In six months, we closed five advisory deals totalling $200,000. The team expanded from one person to eleven, with operations established in Bombay. What started as personal acquisitions evolved into something larger: helping other entrepreneurs navigate the acquisition process.
Creative structures that align incentives matter more than headline price. Most deals collapse over risk allocation, not valuation.
The Five Deals
Runify — $110K
A mobile running app generating approximately $2K monthly revenue. Structured with $30K upfront and the remainder as an earnout over 12–18 months tied to retention metrics. Completed in 45 days.
Dino Games — $39K
A mobile game producing $3K monthly profit on minimal ad spend with strong margins. Discovered through Reddit. Payment split 56% at close, 44% deferred without growth conditions.
Note Companion — $30K
An Obsidian plugin generating $1,500 monthly with zero founder effort. Found via Twitter. Terms: one-third upfront, two-thirds over twelve months.
SmartPrompt — $12K
An AI education platform with 2.5 million conversations and substantial monthly active users. All-cash transaction completed in twelve weeks for a first-time acquirer.
Daily Trades Newsletter — $8K
A finance publication with 16,000 subscribers. Cash purchase by a media portfolio operator.
Key Learning: Deal Structure
Earnout provisions protecting buyers while providing seller confidence proved critical to closing transactions. The headline price is rarely where deals die. Risk allocation is. When both sides feel protected, deals close.
Key Learning: Off-Market Sourcing
Marketplace platforms attract competition and higher prices. Superior deals emerge through direct relationships. Founder communities — Reddit’s r/SideProject, Twitter threads, indie forums — proved to be reliable sourcing channels, requiring approximately 30 minutes of daily review.
Key Learning: Buyer Decision Frameworks
First-time acquirers succeed using structured filtering systems: defining non-negotiables, evaluation criteria, and automatic disqualifiers before reviewing deals. This prevents analysis paralysis and accelerates closing.
What Comes Next
The objective: $1M in closed deals within six months while expanding upmarket toward $100K–$500K acquisitions and structured recurring advisory relationships. The playbook is proven. Now it scales.