Tl;dr: I acquired a macOS app for 6-figures in a span of 14 hours through Twitter. Precisely two Zoom calls and a single contract.
For those of you interested in buying or selling businesses, here's how the story goes:
It was 11pm in the evening. I was walking on my way home, randomly scrolling through Twitter. Out of the blue I saw a tweet from Tony Dinh mentioning "Anyone want to acquire my app Xnapper and grow it?"
I was ecstatic -- my favorite screenshot app was on sale.
As an avid user of Xnapper, I have been using this amazing app for about a year now (literally all of my images for blogs and social media were taken through Xnapper). I just couldn’t believe that it was for sale.
I immediately reached out to Tony for a quick Zoom call. He replied within 5 minutes.
We immediately clicked during the meeting. Tony didn’t need to sell Xnapper urgently as he was making good revenue out of it — rather, he was looking for someone who can grow this app much further. Due to his commitment on other projects, he just didn’t have the time to invest on Xnapper despite him wanting to do so. Tony was a super great guy, a true product lover. I briefly introduced myself to Tony, and the plans I had to grow Xnapper into something more significant. I talked him through how we can potentially grow this app into the best screenshot app out there, especially for individuals with limited capacity for design and marketing. We both loved the idea of keeping the product simple, fast, and easy.
It was 12am now. I ended the call with Tony with the promise of me drafting a potential deal structure that will benefit the both of us. I couldn’t let this deal wait so I immediately got to work and drafted 3 potential deal structures that will work for both Tony and me (btw if you’re curious about the deal structure, dm me).
I dm’d the proposal through Twitter the next morning at 10am. After a few back and forth about the specifics of the deal structure, we got a deal by 1:30pm. Within a matter of 14 hours, I went from initial deal discovery → negotiation call → basic due diligence → agreement. I sent over an LOI by that evening, and the remaining transfer process happened like magic.
We quickly built a Google Sheets file that listed all of the necessary assets (codes, files, IPs, etc.) that needed to be transferred. We used an online escrow service to handle the payment and asset transfer, while the detailed due diligence process took place.
Lessons Learned
Tony definitely had a lot of bidders who wanted to acquire the app as it is a famous product (i.e. #1 on Product Hunt) with a good amount of active users. Showing trustworthiness and moving quickly with the deal definitely helped a lot in terms of closing the deal. For those of you interested in acquiring or selling businesses, I just want to say that no matter how small or big the deal is, it can happen in just a few hours as long as you structure out a deal that sincerely benefits both the buyer and seller's interest. It can be kept simple!
Here is the official acquisition announcement from Tony:
P.S. Once again, for those of you curious about the deal structure, dm me (due to confidentiality issues).
P.S. If you need a sleek app for taking beautiful screenshots instantly, check out xnapper.com!
For those of you interested in buying or selling businesses, here's how the story goes:
It was 11pm in the evening. I was walking on my way home, randomly scrolling through Twitter. Out of the blue I saw a tweet from Tony Dinh mentioning "Anyone want to acquire my app Xnapper and grow it?"
I was ecstatic -- my favorite screenshot app was on sale.
As an avid user of Xnapper, I have been using this amazing app for about a year now (literally all of my images for blogs and social media were taken through Xnapper). I just couldn’t believe that it was for sale.
I immediately reached out to Tony for a quick Zoom call. He replied within 5 minutes.
We immediately clicked during the meeting. Tony didn’t need to sell Xnapper urgently as he was making good revenue out of it — rather, he was looking for someone who can grow this app much further. Due to his commitment on other projects, he just didn’t have the time to invest on Xnapper despite him wanting to do so. Tony was a super great guy, a true product lover. I briefly introduced myself to Tony, and the plans I had to grow Xnapper into something more significant. I talked him through how we can potentially grow this app into the best screenshot app out there, especially for individuals with limited capacity for design and marketing. We both loved the idea of keeping the product simple, fast, and easy.
It was 12am now. I ended the call with Tony with the promise of me drafting a potential deal structure that will benefit the both of us. I couldn’t let this deal wait so I immediately got to work and drafted 3 potential deal structures that will work for both Tony and me (btw if you’re curious about the deal structure, dm me).
I dm’d the proposal through Twitter the next morning at 10am. After a few back and forth about the specifics of the deal structure, we got a deal by 1:30pm. Within a matter of 14 hours, I went from initial deal discovery → negotiation call → basic due diligence → agreement. I sent over an LOI by that evening, and the remaining transfer process happened like magic.
We quickly built a Google Sheets file that listed all of the necessary assets (codes, files, IPs, etc.) that needed to be transferred. We used an online escrow service to handle the payment and asset transfer, while the detailed due diligence process took place.
Lessons Learned
Tony definitely had a lot of bidders who wanted to acquire the app as it is a famous product (i.e. #1 on Product Hunt) with a good amount of active users. Showing trustworthiness and moving quickly with the deal definitely helped a lot in terms of closing the deal. For those of you interested in acquiring or selling businesses, I just want to say that no matter how small or big the deal is, it can happen in just a few hours as long as you structure out a deal that sincerely benefits both the buyer and seller's interest. It can be kept simple!
Here is the official acquisition announcement from Tony:
P.S. Once again, for those of you curious about the deal structure, dm me (due to confidentiality issues).
P.S. If you need a sleek app for taking beautiful screenshots instantly, check out xnapper.com!
coincidence?