Buy a beginner running app so new runners later move up to your app

Josh Peleg… for most of us. Otherwise, we have four different types of buyers. We have the aggregators and the holdcos and the platforms, which are people like BlueThrone, where we're essentially looking for strong traffic, uh strong products with recurring revenue, clean books, and we're looking at our ability to essentially look at this app and say, "Can I 10x this? Can I take it to the next level? Can I hold it for a multiple multi-year lifetime?"

Josh PelegNext, you have the strategics. The strategics are generally willing to pay the highest multiples, because they have the most synergies available. Strava to Runna is a great example of this. In this situation, Strava noticed that they were really good at retaining hardcore runners, but they were really bad at attracting beginner rubbers runners, because people looked at Strava and they were kind of intimidated. It was so social, they were comparing themselves to other people, but they had never run a 5K before. It's kind of scary. And Runna built their whole brand identity on couch to 5K. "We're going to help you do your first 5K."

Josh PelegSo when Strava bought Runna, they really bought it as an extension of their funnel. So a user starts with with Runna, they get to their first 5K, and then they graduate now into Strava, and it becomes one long, beautiful funnel. That's one example there. The third example of a another type of buyer is private equity. These guys are looking for predictable cash flows plus strong EBITDA margins, and they'll pay heavy for really category-leading stuff. One example here is when Francisco Partners invested money into MyFitnessPal. Now, the problem with private equity for a lot of app founders is that

Josh Pelegthe private equity guys don't have the talent to manage your app. So what does that mean? It means you as the founder have to stay on board and run the thing for three to five years. Can be shorter, can be longer, but they're going to need you. Whereas with the aggregators like like BlueThrone, for example, you know, we have all the chops and the talent to essentially manage and run the app. So if you want to join us and run with us, amazing, we …