Thomas Smale

CEO FE International - Helped 1500+ tech founders exit on their terms.

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A few words about SaaS acquisitions:

Acquiring skips at least 2 years of trial and error. You don't have to worry about an idea getting traction as you know that has already happened. This is attractive to people who are less creative and don't have the ability to go from zero to one, but can go from one to a hundred.

We once sold a 100% bootstrapped business for $30M cash, there was a founder who worked part-time on the business and 5 other part-time employees. If you have a good product you don't need a big team to build a successful business. We've seen stories like this hundreds of times over the years.

I will share 3 tips:

• focus on what makes money, not what you are passionate about
• be cautious with due diligence and verify everything. Even sellers with the best intentions lie about financials and other elements of their business, particularly smaller businesses below $10m valuation
• have a plan. Don't just buy something and expect to figure out how to grow it once you takeover. If you don't have a plan to grow it, do not acquire. Businesses eventually die if they do not grow