Business exits and small M&A case studies
These are exits where a business run by an individual or a small team was sold, and the price or terms were made public. Small Start records the sale price, the multiple on monthly profit, the type of buyer and how the deal came together.
The focus is not just the price but why that multiple was paid — growth trend, key-person risk, and fit with the buyer all move the number.
- Case studies
- 163
- Sale price
- 120億円
Exit and acquisition cases
1–24 of 163
Feather: The "Write in Notion, Publish as a Blog" SaaS Sold for $250K Two Years In — the Buyer Was Tibo, Who Exited Tweet Hunter
Bhanu Teja P built Feather in public on X, reaching $50K ARR 9.5 months after launch. In June 2024 it sold for $250K at $6K MRR — roughly 3.5x annual revenue. The buyer was Tibo, known for exiting Tweet Hunter. A rare look at how peer-to-peer micro-M&A gets priced.
Skeb: The "Personal Hobby Service" That Sold All Its Shares for ¥1 Billion — Settling the Risk of One Person Holding ¥200 Million a Month in Transactions
Skeb, which its founder called a "personal hobby service," reached 1 million registered users and roughly ¥200 million in monthly transaction volume in just over two years, then became a subsidiary of Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha in February 2021 for ¥1 billion. The top reason for selling was not stalled growth but payment-settlement risk.
Base44: Six Months Old, Eight Employees, an $80M All-Cash Sale — but $25M of It Was Retention Pay
Base44, the AI app-building platform started by one person, sold to Wix for $80M in cash about six months after founding. But $25M of that is retention compensation for its eight employees — the headline number cannot be read as the founder's take.
Abbey Road: He Sold His Own Assets to Take Over a 20-Year Rakuten Watchband Store
Katsuhito Saiki, who worked at a seafood trading company, took over "Abbey Road," a watchband shop that had run for 20+ years on Rakuten Market. He'd once passed on the listing because it exceeded his budget, but returned to it; when a loan from the Japan Finance Corporation was rejected, he sold off his own assets to raise funds. Negotiations spanned about 1 year and 8 months.
Daily Lodging Report: A $450/Year Husband-and-Wife Hotel Newsletter Sells to Skift
The Daily Lodging Report, a daily newsletter covering the hotel and lodging industry, was run by Alan Woinski and his wife, who sold annual subscriptions at $450 to thousands of readers before selling the business to travel-industry media company Skift in 2021. The endpoint of a business built simply on summarizing the industry, every single day.
Puzzle Ready: 99% Amazon FBA, $3M/Year — a Single-Product Puzzle-Table Brand Shaped Into What Buyers Want, Sold at 6x Profit
Puzzle Ready, a puzzle-table e-commerce brand, kept 99% of sales on Amazon FBA and still reached $3M/year, selling to eBrands in December 2021 at 6x profit (3.5x upfront + 2.5x earnout). The turning point was a design choice: pick an aggregator as the target buyer and refuse to diversify.
Employee-Referral Hiring Platform EmployUs, at $700K ARR, Sold to HR Giant Hireology: A Sale That Chose to Become "a Feature"
EmployUs, which systematizes employee referral hiring, was sold to hiring-management SaaS Hireology at the $700K ARR stage (about ¥100M). Too small to fight alone, strong as a feature — a real case study in the decision to "become part of a suite."
Courier: An Entrepreneur-Focused Print Magazine Sold to Mailchimp — a Contrarian Exit for Paper in the Digital Age
Courier, a UK print magazine covering small-business and entrepreneurial culture, was acquired by email giant Mailchimp. In an era when anyone can start a newsletter, a media brand built deliberately on paper was bought as a brand vehicle for a digital company.
SEO Blog Backlinko, 500K Monthly Visits, Sells to Semrush for Seven Figures: The Rare Strategy of Doing the Opposite of Mass Production
Brian Dean's SEO blog Backlinko drew 500,000 monthly visits with a strategy of publishing few articles but polishing each one to perfection, and was sold to SEO tool giant Semrush for seven figures (hundreds of millions of yen). A classic case in content strategy: winning at the polar opposite of "write a lot."
AIContentfy: $1M ARR in Under 2 Years, 100+ LOIs — Selling Itself by Splitting Into Three
Teemu Raitaluoto's AIContentfy started with a single article driving over 10,000 monthly visitors via SEO, reaching $1M ARR in under two years. At exit, he split the business into three listings, drew 100+ LOIs, and secured an all-cash offer from among the final three bidders.
Screenshot-Annotation Tool InstaCap Sold for 6x Revenue to a Serial Entrepreneur: Why It Beat the Standard Micro-SaaS Multiple
InstaCap, a tool for annotating and sharing screenshots, was sold by founder Samee Hassan to serial entrepreneur Joe Speiser at 6x revenue. Material for thinking about what conditions produce a multiple above the standard 3–5x range.
Shopify App Portfolio Plug in Useful, 37,000 Users, Sold to SureSwift: An App Business Built by "The SEO Guy"
Plug in Useful, a portfolio of Shopify apps run solo by Daniel Sim with 37,000 users, was sold to SureSwift Capital, a serial acquirer of SaaS businesses. A real example of a specialist-turned-founder building an ecosystem by turning his own SEO expertise into apps.
Amazon x eBay Support Integrator ChannelReply Sold to Threecolts for Eight Figures: A Plain "Connector" Pulls Off a Big Win
ChannelReply, which routes buyer messages from Amazon, eBay, and other marketplaces into help desks like Zendesk, was sold by Michael Dash and team to e-commerce software roll-up Threecolts for eight figures in dollars. A case where a piece that merely "connects two systems" turned into a several-billion-yen exit.
Streets of Rogue: An Indie Game Built on $18,000 Sold for Roughly $6.5M — the Six-Year Story
Streets of Rogue, a roguelike made by a solo developer with $18,000 of his own money, sold over one million copies, generated $8M in lifetime revenue, and was acquired by tinyBuild for $6.5M in June 2021.
Visual Quiz Builder: A Shopify Diagnostic-Quiz App Sold for $1M With Zero Ad Spend — the Quiet Growth
Visual Quiz Builder, which adds "find the product that fits you" diagnostic quizzes to Shopify stores, was sold to Alleyway Capital for around $1 million while spending almost nothing on advertising or traditional marketing. A record of reaching an exit purely on organic growth inside an app store.
Sales SaaS Autoklose: From a Conference Demo to Acquisition — the Negotiation That Doubled the Offer
Autoklose, a bootstrapped sales-automation SaaS, was sold to sales-engagement veteran VanillaSoft after a demo at an industry conference sparked the deal. The founder pushed the sale price to double the initial offer — a rare, concrete example of small-SaaS negotiation.
Backlink-Design SaaS SEOJet Doubled Its Price in the Year Before the Sale — What the Prep Work Looked Like
Founder Adam White sold SEOJet, a tool for designing backlink anchor-text profiles, for double the price he originally expected, by doing extra groundwork right before the sale. A real example showing that "the year before you sell" moves the sale price more than anything else.
SearchSEO Sold for About $300K: The Exit and the Limits of a "Gray-Hat SaaS"
SearchSEO, a SaaS that manipulated search-result click-through rates with simulated traffic, was sold by founder Martin Delannoy to individual buyers for around $300K (about ¥45M). Material for thinking about the pricing and timing of a business carrying terms-of-service risk.
Podcast Clout, Born as a PR Agency's Internal Tool, Sold at 3x Revenue to a Pair of Individual Investors
Podcast Clout, a SaaS database of podcast shows, began as a tool the founder built for her own PR agency's work before it was productized — and it ultimately sold at 3x revenue to two individual investors. "Productizing an internal tool" remains one of the most pre-validated ways to start a company.
WFH Advisor: A Pandemic-Era Side Project Sells for 34x Monthly Revenue — How to Exit a “Trend Niche”
WFH Advisor, an information site about remote work setups, was launched as a side project by three co-founders during the pandemic, grew through SEO, and was sold for 34 times its monthly revenue. A concise case illustrating the standard lifecycle of a niche site riding a trend.
WordPress Theme Craftsman Array Themes Joins WP Engine: The Negotiation Lessons of "Selling After Saying No, Again and Again"
Array Themes, a one-person WordPress theme studio, turned down multiple acquisition offers before finally selling to WordPress hosting giant WP Engine. A case where the seller's selectivity — who to refuse and who to say yes to — takes center stage.
Parenting Media Site Red Tricycle Sold for $6.5M — Riding Out the "Winter of Ad-Supported Media" Through the Exit
Red Tricycle, a parenting media site that suggests what families should do on the weekend, grew to millions of monthly users under founder Jacqui Boland and was sold to family app company Tinybeans for $6.5M (about ¥975 million). A realistic exit for ad-dependent media.
Meal-Prep Subscription Workweek Lunch Sells to a Peer: A D2C Media Business Built on the Never-Ending Question of "What to Cook"
Workweek Lunch, a subscription delivering meal-prep menu plans, was built single-handedly by founder Talia Koren over seven years and sold to fellow meal-prep business MealPrep On Fleek. A case of turning the eternal question of "what do I cook this week?" into subscription revenue.
UNO Magazine: Buying a Dying Magazine, Turning It Around, Selling It Again — the Business of “Media Flipping”
UNO, a New Zealand magazine, was rescued from the brink of closure by Jenny Rudd and rebuilt before being sold to SAO Media. It shows that the same business as real-estate flipping — buy distressed, fix, sell — works for media too.
FAQ
- What can a small online business sell for?
- Documented deals here range from a few thousand dollars to tens of millions. Japanese site marketplaces cluster around 12–24x monthly profit; bootstrapped SaaS deals in this archive landed at roughly 3–6x annual revenue.
- Where do sellers find buyers?
- Routes in these cases include marketplaces (Rakko M&A, Batonz, Acquire), direct outreach to ecosystem roll-ups, communities and conferences, and inbound from acquisition funds.