Episode 672 | Bootstrapping, Building, Buying, and Selling SaaS Companies

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2023

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In episode 672, Rob Walling speaks with Jon Hainstock, M&A advisor at Quiet Light and previously ZoomShift. They discuss Jon’s bootstrapper journey, his exit from ZoomShift, the benefits of buying versus building, and how he helps other founders sell their businesses at Quiet Light. To wrap up, Jon exposes some common pitfalls to avoid when buying businesses. Topics we cover: 2:17 – Timeline of building and selling ZoomShift 6:07 – Deciding to sell ZoomShift 11:06 – Jumping into a new project immediately after exit 17:16 – Acquiring small assets 19:16 – Picking Quiet Light Brokerage over smaller acquisitions 26:23 – “Broker” vs. “Advisor” 30:26 – What to avoid when buying a business Links from the Show: The Exit Event Jon Hainstock (@jonhainstock) | Twitter Quiet Light (@quietlightinc) | Twitter ZoomShift ChatterDocs.ai Quiet Light Finish Big by Bo Burlingham Acquire.com, formerly MicroAcquire Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki The Quiet Light Podcast If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

Transcript

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0:00.0	Whether it's your first or your 600th episode, welcome to start up for the rest of us.
0:04.6	I'm your host, Rob Walling.
0:06.0	And on the show, we talk about entrepreneurship and diving into bootstrapping and mostly bootstrapping.
0:11.0	Sometimes we raise a little money.
0:12.6	What we do know is that we seek freedom, purpose, and relationships in relation to our companies and our products and the businesses that we build and put out into this world.
0:22.7	Today I talk with John Hainstock. John bootstrapped and exited Zoom Shift. He's currently
0:28.3	building chatterdocs.aI, and he is an M&A advisor helping entrepreneurs exit well at Quiet
0:35.2	Light Brokridge. I've known John for several years.
0:38.3	He's come to several microcomps, and you probably know him from Twitter.
0:42.2	But if not, it's a great story hearing how John bootstrapped his company.
0:46.6	And then immediately after the sale, tried to dive right back in.
0:50.8	He's acquired a few things since then, but really has found joy in helping other people
0:55.8	do that hard task of exiting, of deciding when to sell their company.
1:01.0	And towards the end of the conversation, we talk about pitfalls to avoid when you are looking
1:06.3	to acquire a company. And while we're on the topic of exits, this is the first announcement of
1:12.7	MicroConf's exit event. This is an invitation-only, premium all-inclusive retreat for
1:19.5	SaaS founders looking to sell their companies for eight or more figures. So that's $10 million
1:25.4	or more dollars. We're in the early stages of planning a
1:29.9	transcendent, an amazing experience. It's going to be in partnership with Quiet Light Brokridge.
1:34.3	It's going to be co-hosted by myself and Dr. Sherry Walling. And we're going to talk about all
1:38.9	things selling SaaS. This event's going to have super limited capacity, probably only have maybe 20 founders.
1:46.3	It's for high performing SaaS companies that are growing quickly, and it's going to be a mix of
	...

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