acquire.com

acquire.com

Software Development

San Francisco, CA 34,080 followers

We're just getting started.

About us

The largest startup acquisition marketplace. Acquire.com has helped 100s of SaaS startups get acquired and facilitated $500m+ in closed deals. Our goal is to build the world’s most founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace. We help turn founder journeys into success stories.

Website
https://acquire.com/
Industry
Software Development
Company size
11-50 employees
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Type
Privately Held
Specialties
M&A and Acquisitions

Locations

Employees at acquire.com

Updates

  • acquire.com reposted this

    View profile for Andrew Gazdecki, graphic

    Founder and CEO of Acquire.com. Acquire.com has helped 100s of startups get acquired and facilitated $500m+ in closed deals.

    Microsoft’s 1997 acquisition of Hotmail was the largest all-cash Internet startup deal of its era. Here is the entire story: In 1996, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail, the first mass-consumer web email service. At this time, email was just like AI is in 2024. It was the era of the dot com boom. Sabeer was rejected by 18 investors before the initial funding. But nobody thought it could be browser-based. Sabeer, working at Firepower Systems, saw an issue. Their firewall made it impossible for Sabeer and Jack to access their personal e-mail accounts from work → they didn't want to use company e-mail accounts for non-company communication. People resorted to communicating through hard paper/floppy discs. That's when they thought, 'What if they could access our e-mail through the web?' A free web-based email platform for everyone → Hotmail (a play on HTML). Within 3 months, they had 300k+ users, all through word of mouth. The genius was in 2 things. 1./ They didn’t try to change user behavior, instead, they tailored the platform to users' habits. People were already familiar with websites. Hotmail was just another site—you just needed a name and password. Easy. Nobody ever thought of doing this before Hotmail. 2./ Viral marketing move of adding 10 words to the end of every email sent with text: “PS: I love you, get your free email at Hotmail.” The first viral loop was born: User sends email → Receiver gets the "PS" → Signs up → Passes it on With this move, every user became a brand advocate for them. - 12M users in just 2 years - Only $500K spent on marketing But the company had one problem → lack of paying users. In 1997, Bill Gates first made an offer of $140M. Sabeer rejected it and finally settled for a $400M counter deal as he knew Microsoft would anyway try to enter this game. It paved the way for Microsoft Outlook. And by 2005, Hotmail had 200M+ users. —————————— See, as a founder, your acquisition journey can be brutal. At acquire.com, we are building the most founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace → helped 100+ SaaS startups & closed $500M+ in deals. If you're a founder building a SaaS startup, check us out.

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  • acquire.com reposted this

    View profile for Andrew Gazdecki, graphic

    Founder and CEO of Acquire.com. Acquire.com has helped 100s of startups get acquired and facilitated $500m+ in closed deals.

    I love hearing acquire.com stories like this!

    View profile for Blake J. Harber, graphic

    I help early stage founders build a GTM playbook | Acquiring, building and scaling a portfolio of small routine businesses like vending machines

    He bought a microsaas for $140k off Acquire. Over the last two years, he's built it into a small business valued >$1.5M. A pretty attainable entry point for a lot of people. We talk in depth about: → Trading your time for money → What he looked for in buying the first business and what he avoided → How you could acquire something small like this as a side hustle → Chasing a >$1m outcome as a W2 or self employed and what the journey is like If you're interested in building a side hustle but not building it from the ground up It's a great listen. https://lnkd.in/g2X8S43g

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Funding

acquire.com 2 total rounds

Last Round

Series unknown

US$ 5.0M

See more info on crunchbase