Buy apps that already found fans, then add a full team to grow them

Josh Peleg… the right resources and experience on board. Honestly, when BlueThrone hired me like two years ago, they gave me this pitch. They gave me the thesis, and I'll kind of say it like-for-like today, because honestly, it's the same today as it was two years ago. And it goes a bit like this: today, it's never been easier to go from zero to one in consumer apps, and the reality is you don't need to be the best at every given discipline in consumer apps

Josh Pelegto hit your first 1 or 2 million in ARR. You just need like a really strong work ethic, a pretty good idea, and you need to nail like one distribution channel. But you don't have to be the best at AB testing, UI/UX, any of these things to kind of do the zero to one. BlueThrone saw this and was like, "Interesting, but people aren't making the whole one to 10 jump, cuz to do that, you have to suddenly be an expert in multiple distribution channels." So BlueThrone was created to solve this exact problem: to find the apps that have done the zero to one, that have found product market fit, acquire them,

Josh Pelegpay the premium for them, because they have found product market fit, and scale them, and do that one to 10. And basically, they built the team, they raised a bit of money to do this, and that's what BlueThrone's been doing for the last five years.

Joseph ChoiThat's great. And what what's your role at at BlueThrone?

Joseph ChoiSpeaking of like the team capabilities, what what resources do you add, not just BlueThrone, but like in general? Like what what should people be looking for in terms of like what talent and what resources will be invested after after the close?

Josh PelegWe've structured ourselves to essentially be able to cover like all the bases that potentially an indie app founder might not be able to cover. So we're 70 people right now, 7-0, and that includes infrastructure, R&D, QA, um distribution, growth, monetization, ad monetization, CFO functions, HR functions. And the whole idea is we want to find apps that are great stand-alone apps and kind of level them up into a stand-alone business, like something that can really stand on its own two feet. So we try and bring all those pieces needed,

Josh Pelegwhich has worked really well for us. But, you know, different acquirers bring different things to the table. Some people are much better at distribution, some people are much better at ad monetization. Um it really depends on what you're looking for, and I think one big tip I'd give to any founder having any discussion around an exit is really ask the buyer what their main skills are at moving the needle. What have they done on past deals that gave them their returns? Was it adding ads? Was it price testing? Was it product features? And you can use that to really get a good understanding of what this person is going to do with your app

Josh Pelegonce they buy it.