#658 Building Bootstrapped Businesses of Value w/ Andrew Gazdecki

Andrew Gazdecki is the Founder of MicroAcquire. Former CEO & Founder of Bizness Apps and Altcoin (both acquired) In this conversation, we discuss bootstrapped businesses, MicroAcquire, how it works, who it is for, and the state of tech media outlets. ======================= Okcoin is one of the most popular licensed exchanges. Okcoin is the first to bring new cryptos to market, offering some of the lowest fees in the industry, an easy to use app, and Earn feature--you got to check out their brand new, beautifully designed app! And as of today, they also became the first US exchange to list NEAR. It’s easier than ever to sign up, buy and trade crypto in just 2 minutes on Okcoin with credit & debit cards or just link your bank account to the best new crypto assets. So get started, and go to okcoin.com/pomp ======================= Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy, sell, store, and earn bitcoin, ether, and over 40 other cryptocurrencies. Offering industry-leading security, insurance and uptime, Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. Open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Andrew Gazdecki is the founder of MicroAcquire. He's the former CEO and founder of Business Apps and Altcoin, which were both acquired. In this conversation, we discuss bootstrap businesses, MicroAcquire, how it works, who it is for, and the state of tech media outlets. I really enjoyed this conversation with Andrew, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is OKCoin. If you haven't started building your crypto portfolio on OKCoin, there's no better time. They're one of the fastest growing global exchanges around, and they have some promotions happening right now to help even more people be part of the future

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:30Anthony Pompliano?

  averaging, there's no fees on OKCoin. Kind of a no-brainer. Go check them out, let me know what you think. Next up is Gemini. Gemini is a leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy, sell, store, and earn Bitcoin, Ether, and over 40 other cryptocurrencies. They offer industry-leading security, insurance, and uptime. Gemini is the go-to trusted platform for beginner and sophisticated investors alike. You can open a free account in under 3 minutes at gemini.com/pomp and get $20 of Bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within your first 30 days. Again, a leading, regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy, sell, store, and earn Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Under three minutes, Gemini.com/pomp and you'll get $20 of Bitcoin after you trade $100 or more within 30 days. Go check them out, Gemini.com/pomp. The Winklevoss twins have been doing a fantastic job and I think you'll really enjoy the product. Gemini.com/pomp. All right, let's get in this episode with Andrew. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:50Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Andrew here with me. Thank you so much for doing this, man.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  I'm excited to be here, Pomp.

• 2:56Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, let's jump right into your background. You've got a very unique kind of story in terms of the way you've built businesses and then kind of your viewpoint today. Walk me through kind of where'd you grow up and how did you get into businesses and kind of wanting to be an entrepreneur?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  How much, what version you want? You want the, you want the 60 second, five minute, or the two hour movie version?

• 3:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's do the two minute.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Okay, so my background, I grew, I was born in Detroit, moved to San Clemente when I was five. My dad actually passed away from cancer when I was six, so I grew up pretty poor in a very wealthy area, San Clemente. Don't feel bad for me, by the way. My life is baller. But from a very young age, I, you know, as an entrepreneur, like you'll, if you speak with enough entrepreneurs, you'll see a pattern that, you know, when you grow up struggling, like money becomes, you know, really top of mind.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  So I was always that kid hustling, just out of necessity. Like entrepreneurship is trendy at school today. But for me, it was a survival mechanism. It was something that I was drawn to just out of necessity. And then luckily, I just, I really enjoyed it. So I was creating eBay stores when I was like 16. I created this like World of Warcraft affiliate website, which is kind of embarrassing to admit. I've probably started maybe like 10 different businesses and then two significant ones.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  But yeah, just basically found my passion really, really early in life with entrepreneurship. And I always say, you know, people, some people on the week, no offense to tennis players, but some people on the weekend like to play tennis. I like to play startup. And that's, that's kind of let me where I am today. I can, I can add on to that. Would you like to hear, you know, some other company? Just you want to keep going? Okay, so really where my entrepreneurial like, like career, whatever you want to call it, took off was I started this company called Phone Freelancer in college. It's basically like a job board for mobile developers to connect to businesses.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  And this was like right when the iPhone came out. So I was in college. Best place to probably launch a business like this. And I always say like internet, mobile, blockchain are the three biggest paradigm shifts we'll ever see in technology. And so I saw the iPhone came out and I was like, this is it. And all my friends had it and I couldn't afford one.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  But businesses were scrambling to figure out how to build mobile applications. And a custom one would cost, say, you know, $50,000 plus. And so on my job board, I kept seeing this same functionality, same feature requests. And they were actually like luxury restaurants, hotels, were paying for like loyalty programs, the ability to order food, et cetera. So I sold that business for like 50,000 bucks or something like that. But factoring in broke college inflation. It felt like 18 trillion, billion, ch- gajillion dollars.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  That, that was the most meaningful exit ever. That was like a whoa, because I had never had more than, I, I'd never had a, you know, five figures in my bank account. So. That was the, the reason I sold that business though was I saw a pattern of people asking for the same sort of mobile app to be developed. And that led to a business I started called Business Apps, spelled B I Z N E S S Apps. I couldn't afford the correct business domain spelling, so I supposed it biz. Everyone called it biz apps, even my mom called it biz apps, to the point where we ended up having to buy the domain.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  We ended up buying businessapps.com spelled correctly for a hundred thousand, then we bought bizapps.com for another hundred thousand. Cause it drove me crazy that my mom misspelled my company name.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  So grew that company to about 10 million in recurring revenue. We only raised about a hundred thousand dollars. And did kinda like the anti Silicon Valley thing. I said, I met with every VC in the valley.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Got a couple of term sheets or close to term sheets. And just kinda said, the business was highly profitable, like it was a rocket ship. We grew from, and I'm 21, and so it was like this weird experience. I have, my previous work experience was like at Sears and like a movie theater. I got fired from a graphic design job. So I was in the situation of this fast growing startup without any experience. I'm not technical. I didn't have sales experience. I didn't have marketing experience. But going back to, you know, what I said about my childhood, you know, I want, frankly, I wanted to be a millionaire.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Like I want, like I just, you know, that's, you know, probably a superficial goal, but. You know, without growing up with means that that was my goal at the time. It's, it shifted more now. Usually that happens, you kinda, you know, uh, you know, once you kinda get some financial stability, your goals change. But um, that, that was like my shot. I was like, this is, this is, this is insane. Like we actually have a shot at like building a multimillion dollar business.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  And then the background story on that is we grew it from zero. We were on Inc. Magazine's 500 fastest growing companies two years in a row. We stopped sharing information with them because we saw some competitors basically copying our strategy. And if you get on the Inc. 500 list, you gotta change your cellphone, like legit. Cause the iPhone, you know that feature, do you have that feature on the iPhone where like it silences people you don't know?

• 9:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Mine is spam risk is what mine says now, or it will basically tell me some sort of alert that you definitely don't know who this person is.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that that wasn't available when I was on the Inc. 500 list. So my phone would just blow up and I had friends that were recruiters and they would have like, they'd take a picture of like the Inc. 500 list. And we were number 58, number 91, back to back. And they would be like, my boss just told me to like hit you up. So my whole team's in me like calling you and they did. So, long story short on that business, grew it for, I operated the business as CEO for eight, nine years. Sold to ESW Capital. Great outcome. Super happy with it.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  You want details on that?

• 10:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, when you were building it, why did you not take any capital and kind of why did you choose to continue to build it off the cash flows the way that you did?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  So initially, so we went from zero to, let's call it four million in the first four years. And our customer payback period was 28 days. So, meaning we didn't have, typically with venture backed companies, when you acquire a customer, you'll have a customer payback period that's like 12 months. So you need that funding to support that customer acquisition cost. We didn't. So every time a customer signed up, we immediately reinvested that money back in the business.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  It was just a beautiful business. And then the actual business, and just to give some background around what it did was, it was essentially a no-code app builder. So. Uh, we made it extremely easy to build mobile apps for iPhones, Androids. We were so early that we almost made a BlackBerry version. I'm glad we didn't do that. But um, we had this inflection point where, so selling to small businesses is super hard. There's a saying where small businesses lack time, aptitude, and money, which is like the perfect storm when selling to businesses. They don't have time. They don't have time to like learn.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, they're very, very hard to get a hold of.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  So there are some dark times in the businesses where, in the business where it was, it was just me running. Like I'm, I've always been a solo founder. I've never had co-founders. And we were, I had some friends one. So this was in college too. So one winter break, we cold called restaurants for, you know, it's called eight weeks winter break. Didn't get a lot of traction, grew to the, grew the business to about 30,000 in annual recurring revenue. And everyone's like, oh, this is like cold, cold calling sucks, by the way. And it's, I recommend people go through it because it definitely, you know, burns that grit into you and that you use to rejection, which is I think a key trait of entrepreneurs.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  But we had this huge inflection point where we started to get some coverage and

• 12:37Speaker 02

  press every, everyone from, you know, New York Times, Business Insider, TechCrunch, VentureBeat. Cause it was an interesting story, college kids, you know, trying to help small businesses. But I noticed this guy in Switzerland creating these apps for these big Ramada hotels. And again, I'm, I'm probably 22 at this point. And I just thought it was a rich guy making apps for his hotels. So I reached out to him and I was like, hey, like you own these like huge hotels. That's badass. Like I just want to like talk to you and like say thank you. And uh, this is where business apps changed. He, and I'm still friends with him today. His name's Raoul. He runs a company called Venomat.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  And he explained to me that he was building apps on behalf of his customers. And so the first question I asked was, how do we get you to sell more apps? And he explained, if you could white label the product, which means remove all branding of business apps. So he can put his logo at his pricing. So it is kind of like a semi-custom mobile app solution.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  He would be able to sell a lot more and see a higher margin on the sales. And I remember literally Googling white label. I was like, what? What? And then I was like, okay. Well, this is going to cost us $5,000 to do it.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  We paid like within 30 minutes and we didn't have any of the functionality built out. So we built out a reseller dashboard. And then from there, the business turned into mainly focusing on resellers. So we partnered with probably every web agency in the world. We're in like 40 different countries. We had 5,000 partners at our peak. A number of public companies, do yourself website builders, you know, legal, X, Y, Z. Any sort of company that sold to small businesses. We came to them with a solution that said, hey, you have small business customers. We have a way for them to connect with their customers where they are, not on their mobile devices.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  And so we focused on the technology, which allowed us to avoid hiring a huge sales team. So to answer your question, we just, we truly just didn't need the capital. I operated the business with 2 million cash on hand.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Pretty much for the entire time for rainy day. So we just didn't have

• 15:13Speaker 02

  a use, a clear use of the capital unless we wanted to move up market to enterprise. But things were going so well and I was so young, I just, you know, like when a VC comes to you and they're like, hey, here's like a big check. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing here. Things seem to be going really well. So I hope that answers your question, but um, I guess the answer is um, things were going well and um, I I want, I wanted to, I didn't want to sign up for, you know, I felt I had a win in the bag and I didn't want to lose that by trying to swing bigger, if that makes sense.

• 15:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Why did you sell eventually? What was the thought process there?

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I was tired. So we um, so I was on another podcast. So we had over 100 employees. And with 10 million revenue, that's really hard to do. So we had a huge outsourced team. The entire engineering team was outsourced. Um, we, a decade ago, you could hire sales reps for like 50K. Now it's like 250K OTE. So we benefited from kind of like the rise of tech because we started the business in 2010, a little after the Great Recession. Um, and it was just a lot of management and it's,

• 16:38Speaker 02

  it gets very, very tiring. Um, I also felt I took the business as far as I could take it. And when you're offered an amount of cash that could, you know, secure your family's future, it's very hard to turn down. I had a fiduciary duty to my investors as well. And so, um, then on that, I just was tired and got a great offer. And after eight years of running the business, I concluded I'm not going to pass this down to my son Julian. So it was time to sell.

• 17:15Anthony Pompliano?

  And so walk me through, after you did that, you went to start a couple of other businesses, kind of tinkered around in a couple of different industries. You can talk about that, but then ultimately what drew you to kind of this bootstrapped market that you're building a business in today?

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the first thing I did was I wrote down the customer that I wanted to serve, which I think is really important for entrepreneurs. So any entrepreneurs thinking about like what businesses, like forget the idea, like focus on the customer and then fall in love with the problem second. Um, so what I did was I, again, I love startups. I love entrepreneurs. Like that's, that's my game. My pump, if you had a baseball card, I'd, I'd collect it, man. Like, you know, I, I'm a big fan of anyone, you know, chasing like their dreams and like carving their own path in the world. Like those are my people. Um, so I wanted a business that served, um, you know, the startup community. And what I noticed was

• 18:14Speaker 02

  for smaller business specifically, um, I mean, business apps are probably a great example. So, um, when I went to go sell business apps, um, we used an investment bank in, uh, 2016. Uh, their minimum fee was $800,000. And I remember telling them, I was like, you guys have the best job in the world. Like I do all the work. You guys come in at the end, make the presentation and, uh, make some intros. Um, we, we did get some offers from them, but we ended up turning them down. Um, and then investment banks also have this thing called a tail. So basically any intro they make within a period, my tail was 24 months, I believe. So,

• 18:57Speaker 02

  any intro they make, even if it's just like an email that's not responded, they get that money. Um, so, uh, I decided not to sell, keep pushing the business. I'm glad I did. Um, but when you look at the lower end of the market and you look at the options that smaller startups have to sell, it's very limited. It's either A, you get approached, which typically is, you know, maybe for, you know, the 1% of startups. A lot of founders think that, you know, Google kind of shows up to your door one day with a big chat, like, dude, you're getting acquired. Like it doesn't work like that, uh, unless you're growing like Slack or something like that. Um, the other options are working with investment banks.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  And typically investment banks will only work with businesses that they believe they can sell for, you know, a Or excuse me, nine figures, high eight figures, nine figures. And then the lower end of the market is full of business brokers. So investment banks on the higher end typically charge three to 4%. Business brokers charge 15%. So if you're selling a business for, you know, let's call it like $5 million and you have a 15% fee to pay. I thought that was kind of ridiculous. And so I thought, you know, what would happen if an entrepreneur kind of stepped in and, you know,

• 20:23Speaker 02

  really kind of put a twist on this where it's a marketplace that favors the founders, that puts the founders in control, that really, you know, supports them and empowers them to get the best possible deal without having to pay a massive fee. And that was kind of the thesis behind micro require was, you know, it's an important problem. It's a large and growing market. The current solutions in the market are extremely poor. Tons of potential to expand a market. Defensibility via network effects, like let's build a marketplace around this. This could be really interesting.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  But the case in point, you know, the optionality for startups today to sell is just, it's kind of a shit show. It's this, it's this fragmented market. You got, you got brokers, bankers, you got M and A advisors, you got M and A attorneys, you have, you know, due diligence experts. And so, you know, I just saw this huge opportunity to kind of consolidate that market. And I've kind of touted this as like the Zillow M and A. Like what is your startup worth? Like you get 10 different answers from 10 different people. And we're going to bring data to that. So we actually can like back it up. Like this is what your startup is really worth because that can change quarter to quarter. As you've probably seen over the past year with investing.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  So that was, that was kind of the thesis of my requires, you know,

• 21:53Speaker 02

  startups, it's the, the exit is such an important part of the founder journey. There's books on fundraising, there's books on how to grow a startup, there's books on how to find ideas, but there's, there's very limited information on, like, what is due diligence? What are the proper legal, like, steps in an acquisition? What are common deal structures? How to optimize like your chances of getting acquired? How to prepare for an acquisition? None of that was written in, you know, the form, or the perspective of a founder is more for a buyer. It's like, here's how you do due diligence as a buyer. Here's how to find the best deals as a buyer.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  And so I just thought, hey, let's, you know, let's empower, let's empower entrepreneurs and, you know, help them achieve a potentially life-changing exit because just add on to that. It's, it's super rewarding. We're paying for weddings, we're paying, we're helping people pay off debt, like, we're helping people like, save, you know, potentially millions off their acquisitions and I find that really, really rewarding. And that's, at, at this point in my career, that's, that's what motivates me is just really helping people at scale.

• 23:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk a little bit about what you've actually built from a software perspective. So if somebody comes in, what are they doing on the buyer's side or the seller's side with the platform?

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Sure. So if you're a founder, you can list your startup entirely for free. There's zero commissions, there's zero fees, and you can come in and we ask questions that buyers will need to know to be interested in learning more about your startup. So that include like, what's your tech stack? Who are your main competitors? Trailing 12 months revenue, trailing 12 months profit.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  We also have the ability for you to connect Stripe, Google Analytics, Bar metrics, ProfitWell, just general, you know, revenue metrics to build, you know, more trust with buyers. And then what my team does is we go in and we create a SIM. And what a SIM is, is basically like a pitch deck, but in the reverse form of selling the business rather than trying to raise funds. So we do, we have a full team that, and you could test me on this, like create an account, make a fake startup and see how fast we actually get you up. So that's the, this, so basically we built a more efficient way to sell a startup than what's currently available, in my opinion.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  And then on the buyer's side, and let me, let me add a little bit more on this other side. So as a seller, your startup goes live. It's completely private. You have full control over who sees your information, your website URL, any sort of documents you upload, including your P and L, your pitch deck, whatever you want to include. All of this is optional. We don't require any, we have suggestions and we give recommendations on best practices to get acquired, but

• 25:01Speaker 02

  all of that is up to you. And the way that works is you, you know, you're able to review people's LinkedIn profiles. You can chat with them and then you grant them approval to your data room, which would contain your company name, your contact info, startup URL and all your docs.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  On the buyer's side,

• 25:18Speaker 02

  it's, it's pretty, it's a lot more straightforward. You basically register as a buyer. You can look around the marketplace. You can see all the anonymous listings. We never list a startup's name within a listing. It's all anonymous. So think of it as like a Ferrari shop. What's your, what's your favorite car, Pom? So you can make this fun for you.

• 25:38Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, look, for me, I actually don't, I'm not into cars that much, right? My brothers love all kinds of different sports cars, everything from Ferraris on down. But I would say if I had to pick something with wheels, we're much more into motorcycles probably than anything.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  All right. So it's, it's a motorcycle shop and it's got, it's got the best motorcycles. It's got, I want to make this even funner. It's got SaaS motorcycles. It's got e-commerce motorcycles. It's got crypto motorcycles, community motorcycles.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  And you can look at them completely free as a buyer if you register. But if you want to find out more information about that motorcycle, like the mileage, who is the previous owner, how do I get in talk? And how do we get into a conversation with owner of this motorcycle? I'm also a motorcycle fan too, by the way.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  That's, that's, that's, that's the Detroit of me. I'm a, I'm a big, big, big car guy. It's my one, my, my one vice. But you pay for that access. So you would pay a simple, right now it's $2.90 a year. We're going to be raising that.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  And then we verify your account. So we review your profile. We make sure, you know, you're a legitimate person. You're not just some random. Like if, if we can't figure out who you truly are, we, we kick you out. So that increases, you know, the quality of buyers that reach out to startups. And then again, as those buyers reach out to startups, the founders have full control over who they approve and deny access to.

• 27:16Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you think about the platform itself, are there specific types of businesses? Maybe we can focus on that side first. What is the exact type of business? You, you've used the word startup a few times. And so people who are listening to this, who run a business and they've been running it for 10 years, are they a fit for the platform? Do you look at like time that someone's been running the business? Do you look at it in terms of revenue or profitability? And what makes the ideal customer to come on and actually try to use the platform to sell business?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  That's a, that's a great question. So we focus on really what you're buying on microcars. You're buying, you're buying product market fit. So you're buying a company, typically software companies that have some traction. And that level of traction can be, let's call it 50K a year, all the way up to 10 million a year. And we're going to be making efforts to expand up market because we believe, you know, our marketplace can service larger acquisitions. They get more complex, so we got to build some tooling to really make those work. But yeah, like if you got like a e-commerce company doing, you know, 20 to, you know,

• 28:27Speaker 02

  20K to 10 million, you're a perfect fit. And the, the thought process behind that is. There's so many other marketplaces out there and it just, when I looked around, it just felt like junk, like we're basically, I don't want to buy like a starter blog. I don't want to buy an affiliate company. I want to buy a software company with happy customers, good product. The most typical scenario of acquisition that I see are either they're just really good companies and they're fully bootstrapped owned by the founders. These are companies that would never get featured in TechCrunch.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Like the acquisition would never get covered by publications, but the founder walks away with like five million bucks. It's amazing. Like those, those are my heroes. And like in VC land, you get a job, but these people are walking away millionaires.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  So that's, that's really our target market is small software companies.

• 29:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And then from a buyer perspective, are you seeing private equity firms, individuals, large corporations?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Private equity through the roof. Like I would say there's probably 2,000 plus private equity groups and there's obviously a range, just like startups. There's, there's billion dollar funds, multi-billion dollar funds. And then there's in the middle, then there's emerging what I call micro P firms. But tons, like when I look through our, our user list and I just type in capital. P firms love to call themselves like capital, whatever, or ventures. What's another term they use? You know what I mean? So there's, there's thousands in there. We also have a lot of corp dev teams from public companies, venture backed companies.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  I've also seen acquisitions from VC firms, which is pretty interesting. And then other bootstrap companies too, just looking like if they find a good product with limited traction, it's built by, you know, a really good team. You know, we've seen Aqua hires as well, so it's kind of a mixture of everything. And then we do see a lot of individual buyers as well, which is, I think, I think probably my favorite category. Cause those are the people where, you know, maybe they're VP of Sales at a company. Maybe they're VP Marketing, maybe they have like a lot of experience building startups, but they don't have a good idea. They're more of a scaler, not a builder.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  So, most of the startups on MicroAcquire are, you know, built by builders. Like, the number one reason for selling on MicroAcquire is I've moved on to something else. Or, you know, I've taken this business as far as I can go. And then these individuals acquire these companies and they breathe in new energy, new ideas. And, you know, take that business farther than the original founder. And sometimes I see some really good structures where, you know, they give the original founder like, you know, some equity. So they can come along for the ride. Um, but the, the buyer group is shockingly, um, diverse. And sometimes I, I see some users sign up that I'm like, again, going back to me as like a huge startup fan.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  I'm like, whoa, that guy signed up like, holy crap. Um, but I don't email him like I did that Ben and Matt guy like, hey, can I talk to you? You're rich. Um, it's, it's a wide group.

• 32:04Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about, uh, the actual transaction itself, so you're basically helping businesses present themselves for sale. You're helping to facilitate the evaluation of businesses, the introduction to buyers, et cetera. How many of these businesses are the founders actually looking to walk away from? Uh, and have somebody else run the business moving forward versus their founders actually want to sell their business, but they want to stay on and continue to, to opt a business?

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Another really good question. That would be highly determinant of the buyer. So some buyers come in all cash, say, hey, we'll take it off your hands, 30 day due diligence. Does that sound good? Some founders like, hell, yeah, like that's. That's a fantastic outcome. Some PE firms and buyers specifically, like if it's another startup, they're probably going to want the team to come on board for a period of time. So I'd say it's probably, you know, 50 50 from just off the top of my head. But I know I'd actually say it's probably 70%. Basically, all cash founder walks away within 90 days,

• 33:14Speaker 02

  or maybe like a 90 days, sort of like, you know, 50% cash upfront, 50% cash after 90 days, just to make sure the transition goes correctly. And then they move to a consultancy post the 90 days, just in case like a bug pops up or a customer with a weird, unique, you know, payment plan or something like that. They can go and get those questions answered. But then I also see, you know, teams thrilled to join other companies. Like I've seen teams like, or I've also seen like mergers too, where two companies that are very similar, they, you know, buy, the larger one buys the other one to bring on the talent,

• 33:59Speaker 02

  then also the customer list. So again, not the most specific answer, but it's, it's kind of everything. It's everything from full buyouts, founder walks, 51% where the founder stays and actually operates the business, Aqua hires where the team then joins the acquiring company, and kind of everything in between.

• 34:25Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about kind of a success story, is there one transaction that stands out to you, either because of the people involved, or just like, hey, this is the exact type of transaction that we want to occur on our platform?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got, I got two. I'll, I can't say the name of the first one, but I'll share this first one because it's, this was, this was kind of like one of those moments in a business where you're like, this is, this is, this is fucking awesome. Can I swear on this, by the way? Yeah, this is fucking awesome. So there was this kid in college who built this business to, let's call it 400,000 recurring revenue. It was a platform that helped other students pass engineering tests at Google, Apple, and he sold it for like a million bucks. And he sent, he sent me this heartfelt email where he like,

• 35:20Speaker 02

  made a down payment for his mom on a house and like paid off all his student loans. And I just asked for like a review. I was like, can I, dude, fuck yeah, like, like, good for you, dude. Like, like, that's life-changing shit.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  But a more significant transaction.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Push Engage was a company that sold for seven figures to a PE firm called Automotive. I don't know if, if they would classify themselves as a PE firm, but it's a group, it's run by an individual name, Zed Balkai. And he focuses on, he runs WP Beginner, if you've heard of that website. And he specifically looks to buy WordPress websites. And I really like this story because I loved how Zed handled the transaction. So Zed met with the founder. The business was doing millions in revenue, is also profitable.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Had an LOI out to him within three days. And then they closed within less than 30, full cash. And then the founder stayed on for 90 days. And then now the founder has like a venture fund. Like, I think that's badass. And he had, and then this story I like a lot is because he previously tried selling the business with a broker. And the broker, it's a well-known broker that people would probably recognize, so I won't name them. They weren't able to sell the business and we were able to sell the business at, I believe, a 30% markup from what the broker was trying to sell the business at. So that was another moment.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  And this, these are moments where it was just me running the company, just me. Like, I'm setting up the profiles, I'm writing the newsletters, I'm scheduling the social media posts, I'm doing all these podcasts, like, just for the love, for the love of the game. And this guy.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  I mean, it's just, it's, it's a crazy feeling when you're mentoring millionaires like, and the only thing I get, I, I have probably five bottles of wine from people that, that seems to be the thing is I get, and I don't drink wine either. Um, so I have a bunch of wine, um, if anyone wants to come over and drink it, um, from people that have helped sell their companies. Um, but those, those are, I could, I could, I could share more, but those, those are the two that come to mind.

• 37:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Those, uh, those are great stories and also getting, uh, getting wine that you don't have to drink it, you can just collect it. That's fine. Uh, talk to me about, uh, bootstrappers, the publication. Uh, it seems like you have, uh, made tons of friends over at TechCrunch through this process, but kind of walk through, uh, walk through, uh, what is bootstrappers and where the idea come from?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'll, I'll start off with, um, nothing but love for TechCrunch. I'm, I'm a very positive guy. Um, but I grew up reading that publication. It inspired me literally to be an entrepreneur. Um, and now I just feel it's kind of turned into a VC PR agency where they just write about funding rounds. That's their main focus. Um, that was even my personal experience, like pitching them micro choir. Um, they ghosted me multiple times, like put time on my calendar. Um, you know, I, I get, you know, that stuff happens. It's not a big deal.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Um, but it just kind of opened my eyes like, man, fuck, if it's this hard for me to get like, you know, mainstream press. It's gotta be really hard for other companies. Um, so I'm, I'm glad they didn't cover us because I think it really opened my eyes to, you know, what TechCrunch was in two thousand, you know, twelve, two thousand thirteen. Is this publication you wake up to every morning and read about these startups building, you know, these awesome things. And it wasn't, hey, we just raised a hundred million dollars. It was like, we're just getting off the ground and. It made you feel like you could really do it, like, you know, like to back up a little bit. So business apps wasn't a unique idea.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  There was other app builders in the market and I read about them on TechCrunch, literally. And most of the app builders at the time were focused on blogs and podcast RSS feeds and stuff. And I was like, what if we did this for businesses? So I literally credit them for like changing my life. So, and I've written for TechCrunch personally, they covered my last company, which was bootstrapped, like a dozen times. So I just, I tons of love for them. But I felt there's just such a need to bring that sort of reporting back of like real company building stories.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  And again, nothing, nothing wrong with funding rounds. I think a lot of people enjoy them. That's why, you know, they're, they're covered so often. But I want to make the publication that I want to read. I want to hear about the entrepreneurs grinding it out, avoiding venture capital, focusing on profitability.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  And so that's, that's really what I'm doing. So that's what Bootstrappers is. It's going to be the opposite of TechCrunch. We're going to focus on entrepreneurs that are just saying no to the, the bullshit Silicon Valley narrative that we've been fed as entrepreneurs. Like I say all the time to founders, like you do not need to build a billion dollar company to be successful. And also your chances of doing so are fucking very low, like, like very low. Like just build a company, like, like the part I don't understand about entrepreneurship today is this huge emphasis on, you know, building these unicorns.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  And then if you're successful, like, what the fuck are you gonna do with all that money? Like, you're gonna die with it. Like, just, you know, I'm in the camp of, me personally, you know, we've raised money for Microquire. I believe the market opportunity supports that, and I feel I can help, you know, potentially hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs achieve a similar outcome I did at Business Apps. But I gotta win under my belt first, so I can take these risks. And so that's kind of my message to entrepreneurs is, you know, tune out the noise of TechCrunch, which is kind of like the People Magazine of tech,

• 42:05Speaker 02

  and build something profitable and sell for a couple million and secure your financial future. So the publication, yeah, we're gonna write about like, how'd you build the company? Like, what struggles have you gone through? Like, what, where'd you get the idea? We're not, we're not just puking out stories. We're interviewing founders. We're getting to know founders. We have one founder, a true story. One of our writers lives around the corner from a founder that we're gonna be covering. And we're hiring a photographer to head over to his house and, or his office and take some cool photos. So it's just gonna be a much higher quality, just basically the publication that I want to exist. And

• 42:50Speaker 02

  then I feel that a lot of other bootstrapped founders need to exist. And I guess the main point I'll kind of leave it is, tech media today really, really does feel like it's reserved for venture-backed companies. It is extremely hard to get covered if you're a bootstrapped company. And so that's a problem we're looking to fix. And it ties in nicely to Microquire. So, you know, Stripe has indie hackers, HubSpot has The Hustle, and Microquire is gonna have bootstrappers. And our main goal is to just help these companies

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Get the, you know, recognition that I think they deserve.

• 43:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that this helps from a vertical integration of media, sort of this marketing for a platform like this? Like, is there any sort of strategic thought process that you put into of how marketing is changing for businesses?

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I think every single startup should be thinking about how to create their own media. Like, look, you pop, like, you're a baller, dude. Like, you got, like, a huge ass audience. Like, I see your tweets. Like, you tweet out, like, if you just wrote, like, hey, Andrew Gassdecky, you'd have, like, 10,000 people like it. And there's no context. Like, you have such a powerful audience. And that's the future of startups can't rely on gatekeepers anymore. Like, you can't. Like, you gotta look at, like, other ways to stand out. Because the way I view startup competition is, you know, you may have a list of five main competitors, but you're real, you're really competing against people's attention.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  And so if you understand that and you deliver, like, the whole marketing strategy of Microquire is deliver a ton of value. Like, as an example, we sent out, like, 700 shirts, like, literally. I think you probably saw it in your Twitter feed, where I just was retweeting everything and spammed everybody. Just deliver a ton of value to your audience and it pays off. So that's our strategy at Microquire is where, you know, we want to own our narrative. You know, we don't want someone else telling, you know, our narrative for us. And quite frankly, it's more powerful. And I'm, I'm still, you know, working on this, like, thesis or thought process as we go.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Because it's kind of, I didn't come out of the gates with, like, here's the book. Like, I got it down. I know everything. Because I don't. Like, I learn on the go. I'm a really fast learner. But like, the funny announcement is probably a great example. I did pitch that to a couple of publications. But we made the decision to just post on Twitter ourselves. We saw over 20 million impressions. We saw, we broke every single record in terms of new customer signups, new premium buyers registered, new startups, you know, listing their companies.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  And I think that's kind of the future of how startups startups need to start thinking differently about how they get the word out about their startups because every startup is just doing the same thing. They're just pitching the same blogs, pitching the same story, raise some money, blah, blah, blah. And you need to write your own new playbook, like basically, I believe we've gone through, you know, three, three waves of, you know, startup building. The first wave was, um, let's call it in like 2010, uh, invention. So this is business apps. I was in the right place, right time. I got super fucking lucky with that business. I like, I didn't know anything, so I cannot take any credit of being like a genie, like, oh, I, no, I was in the right place, right time, but I went for it.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  And the first version would never work today. Like it was complete garbage, but we got customers and we reinvested and built over time. The second phase was when everyone was trying to figure out the best go to market model. So, you know, you got AEs, you got SDRs, now we got account based marketing.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Everyone was trying to figure that out together, um, in like 2014. So the winners in, in 2010 were really just the first market. That's become less important. And then, so basically invention. And then the second wave was who could build the best go to market the fastest. Now we're entering this, uh, new phase that I consider the proctor game gamble, gamble phase, where brand is the most important aspect of your startup because it's, it's the last defensible moat. Like funding is no longer a barrier. Building the technology is no longer a barrier. There's countless, but like just Google, like how to build a sales team.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Obviously these are skill sets like you need to acquire as an entrepreneur and you should, and you should learn up on them, but, um, there's just so much information on these topics that you can't really have a competitive advantage by having more funding. Cause more funding, bigger team actually can do the opposite. You can move slower. Kind of a rant. I, I, I hope that was helpful.

• 48:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I think that it's fascinating when you start thinking about, uh, sometimes all you have to do is show people something's possible, right? You don't even necessarily have to, um, you don't even have to, uh, do it for them. You don't even have to actually help them with anything. If you can, uh, actually go ahead and show somebody something is possible, it drastically increases their willingness, uh, and their desire to, um, you know, pursue it, which I think is, you know, something that you're doing here with the bootstrappers. Then on top of it, you also have the software that can help facilitate transactions, help buyers and sellers, et cetera. So I think it makes a ton of sense. Um, when you zoom out, you look 20 years ahead, what do you hope this grows into from a micro acquire standpoint?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  We want to change the way businesses are bought and sold, period. We want to make it so easy that you would be insane not to list your company on my choir. So part of that is consolidating the market. So we want to work with brokers. We want to work with investment bankers. We want to, you know, bring them business. We want to, we have, you know, 1300 plus startups listed on micro ware. Um, a lot of them could probably use some help and guidance on, um, how to sell their business. So, you know, one route could be like, we could hire our own kind of team of brokers, but then, you know, it's much more scalable if we're able to bring in the entire startup community, everyone involved

• 49:30Speaker 02

  in M and A transactions. So that's going to be the M and A directory that we're going to be launching probably by the time me releases, which is going to be fucking badass. We got people from like Goldman Sachs. Um, I hired a in-house, um, attorney, which is kind of gangster. I think it's gangster. Um, so I got a turn, you know, on payroll. Uh, we hired a in-house, um, California ba- business broker. And this is something that a lot of, um, people don't understand is to sell a business and to take a commission, you need to be a certified business broker, which is controlled by the, um, like, uh, what's it called? Uh, real estate

• 50:12Speaker 02

  thing, thingamajig. Um, like you can't just go out and sell a company and take a commission. That's straight illegal, like jail time, two weeks. Um, if you don't believe me, hit up, uh, uh, 10 law firms, um, cause I did. And if you find one that, uh, has a different opinion, let me know. So we hired an in-house business broker who's a badass. He used to manage, he used to own his own business brokerage firm and manage business brokers. So he's been leading up the onboarding process of just hiring the best of the best of the, you know, he, he's, he's kind of, he has this quote where, you know, there's probably a thousand business brokers.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Only a hundred are really worth their salt. And so we're really looking to get the best of the best. And I think that's really important because when you're, when, when we start moving on market, so as we think, you know, where is this going to be in? Did you say 20 years?

• 51:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, 20 years. Like when you think about how, how far the business can go, right?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  20, 20 years? Okay, I'm, it's, it's going to be like a VR decentralized. You've controlled by robots and, and 20, 20 years, you're going to have to put on like VR goggles. And then we'll actually have the motorcycle store and you can go in. Oh, no, totally joking, but um, uh, what was it? What was I trying to say? Basically, um, yeah, we just, we, we want to attack every problem that startups go through. Um, when selling their company, um, I've been through it personally. I know the problem. I, I have, I feel I have a true, unique insight. Into how fucking hard it is to sell a startup, even if it's a good startup, like we, you know, were able to attract offers.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  We were able to work with an investment bank. A lot of startups don't have that, um, that luxury. Um, so we're starting on the lower end of the market, but as we move up market, you know, right now, we're kind of like no brokers, like blah, blah. But you're really kind of leaving money on the table if you don't have a professional buyer involved. Like, once we start to head up into the 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollar acquisitions, you should hire like an M and A advisor or an investment bank. And a lot of these people will do it at a lower cost than what you currently see because another problem that we found out in the market is

• 52:35Speaker 02

  most investment banks and brokerage, they spend half their time on sales and marketing. So we can basically say, hey, like quit Goldman Sachs, just come work for us. We'll give you tons of deal flow and you don't have to deal with the bullshit meetings. Where you debate about a stupid like presentation for a week, which is actually real feedback from like one of the people that we're going to be onboarding. But um, so you know, the future of micro acquire is, you know, we want to transform like, you know, the way I see basically this startup journey is, you know, we have product hunt for discovery.

• 53:16Speaker 02

  That's where you launch. That's where you, you know, get discovered. You know, that's day one. Fuck yeah. And then, you know, if you want to raise capital, you have Angel List. Like Naval and Avlog is the CEO. They are doing phenomenal things for startups looking for capital and just making it super easy, like one click funding, that sort of stuff. We want to, you know, be the path for exits. So discovery, investing, exits will be micro acquire. That's kind of my vision.

• 53:46Anthony Pompliano?

  You are well on your way to seeing that happen because it seems like you've got all the, all the right people, one, paying attention to the right types of companies being listed and the buyers coming onto the platform. If you had to just before we wrap up and do rapid fire questions, kind of give a pitch for those that want to either buy businesses or sell their business, what's the for micro acquire?

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Well, for startups, this is for you. We're building this for you and we're not building this because we want to make a bunch of money or whatever. We're building this because we truly believe this needs to exist for the startup community. So it's completely free to list. Like you'll, you'll save money on fees. We can get you listed in 24 hours, three to six months. And you'll sell for more. Like we just, we've built a better, it blows, it blows my mind. Like it, it, it really does. I mean, we still have a long ways to go. And then for buyers,

• 54:46Speaker 02

  It's a motorcycle shop and startups like just go in there. If you like crypto companies, e-commerce, direct to consumers, direct to consumer companies, SaaS companies, B2B SaaS, low-touch SaaS, like we have literally everything and it it kind of blows my mind at the traction we've been able to receive and we'd love to help you sell. And then if you do, give me a review, send me a bottle of wine.

• 55:13Anthony Pompliano?

  I love the pitch. All right. Last three questions and they get to ask me one to finish up. First one is what's the most important book that you've ever read?

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Uh, How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis. It has a terrible title. It's a terror like it's not a book about how to get rich. So I've been very fortunate with the people that I've worked with at previous companies. Shout out to Christian Friedland. He started a company called Build.com and he gave a presentation at Chico State before he invested in business apps. And he said two things. He said, read How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis and don't work at Enterprise Rent A Car. I did both of those things and life worked out pretty well for me, I think. But the book is just this very honest story about what it's like and what it kind of takes to get rich.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  And it's not for everyone and it shouldn't be for everyone. Like there's a lot of sacrifices you have to make. The guy also was just very candid of some of his personal problems. It's just such a great read into the inside of someone like, what's it really like to be a millionaire? That's basically what the book is about. And some, some key takeaways I took from that book was equity isn't the most important thing. It's the only thing that matters. And so that was a big driver of why I didn't raise money at business apps. Um, so next question.

• 56:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Sleep schedule. I used to sleep five or six hours. Now I sleep eight or nine and I sleep on the eight sleep thermoregulated bed and then like literally track down Mateo and Alex like I have to invest in.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  I saw, I saw that tweet and I like, I actually went to the website and I, I think I'm going to buy one like.

• 57:01Anthony Pompliano?

  So nice. What's your sleep schedule? I, I like, what is it now and how has it changed over the years?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Um, so I'm, I'm a, I'm a big advocate of sleep. If you don't sleep well, you make bad decisions and you feel like shit. And you need to take care of yourself. As a startup founder, like, like what I signed up for microquire is I'm going to be building this company for a decade. Like, if I'm sleeping four hours a night, like, I'm not gonna last. I learned that from my first company. Um, where I was working, you know, so much. Now I just focus on empowering my team, delegating. Um, so to answer your question, sleep schedule, I ha- I, I'm basically on the east coast. Um, my son, I, we put him in bed around like seven. I'm asleep by like nine and then I wake up at like five. So I get, um, solid eight hours.

• 57:51Anthony Pompliano?

  That is, uh, that's pretty good. The, uh, how do you go to sleep at nine P M? I, a lot of people struggle with this. It's probably the number one thing people ask me about sleep. How do you go to sleep earlier? What, what do you do? Do you have like a routine or anything?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Um, I take candidly, um, I take melatonin every night, uh, which, which probably is bad for you. So I don't recommend it. But my thought process, process around that is bad sleep. Cause I have a mind that's always just kind of working and especially when you really start loving what you're doing. It's hard to turn that, you know, turbo engine in your mind off. So, uh, I'll take like, you know, a, a small like melatonin thing. And then, um, get kind of drowsy and then, um, I put my phone in another room.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  And this is a big tip for people who can't wake up early, like it's just hard. Put your phone in another room, like your kitchen, and then turn your alarm, your alarm on super loud. So five in comes around, you gotta get up and get up at the same time every day. Like have a routine that you stick to. Um, but phone in the other room is a game because you gotta get up. And then my phone's downstairs, like if I don't get to it in time, my son's waking up. Um, so I rush down and then it's right next to, oh, guess what? My coffee machine. So that's, that's my morning routine.

• 59:18Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a pretty good one. I like the, uh, no phone in the bedroom. I feel like that has a massive impact. Third question, aliens, are you a believer or a non-believer?

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Uh, I, I, I like that question. I, I, I'm a believer. I think statistically it's impossible that there's not something else out there. Like the, like the universe is infinite and the mind can't comprehend infinite. So when you factor in infinite and you say, oh no, it's not like, yeah, they're out there. Uh, I, I just hope they're cool and it's not like some Independence Day shit or something like that.

• 1:00:00Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that hopefully they will be cool. That, that's my hope as well.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  What if, what if, what if, what if they dropped in and they're like all startup experts? Then you started disrupting like everything that suck.

• 1:00:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, you gotta remember that, uh, I, I think that as threat, uh, risks rise, so do defenses. And so, uh, I, I tend to think that we'll be okay, hopefully, who, who knows for sure, but hope. What one question you have for me to, uh, to wrap us up?

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  Uh, what do you like to do for fun?

• 1:00:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Read, go on walks with my wife and, uh,

• 1:00:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Learn. It's it's kind of sounds weird, but like if you give me like an afternoon of free time, I guess pretty much the three things that I'll do is either I'll go try to like learn something new. I just kind of chill out uh and read whether it's, you know, uh actually read on like a computer on a physical book or uh listen to an audio book. Uh and then I try every day to uh to go for a walk with my wife. So it's pretty much it.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  I I literally do kind of the the exact same thing like every day. Me, my wife, um will walk our son up to, you know, restaurant. Um but uh and another question, um because I'm also an avid reader. Um what's your favorite book?

• 1:01:19Anthony Pompliano?

  My favorite book, I don't think I have a favorite, like just one book. Uh I always tell people the three most impactful books for me uh were Rich Dad, Poor Dad, uh Thinking Girl Rich and The Richest Man in Babylon. Uh it's three books I read all around the same time when I was uh twenty, twenty-one years old and uh they definitely um, you know, kind of changed the way that I I thought about it. Uh the second thing I would say is probably one of the more uh important books that I've read, uh Guns, Germs and Steel, uh Jared Diamond. That's a great one. And then I would say that uh maybe like one of the the more interesting ones

• 1:02:05Anthony Pompliano?

  that I think of often. I read two books at the same time uh that I thought were pretty good, uh Super Forecasters and Algorithms to Live By. And if you read those two books kind of together, uh I they tend to uh kind of change the way you think about like, you know, humans really suck at forecasting, do it being disciplined, etc. And computers are probably better at, you know, both of those things than us.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely. I got one more question for you. Who's um uh I'm gonna read all those books and then I'll I'll I'll send you like uh a learning just to show. I read it a lot. Um I'm I'm an avid. That's also just to add to my morning routine. Um I wake up at five. Um I usually will try to meditate a little bit.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  And then I'll do a short workout, nothing major, fifteen minutes. I'm not trying to be a bodybuilder. And then I get to work. And I think that's very important because it clears your mind, gets you on the right pace, it gives you energy. And then I read.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  So, uh, last question for you. Um, who's your favorite entrepreneur right now? And you can't say Elon Musk.

• 1:03:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, no, Stefan Nata, somebody like that.

• 1:03:21Anthony Pompliano?

  It's probably, I don't think that, you know, and this is probably inflammatory to some people, like, I don't, I don't think it's anywhere near the same thing when you're running a tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollar company. Right? Obviously.

• 1:03:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes, you can be kind of innovative. You can, you know, be hard charging, all this kind of stuff, but there's so much delegation that goes on, like you're more of a, a significant leader. Uh, you're a manager, you have to have a different skill set to do that. Uh, the great entrepreneurs transition and acquire that skill set and continue to do it.

• 1:04:00Anthony Pompliano?

  And so somebody would be like, oh, that's not an entrepreneur. You're like a corporate executive. I think it's hard to argue that. Like, I wouldn't go that far. Uh, but I do think it's a different skill set. The people that I think,

• 1:04:11Anthony Pompliano?

  are trying to do like the really, really hard stuff. Uh, at the earliest stage, that to me is the, is the most fun. Um, as you can tell, I'm not going to pick just one, but I think that it's this idea of taking an idea and like the zero to one type, uh, action, not necessarily like the Peter Thiel, like, oh, you've got to create something brand new. But whether it is a small business that literally like, hey, I'm going to set up a restaurant. Or it is, you know, the next Google, Facebook, whatever. Uh, I think that that like action of going from, you know, inaction and, and no inertia to like, okay, I got started. That's the most fun time because that's the one that relies the most heavily on the individual themselves.

• 1:04:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Cause usually they don't have anything else. It's just that, right? You talked about running micro acquire was just you. Uh, to me, that's the kind of the, the most exciting fun time.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  We, if I come out to Miami, I'm gonna buy you dinner, man. Cause I think we have a lot in common. I, I kind of revert to the same question, same answer where I got respect for entrepreneurs. Anyone chasing their dreams, hell yeah.

• 1:05:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Where can we send people to find out more about MicroAcquire or follow you on the internet?

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  Uh, you can follow me on Twitter at AGazdeki, if you can spell that. I'm not gonna spell it for you. I'm gonna send you an Easter egg hunt or just, um, reach out to me at [email protected]. I love connecting with entrepreneurs. Um, I'm happy to share feedback, questions on your business, um, help any way I can. Um, yeah, or just go to microacquire.com, sign up, check it out. Um, we'd love your feedback.

• 1:05:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Well, listen, thank you so much for doing this. I think people learned a lot. If anyone is trying to buy or sell a startup, please go to microacquire.com and, uh, we'll definitely do this again in the future.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Sounds good. Thanks for having me, pal.