Most founders who sell a business find themselves navigating a process that's largely undocumented for deals under $50 million.
The big acquisition headlines go to companies that sell for hundreds of millions. The founder who sells a bootstrapped SaaS for $2 million, or a content site for $800,000, rarely gets a roadmap.
They Got Acquired was built to fill that gap. Launched in early 2022 by Alexis Grant, a journalist-turned-entrepreneur who sold two media companies herself, the site focuses specifically on online businesses that sell for $100,000 to $50 million, a range that is life-changing for founders but largely ignored by mainstream business media.
Key Takeaways
- They Got Acquired covers acquisition stories of online businesses selling for $100K to $50M, a range most media ignores.
- The platform was founded by Alexis Grant, who drew on her own two exits to build resources she wished had existed.
- Content spans editorial stories, a podcast, guides, a free valuation tool, and a buyer-facing deal newsletter called First Look.
What They Got Acquired Actually Is
They Got Acquired is a media company, not a brokerage and not a marketplace. That distinction matters.
The site does not list businesses for sale the way Acquire.com or Flippa does, and it does not take a commission on deals.
The editorial model is closer to journalism: Grant and a team of roughly 10 contractors report on completed acquisitions by going directly to founders, gathering deal details that would otherwise never become public.
The stories follow a consistent format. Each covers the company's background, how the founder decided to sell, what the sale process looked like, the deal structure, and lessons for other founders.
Details like revenue multiples, deal size, and buyer identity are included when the founder agrees to share them.
When those specifics are private, the site notes that clearly and works with what's available.
The Content Library
By early 2025, the site had covered more than 250 acquisition deals. The range is wide:
- A bootstrapped veterinary website agency (WhiskerCloud) that sold for a low 8-figure deal at 3x revenue
- A solo-founder mental health website (PsychCentral) with zero full-time employees that sold for high 7 figures
- A mother-daughter RV membership site (Boondockers Welcome) that had nothing to do with Silicon Valley
- Newsletter companies, SaaS tools, e-commerce brands, and service agencies
The site actively covers deals that mainstream tech media skips: bootstrapped businesses, women-led companies, and founders who built profitably rather than chasing venture funding.
That editorial lens is deliberate. Grant's own background, including her time scaling content operations at The Penny Hoarder before it sold for $100 million, informs what stories get told and how.
Beyond individual acquisition stories, the content library includes:
- Guides on the sale process: Broker selection, how to calculate SDE (seller's discretionary earnings), valuation multiples by industry, what to expect from due diligence
- Industry reports: The site has published focused reports on newsletter deals, contractor-only business models, and content company acquisitions
- A valuation estimator: A free tool that gives founders a rough estimate of what their business might sell for
- A video course: A paid, one-hour overview of the business sale process from finding buyers to closing
The Podcast
The They Got Acquired podcast, hosted by Grant, follows the same editorial approach as the written content.
Episodes feature founders telling their acquisition stories, with enough practical detail that listeners can apply what they hear to their own situations.
The format is conversational and direct. Episodes cover topics like timing a sale, working with brokers, and what happens after the deal closes.
One listener review on the show's page described it as the podcast they had wanted to exist for years, specifically because the stories focus on profitable, founder-owned companies rather than venture-backed startups chasing massive exits.
First Look: The Buyer-Side Newsletter
First Look is a separate newsletter product aimed at buyers rather than sellers. It features off-market deals: companies whose founders have expressed interest in selling but have not yet listed with a broker or on a marketplace.
The company and founder remain anonymous until both sides agree to an introduction.
A few specifics about how it works:
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Deal frequency | About 3 opportunities per issue, sent once or twice monthly |
| Revenue range | Roughly two-thirds under $1M; about one-third between $1M–$10M |
| Business types | Online businesses only, no brick-and-mortar |
| Anonymity | Founders stay anonymous until they accept an intro request |
| Cost to join | Free to subscribe |
The value proposition for buyers is access to deals before they hit the open market, which avoids the competitive bidding dynamics of broker-listed businesses.
For sellers, it's a way to test buyer interest without committing to a broker relationship or paying a commission.
Who Lexi Grant Is
Grant started her career as a reporter at the Houston Chronicle and U.S. News and World Report. She later built a boutique content marketing agency that was acqui-hired by The Penny Hoarder in 2015.
She then founded The Write Life, an online community for writers, and sold it in 2021.
After that second exit, she had sold two companies and still felt the same frustration she had the first time: there was no resource that matched the reality of smaller, founder-led acquisitions.
That personal experience is the foundation of what makes They Got Acquired credible. Grant is not an outsider explaining M&A theory.
She has been through the process twice, reported on hundreds of deals, and built a platform specifically because she wanted the resource herself.
She also offers free 30-minute advice calls to founders planning to sell within the next year, which is an unusual and concrete form of community access from a media company founder.
What Works and What's Missing
The site's biggest strength is specificity. Unlike generic business content about exits, They Got Acquired publishes actual deal numbers when founders agree to share them, including sale prices, multiples, tax implications, and what the founder took home after paying investors, advisors, and lawyers.
A post shared on the company's LinkedIn broke down one $25 million exit in detail: $13 million to the founder before taxes, $3.8 million in taxes, $9.5 million to investors, $1 million to the M&A advisor, and so on. That level of transparency is rare.
The journalism-first model also has a limitation worth noting. Coverage depends on founder willingness to participate, which means the deal database has gaps.
Not every acquisition in the $100K–$50M range will show up here, particularly deals where the founder prefers to stay quiet. The site acknowledges this openly.
The business model is primarily sponsorship-driven, supplemented by the paid course and referral fees from partners like brokers and advisors.
Grant has written publicly about the challenge of building revenue while maintaining editorial independence, which suggests the site is still working through some of those tensions.
Conclusion
They Got Acquired does something genuinely useful: it takes a category of business events that typically happen in private and creates a public record of how those deals actually go.
The content is practical, the editorial standards are grounded in journalism, and the founder's firsthand experience gives the platform credibility that a purely editorial operation would lack.
Founders considering a sale in the next one to five years, particularly those building online businesses outside the venture-backed track, will find more relevant material here than almost anywhere else.