E35 Launching a startup acquisition marketplace with MicroAcquire founder Andrew Gazdecki

Sand Hill Road

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Andrew Gazdecki, founder of MicroAcquire. The episode was recorded when MicroAcquire was still a fully bootstrapped one person company. A few weeks later MicroAcquire announced that it had raised a $6.3m Seed round led by Bessemer Ventures.

00:00 Intro

01:09 What is MicroAcquire?

02:55 Buying a micro-SaaS as a learning experience

05:15 Andrew’s own founder path

10:40 Key bootstrapper metrics

14:53 Solving the chicken-and-egg problem

19:17 Supply side: company profiles

20:24 Marketplace discovery vs. transaction facilitation

22:45 Microacquire marketplace monetisation

26:51 Microacquire as a curated marketplace

30:12 Dealing with inflated seller asks

33:25 Disrupting the business broker industry

35:45 Competitor marketplaces

36:50 Scaling Microacquire

38:10 Raising venture capital vs. bootstrapping