent a large airbnb for family (6-8 people) for 7 days. Something where we have a house with plenty of family friendly stuff to do nearby (walks, city stuff, nature) plus day trips. Which city in Croatia is best for this? Open to hearing other countries. But Croatia seems cool. Sorta similar to Italy but less people, maybe easier for larger group vacay.

Did you grab our latest report yet? 🌟 12 Companies That Sold in 2023 🌟 It includes data and context around how these companies sold. And it's free! Download it here: theygotacquired.com/reports/2023-d…

It's been a while since we launched a free report... Excited to make this one available starting TODAY! It features 12 companies that sold in 2023. Download here: theygotacquired.com/reports/2023-d…

We're launching a NEW REPORT this week! Whatcha think it will be? Or what are you hoping for?

Question from a reader: What M&A conferences are coming up in 2024/2025 that we should know about?

I could not be more delighted to see @carriekerpen launch her new podcast 'The Exit Whisperer' 😍 I've exhorted women for years to unashamedly and unembarrassedly set out to make an absolute goddamn fucking shit-ton of money (so that we can all use that money to fund other women, support other women, help other women, donate to other women) - and in the pursuit of that goal, this is a MUST-LISTEN: #390678173" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">linktr.ee/carrie_kerpen?… Pair Carrie's podcast with subscribing to @alexisgrant 's @TheyGotAcquired: theygotacquired.com and you're all set! 💪

More on the platform: Data.TheyGotAcquired.com

It's always nerve-wracking to share metrics like this. Some people will say, that's a ton of deals! Others will say, that's not very many! But I find the benefits of transparency outweigh the drawbacks. I want our first users to know exactly what to expect when they join.

#BuildInPublic update: We added a deal & buyer counter to the homepage for our M&A intelligence platform. It shows how many deals and buyers are in the platform.

Players in the VC world have access to tons of tools like what we're building at @TheyGotAcquired Data. How badly does the lower-to-middle market M&A community want insight on private transactions, bootstrapped company sales, and who's buying? We're about to find out.