You built a bootstrapped SaaS. People pay. Support is real. Now you want out, or you want a path out if life changes. In 2026 that is not a private club. There is a market for small software businesses, public write-ups from founders who sold, and a process you can run without inventing a valuation.
Indiecity is for one person or a team under twenty. This is the public process: why people sell, what buyers check, how Acquire.com (the old MicroAcquire) works, and how founders around TinySeed talk about exits.
Decide why you are selling before you pick a price
A spreadsheet often says keep the SaaS. Recurring revenue next month still looks better than cash today if growth is fine. Tyler Tringas wrote that out in 2017 after selling Storemapper: the math of healthy SaaS almost always tells you to wait six months, then wait again. He sold anyway to spread risk, and because he had a next project ready before he let go of this one.
Rob Walling’s stair-step idea is the same motion over a longer arc. He bought and grew HitTail, sold it through a broker when Drip needed his full attention, and later sold Drip itself. Selling was how he cleared the board for the next step, not a random windfall. If you cannot say the reason in one plain sentence (burnout, risk, next company, life change), pause. Buyers will ask. Vague “just exploring” wastes the week.
What a buyer is actually buying
They buy predictable revenue that survives you leaving Slack. Churn, concentration (one customer too big), messy books, and a product only you can deploy all lower what a serious buyer will pay. They do not buy your fundraising story. Diego Menchaca, after selling Teamscope on Acquire.com, put it cleanly: when you raise, people talk about the future; when you sell, they weigh trailing revenue you already earned.
Your asking price is usually last twelve months of revenue or profit, times a multiple the market will actually pay. Growth, margins, churn, niche, and how replaceable you are move that multiple. Tire-kickers email low. Serious buyers check the claims. Your job is clean evidence, not a number you copied from a thread.
- Trailing twelve months of revenue you can prove (Stripe, bank, accounting export)
- Churn and net retention you can explain without a story
- Customer list with concentration called out
- Code and IP assignment from employees and contractors
- A product and support process that does not require your face on every ticket
The marketplace that made small exits normal
Before 2020, small SaaS sales were mostly brokers, quiet inbound, or messy listing sites. Andrew Gazdecki launched MicroAcquire in 2020 so founders could list without the old broker-fee model, after selling companies of his own and hating the process. Listings get vetted. Buyers often see an anonymous teaser first. The founder controls who gets full details. The platform grew past “micro” deals, then rebranded to Acquire.com in 2023. Same company. Broader name. In 2026, people still say MicroAcquire when they mean Acquire.com.
Diego listed Teamscope there in 2022. Within a month he had many interested buyers, including the founders of StudyPages in the same clinical-research niche. Calls, diligence, handshake, close. He stresses three lessons: know assets versus shares before the second call, have the data room ready before anyone asks, and do not confuse a past fundraise valuation with what a buyer will pay on trailing revenue.
Brokers, PE inboxes, and the TinySeed network
Marketplaces are one lane. Brokers are another. Rob used FE International for HitTail when a secondary market for small apps finally felt real. Quiet Light and others sit in the same category of reputable brokers he named. For larger, more complex sales, founders still hire that help.
TinySeed is Rob’s accelerator for mostly bootstrapped B2B SaaS. Exits there are public enough to learn from. ScrapingBee (TinySeed Spring 2020) sold to Oxylabs’ group in an eight-figure all-cash deal. Eran Galperin bootstrapped Gymdesk, joined TinySeed near $40k MRR, took PE calls for years, set a personal revenue milestone before he would sell, and closed with Five Elms after a broker process that TinySeed’s network helped open. He kept equity and stayed involved. The pattern is simple: real revenue, patient inbound, then a structured process when you are ready.
Build the data room before you list
A data room is a folder. Google Drive, Dropbox, or a proper virtual room. Diego’s public list is a good start: balance sheet and P&L, customers by segment, acquisition funnel for the last year, forecast, org chart if any, tech stack and architecture notes, security incidents (or none), cap table, debt, and litigation. Add contractor agreements with IP assignment. Add a short transition plan: who answers support in week one, how deploy works, where secrets live.
Rob said HitTail diligence felt like hundreds of hours and was more like forty to fifty of real work. That is still a full second job for a month. If you scramble documents after the LOI, you look messy and you lose ground. If you might sell in the next year, start the folder this week even if you never list.
- Export 24 months of financials. Separate personal expenses from business ones.
- Pull churn, MRR/ARR, and top-customer share from your billing tool.
- Collect IP assignments and major customer and vendor contracts.
- Write a one-page product and ops overview a technical buyer can follow.
- Draft a transition plan with a realistic founder help window after close.
List, filter buyers, then LOI
On Acquire.com the listing is vetted before it goes live. Buyers request access; you approve who sees the name and full numbers. Diego used that filter so he was not cold-called by everyone with a free account. Marketplace or broker, the next formal step is usually a letter of intent: price shape, structure, diligence period, sometimes exclusivity.
Tyler’s Storemapper write-up is still useful here. An LOI is a written plan, not a sale. Binding documents come later. Exclusivity helps the buyer; it can hurt you if you freeze every other conversation for free. He argues for a serious backup buyer when you can get one. After diligence comes the asset purchase agreement or share purchase agreement. Taxes and lawyers decide the form. Asset deals are common for smaller software sales; Diego used one so StudyPages did not inherit his company debt across countries.
Price and what it is based on (trailing revenue, profit, or a stated bridge). Cash at close versus any deferred piece. Asset or share deal preference. Diligence window in days. What exclusivity covers and when it ends. Transition hours you will give after close. Who pays which legal costs.
Survive diligence without melting down
Diligence is the buyer checking that your listing is true. Financials, code quality, security, contracts, customer health. Rob’s honest line after HitTail closed: selling at that scale is hard, you sleep badly, and you wonder if it will fall through. Emotional exhaustion is normal. Process fixes some of it: one shared folder, one person who answers buyer questions, written answers you can reuse, no improvising numbers on a call.
- Never invent a metric on a Zoom. Say you will pull it and send the source.
- Keep running the business. Stalled growth during exclusivity scares buyers.
- Track every request in a checklist with an owner and a date.
- Call your lawyer when language about indemnities, escrows, or earn-outs shows up.
- Do not celebrate on social until wire and signatures are real.
Make the company sellable while you still own it
Tyler’s strongest advice is still the quiet one: run the business so it could sell before you want to. That is the Built to Sell lesson he highlights. Years of clean financials beat a heroic cleanup month. Taking yourself out of day-to-day work is both how you live and how you exit. A remote team, written steps, and a product that ships without your laptop open are assets. That is the same work as keeping a SaaS under twenty people.
You do not have to want a sale this year. You still want books a stranger could trust, IP you actually own, and customers who are not one contract away from zero. That is the same cleanup that makes the company easier to run while you keep it.
A practical sequence if you are serious this quarter
- Write one sentence: why sell, and what “good enough” looks like for cash and time after close.
- Build the data room to Diego’s list plus IP and transition notes. Fix gaps you find.
- Decide marketplace, broker, or both. Read current Acquire.com seller materials and one broker’s process page.
- Know assets vs shares and tax questions for your entity before buyer call two.
- List or open a broker conversation. Filter tire-kickers. Take calls with people who already understand SaaS.
- Negotiate LOI terms in writing. Treat exclusivity as a trade, not a default.
- Run diligence from the checklist. Keep shipping. Close only when documents and wire path are clear.
- Execute the transition plan. Introduce the buyer to customers when the plan says so, not earlier out of nerves.
What to stop doing
- Inventing a multiple because a thread said “SaaS is always Nx.”
- Listing with three months of messy books and a promise to clean up later.
- Treating a fundraise valuation as the sale price.
- Granting long exclusivity to a buyer who has not proven seriousness.
- Hiding concentration, debt, or a security incident until late diligence.
- Selling a product that dies if you take a week off and calling that optional work.
- Announcing the sale to customers before the deal and transition are real.
After the wire
The sale is not only money. It is a handoff. Support still has to answer. Deploy still has to work. If you stay for a transition, do the hours you promised and write down what only lived in your head. If you sold through a public path and the story is yours to tell, write it down. When the product is still real under new owners, that is their chapter. Yours can end when the wire lands and the handoff is written down.
If you are still building and not selling yet, keep the data room habit anyway. Join Indiecity while you grow the thing someone might one day buy. Put the product on the map when the name is yours and the customers are real. Prepare with numbers a buyer can check and a folder they can open. Start the folder before you need the LOI.
FAQ
Questions people get stuck on
Is Acquire.com the same as MicroAcquire?
Yes. Andrew Gazdecki founded MicroAcquire in 2020 so founders could list startups without heavy broker fees. The company rebranded to Acquire.com in 2023 as deal sizes and categories grew. Microacquire.com still points at the same marketplace. Same team, larger name.
Do I need a broker, or is a marketplace enough?
It depends on size and complexity. Marketplaces like Acquire.com work when you can package the business yourself and talk to buyers. Brokers (FE International, Quiet Light, Discretion Capital, and others) earn their fee when the process is heavier: more diligence, more buyers, more legal work. Rob Walling used FE International for HitTail. Eran Galperin of Gymdesk, a TinySeed founder, later used a broker introduced through that network. Start with the path that matches how much help you need, not a status choice.
How do buyers set a price?
They start from what the business already earned, usually trailing twelve months of revenue or profit, then apply a multiple that reflects growth, churn, concentration, and how much the company needs you. Diego Menchaca wrote that acquisition valuation weights achieved revenue, not the fundraising story. Do not invent a multiple from a blog. Run your numbers, look at comparable listings if you can, and let competing serious buyers and advisors pressure-test the ask.
What is a letter of intent (LOI)?
An LOI is the buyer putting price, structure, diligence window, and often exclusivity in writing before the binding purchase agreement. Tyler Tringas noted that after an LOI you are still mostly on good faith until final documents. Acquire.com publishes LOI tools for marketplace deals. Read exclusivity carefully. You do not have to grant it without a real offer and a clock you accept.
Asset deal or share deal?
In an asset deal the buyer takes the product, brand, contracts, and other operating pieces; you may keep the empty legal shell and any leftover debt. In a share deal they buy the whole company, including history and liabilities. Diego sold Teamscope as an assets deal across borders so the buyer did not inherit Dutch debt and notary cost. Ask a lawyer and accountant which structure fits your entity, tax, and risk. Know your preference before the second buyer call.
What if the product only works because I am in it every day?
Then you are selling a job with a login, not a business. Buyers pay for recurring revenue that survives a transition. Write down the stack, support macros, deploy steps, and who does what. Tyler’s Storemapper sale leaned on a remote team and years of taking himself out of day-to-day work. If you cannot take a week off without the product breaking, fix that before you list. [Hiring the first employee](/stories/hire-first-employee-bootstrapped-saas) is sometimes that fix.
Should I tell customers I am selling?
Usually after the deal is real and the transition plan is clear, not while you are fishing for interest. Early public “for sale” noise can spook renewals and invite lowball tire-kickers. When the close is near, plan the message with the buyer: who owns support, what stays the same, and where to write if something breaks. That email is what keeps customers.
What about earn-outs and stay periods?
Many deals pay part of the price later, tied to revenue or your help after close. Rob Walling has described buyers wanting founders to stay for a stretch after a sale (as with Drip). Read the earn-out formula like a product requirement: what must be true, who controls it, and what happens if the buyer changes the product. Cash at close is simpler. Contingent payments need a lawyer and a clear clock.
How long does a sale take?
Public stories range from fast marketplace closes to multi-month broker processes. Diego had serious interest the day Teamscope listed and closed after weeks of calls and diligence. Eran Galperin’s Gymdesk process with a PE buyer ran roughly February to May 2024. Rob described HitTail diligence as feeling endless and landing around forty to fifty focused hours. Budget months, not a weekend, unless a buyer already knows the business cold.
When should I start preparing if I am not selling yet?
Now, if you might sell in the next few years. Tyler’s point from Built to Sell still holds: sellability is a track record, not a folder you invent in a panic. Clean books, contractor IP assignment, low customer concentration, and a business that runs without you are the work. You can keep the company. You still sleep better when a buyer could open the books tomorrow.
