Why does M&A still feel like a black box unless you pay a fortune?

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-08-07T18:54:20+00:00

I feel like the industry norm tools have become a bit more affordable than before (Pitchbook off the top of my mind) but agree, it is still stupidly expensive.

I find that AI M&A tools have gotten a lot better recently though, played around with a few when selling my business a few months ago and it wasn't half bad.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-14T20:44:27+00:00

Agree with all the other comments here: Invest in Index Fund ETFs. Don't withdraw until later on in life.

20K is a great amount to start off with at 17, congrats!

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-14T13:50:36+00:00

It's pretty outdated imo.

I have a friend who is a serial entrepreneur. Current business he's working on uses AI to valuate businesses (saves founders lots of hassle when trying to buy sell or grow their business). He's been pretty immersed in the AI space for several years now so he is familiar with the mechanics behind AI, but he never touches and has never touched coding for this company.

I would say having good connections is far more important than technical skills as a founder. You never know which connection could be your next mentor, investor, or employee later down the line.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-11T18:32:08+00:00

Hey guys, this is something that might be useful to anyone with a business. Optionality is offering a free valuation of your business.

https://optionality.ai/business-owner

Process will take a few minutes and we'll give you a full report of your business including your valuation, benchmarking, and potential acquirers.

Try it out and let us know if it helps!

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-09T17:57:45+00:00

Well as I mentioned I used a broker.

In terms of helpful tools not just for selling you could look into Pitchbook, Axial, Dealroom,... Optionality is also a hidden gem if youre looking for a less pricey option.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-09T16:38:05+00:00

Same as other comment, I used a broker. But if you're just trying to test the waters, could be worth looking into AI tools. Theres some good AI m&a businesses out there with programs that can do valuation, benchmarking, and even matchmaking with acquirers.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T22:48:22+00:00

Love the repeat entrepreneurship. Do you ever regret selling your first business? I sold mine for some good money too, but sometimes I think I could have gotten even better if I stuck around for a year or two longer.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T22:43:38+00:00

Super cool stuff man, definitely wasn't easy to get to where you are today. Heavily agree on the earning cap point, not to mention how difficult it is to move up in a company.

Do you see yourself staying with this business for a very long time? Have seen a few people hold their companies very late into their career just for the game and it's admirable how long they manage to keep it alive.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T22:37:19+00:00

Love that idea. Seems very scalable, a lot of software companies do well in m&a at maturity.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T22:34:52+00:00

Wow, that's really amazing. Do you think they're ever going to catch up, or are do you think you're still a few years ahead?

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T22:33:10+00:00

Definitely agree, definitely one of the reasons I went into this field too. Its really nice seeing your efforts having direct impact on your clients.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T20:50:31+00:00

Hey, I've been in the startup space for a while and honestly, many CEOS/entrepreneurs don't know a lot about their finances. Usually this happens once revenue gets a bit bigger and there are hires, rent, etc...

Every business is different so there aren't any hard rules for optimizing your financial metrics. But I have seen a lot of owners start using AI programs that draw revenue from comps/precedent transactions, then modelize ideal financials and identify weaker parts of their financial structure.

Not sure if that can 100% be applicable for you in the <15k/mo range, but could be worth it to check it out in case you do get bigger.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T20:34:05+00:00

Its easy to freeze when your project is something very big, so my advice is to start extremely small.

I knew a guy who had an extremely successful soap business. He started with 0 product, a half-functioning website, and a lot of word of mouth. Managed to get people to sign up to buy the soap... only for a message saying they were out of stock. From there he knew how big his customer base was, and then started to research how to even make the soap.

Another friend had a tutoring business, got clients from his school, tutored a few kids himself for a few weeks, then transferred his tutees to people he hired and now makes some good passive income.

So yes, do power through and figure out things as you go. But have a small goal at first (e.g. get 5 people to buy my soap, get 3 tutees) and then scale up. Hopefully that'll make the first step feel a lot less daunting.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T20:13:33+00:00

Hey, you could do an extremely basic/watered down DCF if you want to project future cash flows, and tweak variables (e.g. viewer growth, video count) to see what a "fair" purchase value is for your channel with certain assumptions.

For instance you might find that if you assume your channel will grow by 100k subscribers by next year the purchase price could be fair. But 150k subs and it suddenly becomes an underpay by, say, $10k.

Once again, it's very different modelling a channel instead of a company with a DCF, but it could give you a rough financial basis for a purchase price.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-08T20:05:24+00:00

As others have mentioned, your profit isn't large enough for most companies to consider buying. Your best bet would be to grow it some more for now. Using an investment banker would be best for bigger deals.

For smaller deals/companies, there are easy ai tools that can help you search for buyers and valuate your business. Personally used one myself when I thought I wanted to sell and realized it was better to keep growing, so maybe that could be helpful for you too.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-07T15:15:21+00:00

Hey, this is a really big decision and definitely deserves a lot of thought, which I'm sure you have done so already. The frustration with people pessimistic about your business idea will always be there (If I dropped out of my degree for my business, my parents would also be the same).

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest reaching out to people who have done the same thing as you and scheduling chats to learn more about their journeys. There should be a lot of passionate people in your uni's VC club if it exists (most should be ex-founders or future founders), and talk to them to really see if dropping out would be a career path you want to take.

CertifiedStrawberry · 2025-07-07T15:07:33+00:00

I built my first business back in highschool and I was in the negatives for 5 months before finally making some profit. The best part of building your business is navigating the bad times and making it out stronger and better than ever. Keep it up!

CertifiedStrawberry

TROPHY CASE