1 Year Ago, We Launched They Got Acquired. Here's What Went Well & What Was Hard

Today's They Got Acquired's first birthday!

Year 1 stats:

🙌 $83K revenue (+ $80K grant)
🙌 5,174 deals in our database
🙌 4,581 newsletter subscribers
🙌 153 stories published on website

Here's what went well & what didn't.

WHAT WENT WELL...

👍 Overall direction

I’m happy with how far we’ve come and what lies ahead for this company. It's such a different place than we were a year ago, when it was all a big experiment.

This internal knowing that we’re on the right track drives me forward.

👍 Founders we've helped

We have helped thousands of founders understand the sale process.

I've had conversations with 88 founders looking to sell, and helped them take the step forward that was right for them. This is the most meaningful part about what we're building!

👍 Had fun

It’s easy to skip over this big-picture win, but it's important.

I'm enjoying this build, which means I'll be able to stick with it for the long haul. I love the early days of a new startup, that satisfied feeling of creating something out of nothing.

WHAT WAS HARD...

👎 Keeping expectations in check

It required a mindset shift to keep expectations around growth reasonable, as I’m still doing a lot of the work myself.

Facing the bootstrap grind: putting foundations in place to generate revenue, so I can hire others to help.

👎 Personal challenges = business challenges

Because so much of the business relies around me, we felt it when my family and I were sick so many times in the fall.

That slowed company progress, and we missed a few launch and revenue goals because of it.

👎 Profitability

My goal was to reach profitability by EOY, and we didn't hit that.

We did pretty darn well with revenue for our first year though, with $83K in revenue + an $80K grant.

So we did cover our expenses, just not all with revenue.

LOOKING FORWARD...

For Year 2, it's time to build on the foundations we created over the past year.

Keep telling stories.

Keep launching reports.

Keep reaching founders.

🙏 Thanks to everyone who played a role in helping us get this far.

The link to my full reflection on Year 1 (if you like the nitty-gritty): https://alexisgrant.com/2023/02/03/annual-review-they-got-acquired-2022/

How to subscribe to our They Got Acquired newsletter: https://TheyGotAcquired.com/newsletter