Exit: Smithy was acquired!
by Nikita Logachev🏆 Exit: Smithy was [micro] acquired.
Originally, https://smithy.app/ started as a very simple concept: force threading in a few Slack channels purely at the company Sam and I worked for (Hospitable.com). A quirky internal tooling add-on coming out of the team dynamics at the time, no plans for a full product.
Almost exactly 2 years and several feature iterations later, a few hundred teams have added Smithy to their workspace, and a modest but significant percentage have converted into paying accounts.
Although we had a vision for where we wanted to take Smithy, how we would gradually expand its feature set, our passions were elsewhere and we didn't have the mental real estate or time to give it the attention it needed. We agreed that the moment had come to let go and find a new home for the project.
🎉 We're happy and proud to report that a few weeks ago we finalized a purchase agreement with an acquirer through MicroAcquire.com.
The sale process itself was fairly smooth, if a little long-winded. Most of the time was spent on finding the right fit from several dozen interested acquirers. A few weeks on walking the buyer through the product on a technical level and making sure all accounts and credentials were accounted for.
Apart from the time sink, it was honestly smooth sailing. I highly recommend using MicroAcquire. The platform does its job, and Andrew and his team are great. 👏
From zero, to functional and valuable internal tool, to customer-service product, to profitable SaaS, to micro acquisition in 2 years.
It's very far from a life-changing sum, but an achievement nonetheless and we can now claim the "exit" / "acquired" badge on our entrepreneurial bios. 😉
Keep shipping value.
-
2
Curious, why did you decide to sell it?
Also, the obligatory "how much did you sell it for?" (feel free not to answer)
P.S. I sold my last company on MicroAcquire in 2020 and had a positive experience as well! Congrats!
-
3
Hey @kylekrzeski, thanks! Nikita touched on it in the post;
Although we had a vision for where we wanted to take Smithy, how we would gradually expand its feature set, our passions were elsewhere and we didn't have the mental real estate or time to give it the attention it needed. We agreed that the moment had come to let go and find a new home for the project.
We work on a number of projects together, although Smithy was profitable we weren't enjoying the work on it as much as other projects. It didn't seem fair to the companies who were paying for it to just let it fester and die a slow death. It also takes up space in your head, right, thinking it's still there, the occasional email from a customer, feature requests etc.
So it made sense to let it go completely, allowing us to not have to worry about it and free up that mental energy to focus into something we were more passionate about.
MicroAcquire is very cool :)
-