From layoff to $15k/mo agency and $9k/mo M&A marketplace

Ilya Novohatskyi got laid off and realized he didn't want to get another job. So, he built an agency. And when that was keeping the lights on, he built an M&A marketplace called Microns.

Four years later, Microns has closed over $500k in deals and is making roughly $9k/mo.

Here's Ilya on how he did it. 👇

No more jobs

I started my career while studying Software Engineering at KPI in Kyiv. In my third year, I landed my first job at a Ukrainian IT company that built products for US and European clients. Over the next three years, I worked on everything from web platforms to mobile apps and marketplaces.

Then COVID hit. The project I was on began cutting costs, and one day, I found myself without a job. I went to a few interviews but quickly realized something: I didn’t want another job.

From job to agency to marketplace

So, together with a former colleague — a sales manager who had also been laid off — we started an outsourcing agency called Quanti Coders. It was similar to the work we’d done before, but we redesigned everything to be faster, leaner, and more effective. Our motto was “10x developers on demand.” In just two years, we grew to a team of seven, building web and mobile apps for all kinds of exciting startups — fintech, healthcare, even robotics. It's currently bringing roughly $15k/mo.

By the second year, I started thinking: What if we built our own product? I spent weeks searching for the right idea, scrolling through Indie Hackers, reading Trends, and diving into Twitter founder threads. That’s when I spotted a gap; there was no great place for founders to sell their apps and connect with other like-minded founders. That gap gave me the idea for Microns.

My cofounder didn’t share my enthusiasm for it. In fact, it caused a falling out, so I decided to build Microns alone, working nights and weekends. Four years later, that “little side project” has grown into my main focus, bringing in roughly $9k/mo. Over the past four years, we’ve helped just over a hundred founders sell their projects for a combined total of more than $500k.

I still work part-time as CTO at Quanti, but Microns is where most of my energy goes.

An unexpected motivator

Starting Quanti Coders was a leap into the unknown for me. I had worked on plenty of projects before and understood how outsourcing companies operated, but I had never actually built one from scratch. To make things even more intense, when I was laid off, I had just $500 to my name. My girlfriend and I had to move in with my parents, which was both a blessing and a challenge.

The first year was all about survival and proving we could land clients. We had no outside funding, so every dollar we made went straight back into the business. That meant living on very little for a long time. Our main “investor” was basically our own patience and persistence.

Living with my parents kept our expenses low, but anyone who’s done it as an adult knows it can sometimes be… let’s say “motivating”. You want to move out as soon as possible. That became one of my biggest personal drivers: Get Quanti profitable enough to rent our own place.

After a year of grinding, we started bringing in steady clients, the revenue grew, and we finally moved into our own apartment. Looking back, those early constraints — no capital, no safety net, and a very strong desire to have our own space — gave me the push I needed to grow the company.

With Microns, the motivation shifted. It was no longer just about helping myself, but about helping others and building something bigger than an outsourcing company. In outsourcing, growth is linear; to earn more, you need more projects and more developers. With Microns, I wanted to create a product that solves a real problem and can scale without being tied to the size of my team.

Using no code to stay scrappy

When I started Microns, I knew I first had to build an audience and earn trust before investing serious money into development. So I went the lean route using Twitter for building in public and Revue to send a newsletter. That combo worked well, helping me get my first 100 subscribers who received updates and projects for sale.

Later, I invested around $5k into building the MVP, which allowed anyone to submit their startup for sale and have it published on our site. From day one, I aimed to keep costs as low as possible until I could validate the idea. That’s why I built the first version entirely with no-code tools like Webflow and Zapier, which were just starting to gain traction at the time.

Our marketplace still runs on no-code tools today. This approach lets us ship new features quickly while keeping resources lean.

We use Webflow for UI/UX, Wized to handle API connections and logic, and Xano as our backend and database. For file and image storage, we rely on Google Cloud, and we automate contract generation (asset purchase agreements) with Google Apps Script.

What’s exciting is how far no-code has come in just a few years. Three years ago, building features like chat or offers would’ve been nearly impossible without custom development. Today, the ecosystem has evolved so much that we can keep pace with user needs without a full dev team, and that’s been a huge advantage.

Finding the first customer

As far as Quanti, our first clients came through Upwork. My partner was a sales manager, so he set everything up and handled the outreach. It took about six months to land our very first client, and then another one followed just a month later. In the early days, I worked on the projects myself, but as we grew, we slowly started hiring and training people so we could onboard them smoothly and scale the team.

With Microns, it was a different game. I found my first clients through Twitter and Product Hunt. Those early launches not only helped validate the idea but also brought in some great initial feedback that shaped the product.

Four impactful distribution channels

I’ve experimented with quite a few different distribution channels for Microns since then, but four have been the most impactful:

1. Content and blogging — We run a blog where we write about M&A, startups, and share seller success stories. This positions us as experts in the space and builds trust with our users.

2. Building in public — On X, I share our wins, failures, and product updates. That transparency has brought in a lot of users and valuable connections.

3. Email marketing — For four years, I’ve been writing a weekly newsletter where I share Microns updates and free educational content. Many readers recommend it to others, and over time they convert into both buyers and sellers.

4. Communities — Platforms like Indie Hackers, Reddit, and Product Hunt have also been important. I don’t overdo it, but I hang out there, create content occasionally, and engage with discussions.

Today, we’ve grown to over 10,000 registered users and more than 160 active listings on the marketplace.

Finding the right business model

Microns runs on a hybrid business model. On the seller side, we charge a success fee that ranges from 6–10%, depending on the deal size — the higher the sale, the lower the percentage. On the buyer side, we charge a membership fee of $40/month or $299/year. This membership is important because it helps us verify users, filter out spam, and make sure only serious buyers have access to the marketplace.

When a buyer upgrades to Premium, they unlock private details like startup financial metrics, and they can contact sellers, make offers, and purchase projects without any extra commission. For sellers, the flow is simple: They create a profile and listing, we review it, and once approved, it goes live on the marketplace. That way, buyers get vetted projects and sellers get qualified leads.

Revenue has grown steadily over time. For the first 9 months, Microns was completely free. Then we introduced buyer memberships, which got us to $28k in 2022, $40k in 2023, and $58k in 2024. At the beginning of 2025, we launched an offers mechanism that allows buyers to safely acquire startups online. At the same time, we began charging sellers a commission on each sale, which significantly boosted revenue. In June 2025 alone, we hit $8,800. My goal for this year is to cross $90k in revenue.

The challenge that made startups seem easy

The toughest moment came when the war started and Russia invaded my country. I’d wake up at night to the sound of missile explosions. Some nights were spent entirely in shelters, and the next morning I’d try to keep working, completely exhausted. During the first years of the war, we also had constant blackouts, walking the dog in total darkness, coming home to no electricity, sometimes for weeks without fuel. Winters were especially brutal.

Looking back, I realize those moments made me stronger. I didn’t give up, and I kept building. I lost my old team during that time; one developer couldn’t handle the technical challenges, another team member went to work for a competitor. I realized communication was a huge problem, so I rebuilt the team with Ukrainians from different cities. We worked fully remote but felt deeply connected by shared hardship. Together, we built the second version of Microns with custom design, user accounts, and chat. That launch helped us win first place on Product Hunt and gave us the motivation to keep pushing forward.

Compared to living under the daily threat of rockets and drones, every other startup challenge feels small. If I had to start over, I wouldn’t change a thing. Each challenge shaped me, tested my resilience, and gave me the clarity to keep going. That’s what made me who I am today.

Never give up

Never give up, no matter the conditions. Even if it feels like the whole world is against you, if you truly believe in what you’re building, keep going. When I started, plenty of people told me it wouldn’t work and that nobody would use it. But you know your problem and your product better than anyone else.

Don’t chase external validation; listen to your users instead. Watch what they do, learn what they need, and figure out how to solve their problems in a way they’ll happily pay for.

And one more thing: never go “all in” from day one. Start small, validate first, and only then double down.

What's next?

I see Microns in five years as a kind of “super app” for founders, a place where you can sell your online project, book consultations with experienced founders, or even freelance on other projects if you’d like. All of it is aligned with our core values: remote work and building online businesses.

Looking at the near term, I already have a roadmap of features our users have been asking for to make buying and selling projects even more effective.

Growth is also a big focus. With AI making technology more accessible than ever, I believe anyone can become a founder, and my goal is to keep growing Microns by at least 50% year over year. Ultimately, I want Microns to become the standard place where founders go whether to buy, grow, or come back and sell their startups. We already have success stories where projects bought on Microns grew 40x, and I want to see many more of those.

You can check out our website at microns.io — there’s a lot of information, and if you don’t find what you need, you can always reach out via the chat in the bottom right corner. You can also subscribe to my newsletter at newsletter.microns.io for regular updates and insights. Lastly, feel free to follow me on X as well as the Microns account where we share new listings, updates, and community stories.