MicroAquire

Andrew Gazzdechie had already proven himself as a founder. He built BusinessApps—a no-code app builder for mobile, essentially "Weebly for mobile apps"—while still in college with zero technical experience and no prior startup knowledge. He bootstrapped it to $10 million in ARR, raising only $100,000 along the way. In May 2018, he sold it. "I was tired," he recalls simply. "A year in a startup is like eight cat years."

But the sale revealed something else: the process had been unnecessarily painful. "When you have a smaller business, finding buyers isn't as easy as when you get to high revenue marks where PE firms and strategic acquirers just reach out." He had wanted to sell at times but struggled to even meet potential buyers. He saw a massive opportunity: there was no modern marketplace for M&A.

Andrew didn't jump into MicroAquire immediately. After the BusinessApps exit, he took a Chief Revenue Officer role at Spiff, a sales commission software. He was rebuilding his life—he'd become a father in October 2019, and his newborn had colic. He wasn't sleeping. He was managing a sales team, leading marketing, and running $0 to $2M in revenue for Spiff. Yet in the background, almost as a side project born from genuine passion, he started building MicroAquire.

"I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a CEO again," he explains. "I was looking for a number two role." But the marketplace idea wouldn't leave him alone. He launched on Product Hunt in January 2020—right before COVID hit. Once Spiff closed a $15M Series A, Andrew felt his job there was done. He found a replacement and committed fully to MicroAquire in mid-2020.

Critically, he rebuilt the core team with people from BusinessApps: his VP of Product, VP of Engineering, CFO, VP of Marketing, and a designer. "We were basically building the platform we wish we had when we went to sell BusinessApps."

Getting a two-sided marketplace off the ground is brutal. Andrew knew the skeptics were right: Flippa existed, brokers existed, marketplaces existed. So how did he break through?

Hustle. Pure, unglamorous hustle.

He ran a "pretty large cold outbound email campaign" to seed both sides. He got on the phone with seed investors, angel investors, VC funds, and corporate development teams. He reached out to founders who might want to list. He was in the live chat answering every question. He answered every email and every call, sometimes until 10 PM, just to understand what buyers needed to feel confident bidding, and what sellers needed to feel safe.

"Speaking with people who were already in the startup ecosystem—people actively looking to sell, who'd acquired, who'd sold before—that was the main thing," he says. "I talked to them about all the current players. What do they like? What don't they like?" He built MicroAquire around those insights.

Once they launched on Product Hunt with both sides seeded, "it just exploded from there. We saw thousands of users, and it's kind of just been up and to the right ever since."

In 18 months, MicroAquire facilitated over 300 acquisitions worth over $100 million in closed deal volume. The platform grew to 70,000 registered buyers and broke into the top 4,000 most visited websites globally—surpassing Flippa.

What worked was the free listing model and the no-commission structure. Sellers could list their startup for free with no exclusivity and no fees. They could connect directly with buyers. For a marketplace, this removed friction at critical moment: the decision to list.

What also worked was the founder's credibility. Andrew had walked the path. He'd sold a company. He knew the pain points. He wasn't selling a theory; he was solving a problem he'd lived through.

The cold outreach worked too. Before social proof, before viral loops, before the algorithm could kick in, there was just: phone calls and emails. "This is something a lot of founders are scared to do," he notes. "But in the early days, it's the most critical thing."

In summer 2021, MicroAquire raised $2.8 million at a $22 million post-money valuation. But Andrew is clear-eyed about the math: a $22M post-money valuation requires a venture-scale exit, probably $100M+. And with only a $290/year premium buyer subscription, the math doesn't work.

So he's building new revenue streams. First: an M&A advisor directory where brokers and M&A advisors can list their services. MicroAquire takes a referral commission off their fees. Since most brokers spend half their time on sales and marketing, and MicroAquire has thousands of startups, this creates instant distribution for advisors and recurring revenue for the platform.

Second: escrow, legal services, and valuations—all optional, all taking small commissions.

Third: a partnership with a $300M-raised startup to finance SaaS acquisitions over $1M in revenue. More buyers can afford to acquire if they can finance. MicroAquire takes a referral fee.

The vision is to become "the Zillow of M&A"—a data-driven, transparent, aggregated marketplace that consolidates the entire $100B+ M&A advisory industry. Not to replace brokers, but to level the playing field so bootstrapped founders can access the same information, advisors, and financing that well-connected founders get.

Andrew is still working 100+ hour weeks, doing everything from marketing to product to customer support. His next goal: delegate himself out of the business and into pure CEO mode. "A CEO should not be working more than 100 hours a week," he tweeted mid-podcast. "Delegate. Fire yourself from everything. Enable your team to succeed."

At 31, having exited once and built a billion-dollar problem into a venture-backed marketplace in just 18 months, he's just getting started.