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
- 183
- Sale price
- 862.5億円
Exit and acquisition cases
1–24 of 183
Native: A Lawyer Who Couldn't Read His Deodorant Label Sold His D2C Brand to P&G for $100M Cash in About 2.5 Years
Launched in July 2015, D2C deodorant brand Native sold to P&G for $100M in cash in November 2017. It raised just $500K, leaving founder Moiz Ali with over 90% ownership. At exit: $30M annual revenue and $1M monthly net profit. A numbers-first look at 2.5 years of one product, one channel, one ad platform.
10Beasts: An 8-Article Amazon Affiliate Site Hit $80K/Month in 9 Months — Sold for $570K, Google Penalty 17 Days Later
Student Luqman Khan's Amazon affiliate site 10Beasts reached $80,000 a month in commissions with just 8 articles, nine months after launch. In December 2017 it sold for $570,000 via Empire Flippers — and 17 days after handover, a Google penalty struck. A case where timing the exit made all the difference.
Bargaineering: From Cents a Day to a $3M Sale in Five Years
Launched in January 2005, US personal finance blog Bargaineering was earning "a few cents to maybe a dollar a day" at the six-month mark. Five years later, in 2010, it sold for $3 million. Founder Jim Wang has kept publishing the details himself — here is what the numbers say about the slow start and the eventual exit.
WooThemes: The Cape Town WordPress Theme Shop Whose $30M+ Exit Was Earned by a Late-Born "Internal Plugin" — WooCommerce
WooThemes, the South African WordPress theme company, was sold to Automattic in May 2015. Per Re/code's reporting, the consideration was over $30M in cash and stock. What carried the bootstrapped three-founder company to its exit was WooCommerce, the e-commerce plugin it launched belatedly in 2011. At the sale: 55 people across ~20 countries.
The Wirecutter: $30M+ From The New York Times, 5 Bootstrapped Years by an Ex-Gizmodo Editor
Review site The Wirecutter was sold to The New York Times in October 2016. Reports put the payment at over $30M including retention bonuses. Former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam founded it in 2011 with his own money and grew it to $150M in e-commerce transactions via affiliate links in 2015.
The Hustle: $17.2M in Cash, in the Buyer's SEC Filing — the Price the Founder Never Named
Business newsletter The Hustle was sold to HubSpot in February 2021. Founder Sam Parr never disclosed the price, but HubSpot's 10-K filed with the SEC records a cash purchase price of $17.2M. We read the sale through public documents, including the gap with the ~$27M valuation reported by Axios.
Morning Brew: $500 in Revenue in Its First Two Years — Then a Majority Sale in All Cash at a $75M Valuation Five Years On
Business newsletter Morning Brew sold a majority stake to Insider Inc. in October 2020, all cash. Per Axios reporting, the deal valued the company around $75M. Started by two University of Michigan students in 2015, it made just $500 in its first two years; in the sale year it projected $20M revenue, $6M profit, and 3M+ subscribers.
Wufoo: The Form-Builder SaaS That Raised Only $118K in Angel Money and Sold for $35M Five Years Later
Form-builder SaaS Wufoo was sold to SurveyMonkey in April 2011. According to TechCrunch, the price was $35M in cash and stock. A 2006 Y Combinator company, it raised only $118,000 from angels — and in five years without another round, over $100M in payments flowed through its forms.
280blocker: The Solo-Built Ad Blocker That Sold for ¥377M — 14x Its Operating Profit — When Its Developer Fell Ill
iOS ad blocker 280blocker was sold to listed company Tobila Systems for ¥377 million in August 2021. Its disclosed financials showed ¥38M revenue and ¥27M operating profit, putting the price at roughly 14x annual profit. The app had topped Japan's App Store paid rankings three years running — and changed hands when its solo developer fell ill.
PlentyOfFish: Sold for $575M in All Cash with Zero VC and 100% Ownership — 12 Years of the Man Who Coded a Dating Site Alone
Canadian dating site PlentyOfFish was sold to Match Group in 2015 for $575M in all cash. Founder Markus Frind ran it for 12 years with zero VC funding and 100% ownership. By his own account, in 2008 the site netted about $10M a year while he worked 10 hours a week. It had 75 employees at the time of sale.
55% margins, a ¥35.3M price: the supplement subscription nobody bought at ¥80M
A supplement subscription EC business asked roughly ¥80M, found no buyer, and closed at ¥35.3M (about ¥40M including the 10% brokerage fee). Monthly operating profit was about ¥1.3M on a 55% margin, repeat rate 90%, zero complaints in five years. Of roughly ten deals the buyer approached, one survived.
The Penny Hoarder: From Personal Blog to $50M Revenue in 10 Years — and a $102.5M All-Cash Exit at About 2x Sales
Personal finance media The Penny Hoarder sold to Sykes Enterprises for $102.5M in cash in December 2020. Per local press reports, trailing-twelve-month revenue was $50M, putting the price at about 2x sales. Kyle Taylor started it as a personal blog in 2010 and reached these numbers in 10 years with no outside funding.
TreeHugger: The 3-Year-Old Green Blog Discovery Bought for $10M in 2007, on 1.4M Monthly Uniques
Environmental blog TreeHugger sold to Discovery Communications for $10M in August 2007. Per TechCrunch, it was founded in 2004 and drew 1.4M monthly unique visitors, ranking in Technorati's global Top 20. A pioneering case of big media buying a niche blog in an era when "green doesn't make money."
Bankaholic: A 2-Year-Old One-Man Finance Blog Bankrate Bought for Up to $15M
In 2008, US finance blog Bankaholic sold to Bankrate for $12.4M upfront plus an earnout of up to $2.5M — up to $15M total. Owner Johns Wu was the sole owner and sole worker of a roughly two-year-old WordPress blog. The buyer's CEO cited organic search rankings for deposit and credit card keywords as the reason.
TinyPilot: A $598K Exit Disclosed Down to the $610,147.83 Wire Transfer — Four Years of a $1M/Year Raspberry Pi KVM Business
TinyPilot, the Raspberry Pi-based remote KVM started in 2020 by ex-Google engineer Michael Lynch, sold for $598,000 in 2024 on trailing revenue of $1,022,090 and profit of $207,816. Broker fee $88,900, legal $18,297, wire on closing day $610,147.83 — a rare exit documented to the dollar.
Ruki: Selling a Personal Blog for ¥2.8M — a Seller's Full Walkthrough of a Brokered Site M&A in Japan
Most personal-blog sales in Japan never disclose price or process. In 2023, blogger Ruki sold her blog for ¥2.8 million through the brokerage Saitoma and published the entire journey: the appraisal form, interviews with three buyer candidates, the price negotiation, and the payout arriving the day after final inspection.
Fomo: a $10,000 MRR widget bought on seller financing, a best month of $154,000, and a seven-figure sale to Relay Commerce six years later
Ryan Kulp bought the social proof widget Notify at roughly $10,000 MRR in 2016, relaunched it as Fomo, and ran 39 consecutive months of growth to a best month of $154,000. Revenue at the 2022 sale to Relay Commerce was $107,200 a month. Both the purchase price and the sale price stay undisclosed.
Tenshoku Antenna: A One-Person Media Site, ¥700M Plus a ¥300M Earnout from Listed Company Logly
Tenshoku Antenna, a Japanese job-change media site run by moto (Shunsuke Totsuka) as a one-person company, became a 100% subsidiary of listed adtech firm Logly in April 2021. The founder disclosed the price himself: ¥700M plus an earnout of up to ¥300M. Negotiations took about six months, and his director compensation exceeded ¥100M a year — one of the largest disclosed exits for an individual-run media site in Japan.
Cal AI: The Calorie-Counting App Two 17-Year-Olds Built to $30M a Year and 15M Downloads, Sold to MyFitnessPal — a Year of Talks, Price Undisclosed
Cal AI, a calorie-tracking app built by two high schoolers in May 2024, reached 15M downloads and $30M+ in annual revenue in under two years and was sold to MyFitnessPal in December 2025 (price undisclosed). Growth ran on TikTok influencer marketing; the negotiations took about a year.
Starter Story: The $91.7K/Month Startup Case-Study Media Acquired by HubSpot — Months After the Founder Tweeted "HubSpot Should Acquire Starter Story"
Starter Story, the startup case-study media, was acquired by HubSpot in February 2026 while self-disclosing $91.7K/month and $1.1M/year in revenue with 1.6M monthly visits. Founder Pat Walls had tweeted "HubSpot should acquire Starter Story" just months earlier. The price is undisclosed.
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.
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.