After the acquisition of Spotted by Locals in 2021 – the beloved community Sanne & myself founded in 2008 – I stayed on as “Interim CEO” for a while.
Spotted by Locals was the third start-up I co-founded that was acquired, after Eurodidakt Suriname (1997) and Gezond Verzuim (2001).
What I did
To prepare the acquisition I:
- created documentation: an overview of what Spotted by Locals does, an overview of our staff, products / services (app sales, content licensing), financial information and high level analytical data. All with links to source data, for complete transparancy
- created a functional & technical design of our website & iOS / Android app, including a folder with all technical files
- was responsible for setting up and doing meetings with potential partners and choosing the wonderful partner who ended up acquiring Spotted by Locals.
After the acquisition I stayed on for 4 months on a freelance contract until the new manager (Jorn) was available to take over. During this time I:
- ran Spotted by Locals
- cleaned up & re-organized all files and documentation
- created detailed process descriptions for all work
- organized all logins and passwords in a password manager
- transferred all ownership (apps, domains, etc.)
The results
I can’t put a “Euro figure” on the ROI from the documentation I created for potential partners, but I think the full transparancy offered created trust and helped to assess a fair price.
After the acquisition, the new manager Jorn and myself spent a week working together full-time going through and adjusting the process descriptions I created. After that, the process descriptions mostly sufficed. I spent 4 hours the first month, and after that less than 0.5 hours a month.
Jorn is a very smart guy and he learned quickly, but I think the organisation of all the data and process description helped considerably.
What I can do for you?
Looking to sell your start-up? I can help you:
- describe your processes
- clean up and organize your folders with documents
- make a functional & technical design of your service / software / app /
- assess what your start-up is worth
- find and contact potential buyers & help negotiate a fair price
