A tailwind, by its Wikipedia definition, is a wind that blows in the same direction as an object, increasing its speed and reducing the time required to reach its destination.
Tailwinds exist in business too.
Daniel Ch, founder of SimpleInk, a Notion-based website builder, sold his business for six figures in less than two years after building. He believes his success is because he built on the tailwind of the growing no-code movement on Notion.
Daniel hopped on the Acquire.com podcast the other day to discuss his sale.
This isn’t Daniel’s first time on the Startup Acquisition Stories Podcast. He was on as a buyer in January of 2022 after purchasing an online feedback tool called Emojics. At the time, he was still working on SimpleInk, a website for creating websites based on Notion templates.
Daniel, 25, and his brother David, 19, have been playing around with Notion since it was still a simple online planner tool. They noticed almost immediately it was pretty hard to make an ugly Notion page. Others did as well.
Because Notion pages looked so clean, Daniel saw many users trying to turn their Notion pages into websites. However, Notion doesn’t have web hosting, users would purchase a domain from another service and redirect the URL to Notion.
Daniel realized a hosting service that could automatically design websites based on an input Notion template was highly valuable.
Instead of waiting around to build the product, he created a video showing what his product would do. Then, he created a signup sheet and sold year-long subscriptions at a 50 percent discount for early adopters.
There was loads of interest from potential customers. When Daniel finally completed the product in 2022, he reached a healthy monthly salary (aka ramen profitability) for both him and his brother.
However, after a couple of years of work, Daniel wanted to unlock some of the value of his business. And he already knew the best place to do it.
No-code is becoming increasingly popular on marketplaces like Acquire.com and buyers flocked to his listing. Daniel claims to finally understand what it’s like being a hot girl.
Having already been on the buyer’s end, Daniel knew exactly what to look for. He secured a favorable deal quickly.
Listen to Daniel’s talk with Andrew to hear about:
- How to enjoy the ups and downs of building a business
- How to derisk building and selling a business
- How to know you’ve found the right buyer
- Andrew’s advice for how to quickly validate your product
Daniel and David (his brother and co-founder) are now busy building two new businesses:
- SaaSpad.co – SEO and content agency for SaaS companies.
- Guides.ai – Beginner’s guides for all AI related topics
Follow Daniel on their new journey here:
