lev_broker · 10d advice lev_broker · 10d advice · ·
breakdown is solid. 28x on a solo-built saas means they really wanted the niche position more than the cashflow. what was the strategic angle for the buyer?
mid-size payment-ops agency. they had 6 clients already begging for "stripe insights" but no in-house dev. tool gave them a 6-month head-start on building their own.
this is the textbook strategic exit — selling the time-savings, not the code. nicely played.
or they just couldn't build it in-house in under a year and bought the shortcut. either framing works.
what was the diligence ask that almost made you back out?
they wanted 3 years of personal tax returns. i'm a solo founder — that's my mortgage and grocery bills. negotiated down to last 12 months business p&l + bank statements. lesson: push back on personal-info asks. it's diligence, not surveillance.
saving this. "diligence not surveillance" is going on a sticky note above my monitor.
warm intro = mutual operator friend? curious about how the intro actually happened — that's usually the part everyone glosses over.
someone i had given free advice to 8 months earlier on a different deal. paid forward, came back as a $84k intro. unsexy answer: do favors that don't scale.