This Founder Built A Successful Newsletter Making $4,000 A Month

In mergers and acquisitions, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. In this interview, Rahul Issar shares his journey of creating a platform that sifts through the noise of M&A platforms like Flippa, Acquire, and BizBuySell, offering tailored advice and curated listings.

From overcoming initial challenges to harnessing his personal experiences in business growth and sales, Rahul's story will be extremely insightful for founders pursuing the M&A business niche.

Who are you and what does your business do?

I’m Rahul, currently run Acquire Weekly which is a newsletter which presents profitable SMBs to buy from your favorite M&A platforms like Flippa, Acquire, Bizbuysell and many more.

We send out a weekly newsletter featuring the top 3 businesses we find and another 5 more businesses to our premium subscribers.

What inspired you to start your business and how did you identify the opportunity?

I was looking into acquisitions and found that no other person or newsletter was sharing them as frequently as I’d liked. I was wanting someone to view listings and give me their honest feedback on what they thought about the listing before I went in and started enquiring about it.

Can you describe the moment or situation where your business idea first came to mind?

Happened at the start of 2023 when I was scrolling through platforms on the daily looking at what business to buy. My friends and I would often discuss why there were no platforms that would help give more tailored advice around what businesses to look into based on the listings.

That’s when my friend had mentioned that I should just aggregate the listings into a newsletter and present them to people who are in a similar position to myself.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages of conceptualizing your business?

The TAM (total addressable market). I was worried that the audience was too small and wouldn’t find my knowledge/information as valuable. A lot of imposter syndrome sunk in.

I was able to quickly navigate out of it and just start posting content. In the initial stages I grew a lot of it organically through word of mouth, reddit and other social media.

How did your personal background and experiences influence the development of your business idea?

I’ve grown and sold 2 businesses previously and know the process that entrepreneurs go through, I’ve also got a lot of connections in the M&A space and have a rough idea of what it takes to buy a business.

So I felt it was enough to provide a small amount of advice to people who are looking to acquire their first business or even expand their portfolio.

How did you validate the market for your business idea and assess its potential success?

Proof of Revenue

Majority of the validation came through friends who were in the same position as me and also from the conversations I would see happening on Reddit. You can get a lot of insights on Reddit. I noticed a trend where people were not sure about which business to buy, and which ones were the right ones to start researching.

What were some initial assumptions about your business that changed over time?

Initially I thought the TAM of this business was quite small, but it’s much larger than I thought.

There’s a lot of baby boomers retiring and the awareness of buying businesses is getting larger with content creators like Codie Sanchez (>1,000,000 followers) talking a lot about it on her socials.

Can you share a pivotal decision or turning point in your journey that was crucial for your business's success?

The customer feedback was the main turning point.

When I started to get responses for the quality of the newsletter and listings that made me think this newsletter is a lot more serious than I thought.

That feedback helped me build the monetization elements for the business, and helped me understand what value I need to drive to get more premium subscribers on board.

How did you gather the resources and support necessary to launch your business?

Majority of the learning came through just Twitter and watching videos around how to set up our newsletter on Beehiiv. Apart from that there wasn’t much other support I had except for just doing and learning as I go. JMatthewMcGarry on twitter also provides some amazing advice that’s super actionable when writing content and growing your audience.

In what ways has your business evolved from its original concept?

It’s become very curated in terms of the businesses I find.

Also i'm more cognizant of the impact this content can make on people’s lives. I’m much more thoughtful around what offers I present to the audience and how they read it every week.

I foresee the next 6 months being tremendous for the business, as I’m looking to partner with some brokers and provide more education around the M&A space.

I plan for this strategy to triple the numbers we’re doing today.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who are in the process of developing their own business ideas?

Growing a business that solves a problem is easier to tackle and more exciting to execute on.

If you can find a common problem or better yet fix your own problem and find your first 10 customers, then you’ve got a good start.

I originally made this newsletter as something fun and didn’t take it seriously until it started generating revenue.

So if I was starting again I’d do it the same way, focus on the problem, get the first 10 customers, then build for them and monetize.

Conclusion

Starting with a simple idea fueled by personal experience and a desire to fill a market gap, Acquire Weekly has evolved into a crucial tool for entrepreneurs and investors in the SMB space.

Rahul's approach – focusing on solving a problem, starting small, and then scaling – offers invaluable lessons for anyone looking to make an impact in their industry.

For more info, or to get in touch with Rahul, check out the links below.

Twitter/X: Rahul Issar

FAQ:

1. Q: What inspired Rahul to start Acquire Weekly? A: Rahul was motivated by the lack of frequent, curated M&A listings and desired honest feedback on business listings.
2. Q: How did Rahul overcome the challenge of a perceived small Total Addressable Market (TAM)? A: He navigated out of this challenge by starting to post content and growing organically through word of mouth and social media.
3. Q: What pivotal decision was crucial for the success of Acquire Weekly? A: The turning point was the positive customer feedback on the newsletter, which led to the development of monetization strategies.
4. Q: How has Acquire Weekly evolved from its original concept? A: The newsletter has become more tailored in its business selections, focusing on impactful content and preparing for partnerships to educate about the M&A space.
5. Q: What advice does Rahul have for aspiring entrepreneurs? A: Focus on solving a common problem, find your first 10 customers, build for them, and then monetize, just as he did with Acquire Weekly.