How do you know when you’ve finally found product market fit? Some founders might define it as when they get large numbers of customers with very little effort or money.
Barcelonian Joan Manuel (JM) Sanchez spent one dollar per day on Facebook ads to find product market fit for his startup, Studia. By the end of one week, he had a backed-up Calendar filled with potential clients.
In under one year, he’d exited the business for a healthy sum and made his father a Tiktok star.
Here’s how he got there.
Joan met his future cofounder and fellow Spaniard, Christian Korneev Dubrovski while studying at the University of San Francisco for a degree in entrepreneurship.
The two friends graduated and went separate ways. JM went to work at LinkedIn and cofounded a venture-backed ed-tech startup called Educatly. It was a global network connecting students to every education institution and scholarship available. Christian went to work in finance back in Barcelona. They were destined to reunite.
While building Educatly, JM noticed students in specific nations in Africa and Southeast Asia needed extra help connecting to education opportunities and scholarships. He called up his friend Christian and asked if he wanted to start an agency targeted at these students.
At this time, Christian was tired of going to an office and wearing a suit and tie every day. He wanted a change. They planned to try Studia as a side hustle and grow it slowly while they worked. They scrapped that plan the following week when Joan hopped on a call with his cofounder to learn he’d quit his job and was ready to go all-in on their new venture.
Without hesitation, Joan bought the domain for Studia, built a website, and began spending $1 a day on targeted Facebook ads in Kenya and Nigeria. Christian woke up the next week with 20 back-to-back meetings per day. He was so busy that he and Joan quickly built automated systems to better qualify students.
They were soon making healthy profits, but it was a time-consuming business and they wanted to try something else.
Joan found Acquire.com on an Instagram ad and listed the business for sale to test the waters. In days they were fielding hundreds of messages and had an LOI within just one month.
Hot off his recent acquisition, Joan joined Andrew in this week’s Startup Acquisition Stories Podcast to talk about:
- The importance of maintaining a good relationship with your buyer
- Why lower offers are sometimes better (if they meet certain criteria)
- How Joan used his sale earnings and free time to help his father become a Tiktok sensation
Joan and Christian are just getting started and you can follow and chat with them here:
