Justin Butlion’s path into SaaS acquisitions started with a capital allocation problem. His BI agency was profitable, but he had limited ways to reinvest the excess cash. In 2022, he began exploring acquisitions as another way to deploy it.
That search led to his first purchase through Acquire.com. Four years later, Justin had completed five deals and acquired 10 apps, all through the marketplace. What started as a way to put agency profits to work had become a SaaS acquisition strategy he was still refining.
Operating those businesses gave Justin a clearer view of what worked and where the model became harder to scale. Read on to see how he built the portfolio and why his next acquisition will look different.
From BI Operator to SaaS Buyer
Justin had spent much of his career working across startups, SaaS, business intelligence, and data. After leaving his last full-time role in 2017, he moved into freelancing and eventually built a BI agency serving SaaS and e-commerce companies.
The agency became profitable, but reinvesting the excess cash back into the business was not straightforward. Justin began exploring other places to deploy that capital and became increasingly interested in acquisitions.
He was already interested in investing when he heard Tiny founder Andrew Wilkinson discuss his acquisition approach on My First Million. The conversation gave Justin a model that connected investing with software businesses he already understood.
While living in Thessaloniki, Greece, he began reviewing deals on Acquire.com more seriously. That search led to Pulse Banner, which he acquired for around $45,000. His SaaS and data background gave him confidence in due diligence and in evaluating the numbers behind a business. The deal gave him a starting point. The next question was what he should buy after it.
Defining What Was Worth Buying
After Pulse Banner, Justin began defining the kind of SaaS he wanted to own. He favored mature, simple B2B businesses with low churn, limited maintenance, and modest growth. He was comfortable with roughly 10% to 30% annual growth if the business remained predictable.
Those criteria reflected his reality outside the portfolio. Justin was still consulting, serving agency clients, growing the business, and paying staff. He wanted acquisitions to remain a low-risk side operation that required only a few hours each week.
Marketplace apps became a natural fit. Products inside ecosystems such as Slack or Monday.com already benefited from organic discovery, reducing the distribution burden. The early thesis favored steady cash flow and limited intervention over aggressive growth.
From Listing Review to Due Diligence
Once his criteria became clearer, Justin also became faster at deciding which opportunities deserved more attention. He starts by reviewing listings on Acquire.com, requesting access, signing the NDA, and checking the available financial information.
That first review usually leads to five to 10 questions covering unclear points, potential red flags, and financing. If seller financing is necessary, the seller’s answer can determine whether the deal goes any further. Justin also uses those early exchanges to establish credibility and, when useful, requests direct access to underlying data.
If the answers hold up, he often moves quickly to a letter of intent (LOI). He wants exclusivity before investing more time in the opportunity. Justin recalls that four of his five initial offers ultimately became the final price.
The signed LOI leads into deeper due diligence, where he focuses on churn, pricing opportunities, simple growth levers, and capital recovery. He wants to know not only whether the business can improve, but how long it could take to get his money back. That calculation became especially important after his largest acquisition.
The $97K Deal That Changed the Math
MeetSlack cost Justin $97,000, making it his largest acquisition to date. He paid roughly half upfront and financed the rest through the seller. It took 21 months to clear that balance, and Justin chose to pay more each month than the contract required.
The structure looked manageable, but the cash flow worked differently than he had first appreciated. In Justin’s example, the app generated about $3,000 per month with roughly $100 in expenses. Around $2,500 went to the seller, while taxes were still due on revenue. After about two years, he estimates he had made only around $1,000.
Once the seller financing was paid off, the economics changed substantially. Justin later calculated a roughly 25% annualized return if he sold the business at 3x. He also estimated returns above 50% on the equity portion because he had put down about $45,000. Even so, it took roughly 36 to 37 months to recover his capital, a timeline he says he had not fully appreciated when he made the deal.
What Owning 10 Apps Revealed
Across five acquisitions, Justin eventually built a portfolio of 10 apps. Most have remained flat or grown slightly, which broadly matched the cash-flow strategy he had chosen. Last year, those businesses generated about $75,000 in top-line revenue, with Justin aiming for roughly $100,000 this year. With no employees or CTO, he estimated net margins around 85% to 90%.
That cash flow became more meaningful after Justin effectively shut down his agency. The portfolio generated enough income to support him and gave him runway to work on other projects. But owning 10 apps also exposed a limitation in the model. His products generate roughly $700 to $800 per month on average, while every additional acquisition adds support, risk, and operational complexity.
One package deal made that trade-off especially clear. Justin bought three Monday.com apps for about $15,000 at roughly a 1.2x multiple, which made the payback look fast on paper. In practice, support time rose by about 30% while growth remained limited. By then, Justin’s conclusion was clear: the small-app portfolio model was not really scalable.
Why His Next Acquisition Will Look Different
That limitation changed what Justin wants from the next deal. He no longer plans to keep buying small apps simply because the price looks attractive. Instead, he wants a larger, more traditional SaaS business with more room to invest in marketing and growth.
In one example, Justin described a business doing around $7,000 to $15,000 in MRR, potentially requiring about $200,000 to acquire. The appeal would be a clear path toward $30,000 or $40,000 in MRR over the following 12 to 24 months.
Getting there creates another decision. Justin is weighing whether to bring in investors and move faster or wait until he can preserve more control. Either path marks a shift away from accumulating small apps and toward businesses with greater growth potential.
Lessons for SaaS Buyers
Five deals and 10 apps gave Justin more than a portfolio. They also changed how he evaluates the economics, customers, and operating demands behind an acquisition. Three lessons now stand out in the way he thinks about buying SaaS businesses.
- Model seller financing beyond the upfront payment. Financing can reduce the cash needed to close a deal, but it can also extend the real payback period. Justin learned to account for monthly repayments, taxes, and how long his capital remains tied up before meaningful cash returns begin.
- Treat B2B as a spectrum, not a single category. Selling to freelancers and selling to hospitals both qualify as B2B, but their churn profiles can be radically different. Justin now looks more closely at the customer base because those differences can materially change years of projected cash flow.
- A low multiple does not guarantee an easy portfolio. Small apps can look attractive when the purchase price and expected payback are low. But each additional product also adds support, risk, and operational overhead, which can grow faster than the revenue those acquisitions contribute.
Taken together, those lessons changed what Justin considers a good acquisition. Price still matters, but so do the quality of the revenue, the structure of the deal, and the operational burden that remains after the transaction closes.
What’s Next
For the next 12 months, Justin’s attention is split across four areas: consulting, his newsletters, the SaaS portfolio, and Project ECHO, a product he has been building himself. Together, those efforts support his broader goal of reaching about $20,000 in monthly recurring revenue across the businesses he owns and operates.
Another acquisition is not part of the immediate plan. With consulting revenue lower and seller financing still being paid down, Justin expects it could take another nine to 12 months to rebuild his acquisition war chest. He is still monitoring opportunities on Acquire.com, though, and remains open to moving sooner if the right deal comes along.
Looking for your next acquisition? Explore businesses for sale on Acquire.com and find opportunities that fit your investment criteria.
Justin started with one SaaS acquisition and now manages a 10-app portfolio while rethinking what the next deal should look like. Watch the full episode on YouTube and follow Justin to keep up with his portfolio, newsletters, and what he builds next: