How Has AI Changed Our Acquisition Strategy?

If you've been following my journey with Waterglass, you know we focus on acquiring and scaling niche software businesses with the help of AI. One of our guiding principles, however, was that AI not only helps to run businesses more efficiently, but that we will be able to

Waterglass

The AI Agent We Use to Book Meetings from Emails

How does the saying go? If you do it once, you learn from it. If you do it twice, automate it. We spend quite a bit of time in video calls at Waterglass, and finding an efficient way to automate meeting scheduling is crucial. Depending on the context, we usually

Waterglass

The AI Agent We Use to Handle Support Requests in Gmail

One of our core principles at Waterglass is to automate repetitive processes to increase efficiencies across our ventures. At our portfolio company Pxl, we provide customer support via email. We also have an extensive knowledge base at help.pxl.to that answers about 60% of all support requests, but guess

Pxl

The AI Agent We Use to Create SEO Content for Pxl

Following this LinkedIn post from Monday (are we connected on LinkedIn yet?) I want to show you in more detail how I built the Pxl Content Agent, which creates high-quality SEO-optimized content for our portfolio company, Pxl. Why build an AI agent anyway? Let's be honest, LLMs are

Waterglass

How I build Pxl's SEO Strategy with Mini Tools and Directories

The first couple of months after I acquired Pxl in May, I spent most of my time talking to existing customers understanding how happy they are with the product and what they are still missing. I'm happy to say that Pxl is growing and has been growing steadily

Bootstrapping

Bootstrap Your Saas (The Fast Way)

Last week, I created a LinkedIn post that generated some buzz (are we connected yet?) and I wanted to expand on it a bit more, because I think it’s an important way of funding a SaaS business aside from VC money. Since the ZIRP (zero interest-rate policy) is over

Waterglass

1 Billion Requests: The Attack on Pxl

Last weekend, Pxl was attacked through a series of high-traffic requests. We are still not entirely sure whether this was a targeted DDoS attack on some of the links of a specific Pxl team or whether it was actual traffic. In any case, what we do know is that the

Interview

Micro Interview with Iron Brands from Simple Analytics

Describe what you do in less than 10 words. Privacy-friendly and simple Google Analytics alternative Do you prefer building businesses from 0 → 1, from 1 → 10, or from 10 → 100? 0→1 and 1→10. Those phases are most interesting to me. In 0→1 everything is about being scrappy,

Waterglass

Pxl, the 🔒 Privacy-friendly Bitly alternative?

Have you been thinking about acquiring an early-stage business? Or are you running one yourself right now? Chances are high that you are working on your product's USP, growth channels, and ideal customer segment then. Let's say, the basics. In my opinion, there is a general

Waterglass

Add an AI Feature and They Will Come

As you probably know by now, Pxl is all about helping you become a better marketer. We do that by providing you with short links, dynamic QR codes, and Microsites (‘micro websites’ or link-in-bio pages). Our users especially like Microsites, but when I looked closer at the overall UX and

Waterglass

How Pxl’s SaaS Pricing Strategy is Evolving

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about pricing strategies for Pxl, the first acquisition in the Waterglass portfolio I made earlier this year. Throughout the last 1.5 years, a few pricing experiments have been conducted by the previous owner, mostly around custom packages and lifetime deals. These experiments

Waterglass

55 Questions I Ask Before I Buy a Business

When evaluating a new acquisition opportunity at Waterglass, I follow a simple process: asking lots of questions. First, when I check out a listing like the one in the video below, I try to ask myself high-level questions about the business, such as... * What is the opportunity with this business?

Waterglass Deal Review

B2B HR Tech – Waterglass Deal Review #6

0:00 /6:08 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are evaluating a B2B HR tech company that operates matches talent for internships and full-time roles in South-East Asia. * Industry Focus: B2B HR Technology * Company Age:

Waterglass Deal Review

B2B Chatbots – Waterglass Deal Review #5

0:00 /5:54 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are evaluating a B2B SaaS company that operates as a chatbot platform for customer support and lead management. * Industry Focus: B2B, Chatbots * Company Age: 1 year

Pixel

3 Things I Started Working on Right After the Pixel Acquisition

After the Pixel acquisition was finalized about two weeks ago, I started working on what I deemed the three most important tasks. Generally speaking, for founders who work on a business for many years, it’s easy to develop tunnel vision when it comes to the product they are building.

Waterglass Deal Review

B2B Payment Solution – Waterglass Deal Review #4

0:00 /4:03 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are evaluating a B2B SaaS company that operates as a Shopify plugin for payment reminders. * Industry Focus: B2B, Payment Solutions * Company Age: 2 years * Financials: $700

Waterglass Deal Review

B2B Marketing – Waterglass Deal Review #3

0:00 /4:54 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are evaluating a B2B SaaS company that creates marketing copy for businesses with the help of AI. * Industry Focus: B2B, Marketing * Company Age: 2 years * Financials:

Waterglass Featured

The First Acquisition: Pixel

It's done. The first acquisition has been finalized this week! I'm very excited to welcome Pixel (pxl.to) to the Waterglass portfolio. Pixel is a leading short link, QR code and microsite builder for marketers, based in Great Britain (UK). The founder of Pixel will remain

Waterglass Deal Review

eCommerce Payments – Waterglass Deal Review #2

0:00 /4:48 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are exploring a similar business like last time. It, too, empowers other small businesses by enabling them to set up online stores in under 60 seconds.

Waterglass Deal Review

eCommerce Payments – Waterglass Deal Review #1

0:00 /3:26 1× I screen dozens of small businesses each week. With Waterglass Deal Reviews, I share some of them. Today, we are looking at a very small business that helps other businesses setting up online stores. * Industry Focus: eCommerce, Payments * Company Age: Less than a year old

Waterglass

The Basics of Micro PE: The Right Price and The Right Terms

The market is a wonderful imaginary thing, especially in micro PE. I mean, any deal is about finding the right price for which the seller is willing to sell and the buyer is willing to buy. But between these two prices lies a pretty broad area in which the terms

Waterglass

The Basics of Micro PE: Where and What to Buy

In this edition, you will learn where a micro PE fund looks for opportunities and what criteria they have to meet. I will also dive deeper into some of your most frequent questions, such as: * Who would even sell a company so early? * What do you really get for such

Waterglass

The Independent 'Micro PE' Entrepreneur

For the past 10+ years, I have been working with startups, and B2B SaaS in particular, across different settings: I bootstrapped a startup, At Meta I started and operated a startup accelerator in Berlin, I 'corporate ventured' a startup and I consulted companies in Germany & Austria. With

Acquisition

Search-driven vs. discovery-driven products

Whenever I evaluate a venture or consider a potential new product, my first step is to understand how this idea will engage its initial users. On a high level, I categorize them into two groups: search-driven and discovery-driven products. Search-driven implies that users are aware of the problem and actively

TIL

Not everyone needs a bold and ambitious vision for their company

I'm certain that almost every founder has been told at some point that they need a compelling and bold vision for their company to succeed. After nearly a decade in the industry, I can assert that this is largely a myth propagated by investors. To date, not a