Alexis Grant’s Post

If you're growing a community business you might want to sell one day, this is worth a read.

Spicy take: Newsletter businesses are about to decline. Here's how I see it... *** Email lists have been the best way to market for at least 15 years now, but running newsletter-first businesses only got hot a few years ago. The rise of fast-growth newsletters like theSkimm and the Hustle prompted lots of us to launch newsletter businesses. And if I had to choose just one channel on which to pin my business, I'd choose email. This was true for me 15 years ago, and it's still true today. BUT. I expect email to follow the same fate as Facebook pages, SEO traffic, and all the other channels that no longer make growth easy. Each became less valuable as 1) it got more crowded and 2) the channel owner changed how it worked. *** We like to think we own our email list — and certainly that's more valid than with, say, a Facebook page or search traffic — but the truth is, email is still at the whim of one company: Google. Remember when Gmail launched the Promotions tab and marketers scrambled? Surely they'll deliver other improvements to the email experience, and some of those will bury newsletters from brands. Even if they don't make changes, the increase in noise is already hitting newsletter operators hard. The tools available now make it easier to send newsletters, but with so much noise in our inboxes and on the internet generally, it's becoming harder to maintain open rates and generate new readers. Think about your own personal habits. How many of the newsletters you subscribe to do you actually read? Even for my favorites, I don't open every one. I've got a business to build and a life to live, and my goal is to stay OUT of my inbox. In 5 years, email will look completely different. It *has* to evolve, because the always-overflowing, stress-inducing inbox is not working for us. I appreciate the newsletter business model for its simplicity. But I don't think it will last forever. *** It's easy to get discouraged, with TikTok up in the air, search traffic dwindling, third-party cookies becoming obsolete... and now I'm saying our favorite way to reach people, newsletters, has a similar fate. But here's the GOOD news... *We have figured this out before, and we'll figure it out again.* Those of us who've been running online businesses for years have reinvented ourselves countless times. The tactics that worked years ago aren't as effective now. New ways of capturing attention have come along, and we've learned how to lean into them, too. So we can look at these shifts with dread... or we can get excited about the challenges they bring and the opportunities ahead. The key is to trust yourself to roll with the punches. Pivot when you need to, and ride the next wave that comes your way. We have figured this out before, and we'll figure it out again. *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. Check out our free report on content businesses that have sold: https://lnkd.in/e-6FdRPV

How do most sellers find the right buyer? Here's what we've seen in our research 👇 We've collected insights on thousands of 6, 7 and low-8 figure deals. Our M&A intelligence platform focuses on online businesses — like SaaS, agencies, content, e-comm — that have sold in the last few years. When we interview founders about how they sold the business, we always ask: How did you connect with your buyer? 💰 Most founders we've interviewed (41%), said they found their buyer through their network. The buyer was a partner or client, or a connection through a friend, or in some cases, the seller did strategic outreach that led them to that buyer. 💰 The second most common way founders say they connected with the right buyer? The buyer approached them about a sale (32%). 💰 And the third common way sellers connected with their buyer is through a broker or marketplace (27%). Quick recap: 41% found their buyer through their network 32% were approached by their buyer 27% sold through a broker or marketplace A few insights from this data, for both sellers and buyers: 👉 1. It's more common than most people realize for deals to go through after the buyer approaches the seller. These also tend to be the best deals, as it's often a strategic buyer reaching out who is willing to pay top dollar for the business because of synergies with their existing business. But this is tricky for a few reasons. First, if you're running a great business over a certain size, you'll no doubt attract acquisition interest, sometimes an email a day as you grow. As a founder, you have to figure out which ones are worth your energy. As a buyer, the challenge is standing out from all the other interested parties, and hitting up the founder when they're open to selling. 👉 2. I sometimes hear the myth that founders aren't serious about selling if they don't engage a broker. This simply isn't true, particularly for 6- and 7-figure deals. As you can see from the data, selling through a broker or marketplace, while a good fit for some founders, is actually the least common way of connecting with a buyer. 👉 3. Because so many transactions are a direct result of the seller's network, it's worth thinking about how you can grow your network strategically. If you're eying a sale in a few years, you might look for ways to establish partnerships with potential acquirers, even if they're not particularly lucrative. Partnerships, client relationships and other network effects often lead to sales. And if you're lucky, that networking might even push you to another level altogether, where an interested buyer approaches you. 🤔 What else sticks out to you? If we get a lot of interest in this topic, we'll do a bigger report on it. *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. Here's the M&A intelligence platform we're building: https://lnkd.in/eHM8Nw2K

Want to sell your business someday? Here's what you can do NOW to make it easier to sell LATER. These tips are pulled from my own experience selling two content businesses, plus advice from founders we’ve interviewed for They Got Acquired👇 ✅ Create a brand that doesn’t revolve around you. If the company’s brand is built on your reputation alone, another company might not be able to run it without you, which could make it challenging to sell. So what can you do? Transition your face & name away from the brand... and start now. Buyers want to reduce risk, so if you've done this well ahead of time and shown the company can still grow, they'll be willing to pay more when you're ready to sell. ✅ Keep your accounting clean. A buyer will want to see financial records for at least a year or two leading up to the sale, likely more. Keeping your accounting clean from the beginning will save you from the massive chore of reorganizing everything later. How? In an ideal world, you'll: + Use accrual accounting + In a software like Quickbooks + Separate your different businesses if you have more than one + Have an accountant who specializes in preparing for M&A review everything for you ✅ Optimize for profit. While every company valuation is in the eye of the beholder, many online businesses sell for a multiple of net profit (or SDE or EBITDA). So the number-one thing you can do to increase your company value is to increase your profit. This can be tricky, because you have to balance that with investing in growth. Yet if you want to sell in the next couple of years, look for ways to increase revenue and cut expenses, to maximize your sale price. ✅ Build a business that can run without you. Can the company deliver on its promise without you doing all the work? Are the team's tasks systemized and documented so someone else could take them over and keep the business running smoothly? Focus on people *and* systems. If you build good systems and document them well, you can find people to do the work. But it doesn’t work the other way around: If you have good people but no systems, they might falter. 🎉 What if you do all of these things... and decide you don't want to sell? Congratulations are still in order, because if you’ve worked on each of these items, you’ve made your business more scalable, efficient, and profitable. And probably more enjoyable—and less stressful—to run, too! >> What else would you add? *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. We share lots more ideas like this in our free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dsAUT5YP

What's most important when choosing a niche for a content business? Too many content people make the mistake of asking, Can we create great content around this topic? When the real question you should ask is, Can we monetize this audience? That means either: 1. The audience itself has money to spend and is willing to spend money in this area and/or 2. The companies that want to reach that audience have money to spend I learned this lesson the hard way, after growing a high-traffic site in a niche where neither the audience nor the firms that wanted to reach that audience had big money to spend. It's why I made sure They Got Acquired checked this box when I was deciding which brand to create next. I felt confident this was an audience I could monetize either directly or indirectly. // So what if you want to do good in the world by serving a specific audience that doesn't have money to spend? Look for ways to be creative with No. 2, monetizing via companies that want to reach this audience. At The Penny Hoarder, for example, our goal was to help people earn and save money, not spend it. So (while I was there in the years leading to 2019) we didn't make money directly from the audience; instead, we made money from companies that wanted to reach those people. That helped us build a lucrative business while also doing good in the world. If you can't get No. 1 or No. 2 to work, you might have a fun project, but not a viable business. // The best time to think about this, if possible, is *before* you commit to building a media brand. If you chose your audience wisely, you'll likely have multiple ways to monetize. If one way doesn't work or fit your lifestyle, you can shift to a different way instead. So rather than looking solely at the content you can create, look at the audience you can build, and the opportunities that audience brings. Would love to hear how you think about this. Hope you'll share in the comments! // I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. Join our free newsletter about how to build a sellable business: https://lnkd.in/dsAUT5YP

What's most important when choosing a niche for a content business? Too many content people make the mistake of asking, Can we create great content around this topic? When the real question you should ask is, Can we monetize this audience? That means either: 1. The audience itself has money to spend and is willing to spend money in this area and/or 2. The companies that want to reach that audience have money to spend I learned this lesson the hard way, after growing a high-traffic site in a niche where neither the audience nor the firms that wanted to reach that audience had big money to spend. It's why I made sure They Got Acquired checked this box when I was deciding which brand to create next. I felt confident this was an audience I could monetize either directly or indirectly. // So what if you want to do good in the world by serving a specific audience that doesn't have money to spend? Look for ways to be creative with No. 2, monetizing via companies that want to reach this audience. At The Penny Hoarder, for example, our goal was to help people earn and save money, not spend it. So (while I was there in the years leading to 2019) we didn't make money directly from the audience; instead, we made money from companies that wanted to reach those people. That helped us build a lucrative business while also doing good in the world. If you can't get No. 1 or No. 2 to work, you might have a fun project, but not a viable business. // The best time to think about this, if possible, is *before* you commit to building a media brand. If you chose your audience wisely, you'll likely have multiple ways to monetize. If one way doesn't work or fit your lifestyle, you can shift to a different way instead. So rather than looking solely at the content you can create, look at the audience you can build, and the opportunities that audience brings. Would love to hear how you think about this. Hope you'll share in the comments!

When I was a reporter at U.S. News nearly 15 years ago, a co-worker and I ran a few miles together twice a week on our lunch break. I admired her for how much she achieved on a daily basis. She had her job and our runs, plus a young kid, AND she was writing a book. Yet she didn't seem overworked or overwhelmed. She told me something that stuck with me... // One day we were chatting on our run about how a reader of my blog (this was in 2010) had emailed me and asked for a "pick your brain" call. She said matter-of-factly: "I don't do calls like that." I was surprised. "How do you turn down people who want to talk to you?" I asked. "I just tell them I can't do it," she said. It was simple — and sounds obvious in retrospect — but I remember thinking that she'd opened my mind to another way of operating, one I hadn't realized was possible. She prioritized ruthlessly, spending her time only on her priorities (family, day job, running, and her book) and saying no to absolutely everything else that landed in front of her. She wasn't distracted by shiny opportunities or other people's priorities. She was laser focused. This was before I became a parent and even before I got married, so my time was completely my own and felt spacious. I didn't *have* to say no to things, because I had plenty of time to do them alongside everything else. Looking back, I see this through a different lens: I understand now that she probably *had* to prioritize ruthlessly, in part because she was a parent. She truly couldn't take calls with strangers who wanted to pick her brain, because that would mean giving up her priorities. // Fast-forward 15 years, and that's how I operate now, too, saying no more than yes, to maintain space for the things that are important to me. Sometimes this feels like a scarcity mindset; there's simply not enough time for everything. But more often, it shows up as a superpower. When I follow this approach dutifully, knowing what's important to me, saving brain space and energy for those things, and turning down everything else makes life far more joyful. This friend modeled that all those years ago, showing me that saying no to most things makes it possible to say yes to the truly important ones. *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. Join our free newsletter to learn how to build a sellable business: https://lnkd.in/dsAUT5YP

I heard someone say recently that startups are a young person's game. It's true I don't have unlimited time and energy like I did when I was younger. But here's what I DO have, as a founder in my early 40s, that I didn't have when I started my first business at age 28. 💪 Priorities: I know what's important to me, and work has to fit into those priorities... not the other way around. 💪 Network: Hiring people I've worked with or trained before feels like a wonderful cheat code. 💪 Vision: I know what kind of business I don't want to build (services, for example), so I can lean into the best models for me from the get-to, even if they take a while to build. 💪 Money: I might've had to raise money if I built my current company back then. Now I can invest my own money from previous exits to get us started. 💪 Saying no: I didn't do this in my 20s because I didn't have to. Now I know that saying yes to something means saying no to something else... so I choose my yeses wisely. And perhaps most importantly... 💪 Confidence: I know my strengths, and also my weaknesses. And even when I don't know the answer, I trust myself to figure it out. What would you add to this list? *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. We're building an M&A intelligence platform covering exits under $50 million. Our free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dsAUT5YP Our M&A intelligence platform: Data.TheyGotAcquired.com

Sharing in case any business owners or searchers are willing to share your thoughts with this student!