How I built an eCommerce site and got “acqui-hired” in one year

Did you think about getting acquired from the start or just hope that you would win some investment down the line?

D: Moreso the latter. We tried to set our business up in such a way that it would become an acquirable asset, but I didn’t think we did that with a view of being acquired, if that makes sense. With our banking experience we know what makes good companies operate and makes them viable, and I think we absolutely had investment on the radar. We knew our meagre savings would only last so long.

And so when did Catch of the Day contact you? It was very quickly, wasn’t it?

D: Yeah, it was within our first week.

E: That was very exciting. We’ve seen the Catch of the Day team quoted and appearing in the press and being contacted by them in our first week was very exciting.

D: Part of that is just the excitement of knowing the next message could change your life. I remember when we opened this email I was just thinking, could this be for real? Is this actually happening? So we met with the Catch of the Day team and we had many discussions.

What were those discussions like?

D: They weren’t necessarily deal focused from the get-go. We met 15 times over three months and at those meetings we spoke about the deal a handful of times, but it was mostly strategy; asking whether it was the right fit. We had technical discussions about the website and operation and that sort of thing.

I think it gave them a lot of comfort knowing who we were and what we were doing. I mean, ideas are only worth so much, and the discussions were around that, implementation and so on.

E: This was an incredibly busy period, too, because we’re still talking with customers, doing everything on the site and so on.

D: Yeah, we didn’t want to slow the growth because we all knew there was a risk the deal wouldn’t go ahead.

E: Coming from a background in M&A [mergers and acquisitions], we’ve seen more deals fall over than not! So we just had to stay very focused on the business.

And what about the terms of the deal?

D: They were nice terms, we walked out really happy. We felt that we had to give away a few things, like the name! And they walked out thinking the same, but that’s how a deal works – everyone’s happy.

E: We’ve been quite comfortable with it. To be honest, our experience is more in big business rather than small business. And we just love moving quickly. We’re genuinely passionate about this, and I think that’s given us the confidence to keep going and keep building a team.

So now, you’ve got a team built and a solid backing – what’s the vision for the business now?

E: Building the number one retailer in our category is a huge carrot for us.

D: Yeah, we’re just in the people management component right now and I think we’re very fortunate to have the team we do. So now, we just have to do a great job together, and that sets ourselves with a great vision. We want to be the number one retailer and that’s a big goal.