I sold MakeLanding for $35,000, my 3rd acquisition this year

April 2023: Just like everyone, I get massive FOMO with AI. I played with GPT and decided to build a landing page generator with AI: Input text and the AI prefills a template with copy and AI-generated images. I'm working on it with my good friend @martindonadieu

May 2023: The product is called LandingAI. It's an MVP but we launched and made ~$8,000. Unfortunately, Martin and I have different visions for the project so we forked.

Marc Lou@marclou · May 1, 2023My new startup is live on @ProductHunt 🎉 LandingAI: Make beautiful websites in seconds 👇 producthunt.com/posts/landing-…

June 2023: LandingAI is the name of a big corp (bummer) so I rebranded it to MakeLanding. I ditch 90% of the code because users want a very different product: So here I am, building an entire website builder powered with AI 😅

July 2023: I launched again, but made a BIG mistake: I swapped the one-time payment for a monthly subscription and got $20 MRR for 15k visitors... 1. If you can avoid subscriptions, do it 2. New pricing means new positioning—users compared the app to Framer & Webflow

Marc Lou@marclou · Jun 29, 2023Launching MakeLanding on @ProductHunt now 🚀 → Build an entire website with 1 prompt Would love your support: producthunt.com/posts/makeland…

I removed the subscription and sales came back: ~$7,000 in 3 months But I realized this was going nowhere...

August 2023: - I don't use the product - The market is gigantic and crowded As a solopreneur, nothing is more important for me than building cool stuff for people I care about. And I didn't really care about this big market so...

I called my friend @DanKulkov and he said: SELL. Once again, he was right. I bought my shares of LandingAI from Martin and listed MakeLanding on @acquiredotcom: Asking $38,000 for $14,000 TTM (3x profit) Within hours, I received dozens of NDAs and a buyer started the process 🤯

September 2023: After a few weeks of NDA, LOI, Escrow, etc. the buyer sent the money but... Only a fraction of the transaction. Then he ghosted me. So I canceled the transition. Back to Acquire... Luckily, in 24 hours I got another buyer!

Within weeks, the money was in my bank account. We never called, just a few messages. It's mind-blowing.

My takeaways: 1. Don't build AI products just because 2. Don't go on a massive market you don't care 3. Sell if you don't know how to grow the product It's my 3rd acquisition this year 🥳 I wrote tips about valuation, how to sell, etc. marclou.beehiiv.com/p/how-to-sell-…