Nomorobo · B2C · robocall blocking app
When one buyer makes an offer, tell every past suitor to get competing bids
Had a choice of buyers; sold for over eight figures (per host)
Workedexit-ma
What they did
Nomorobo got inbound interest weekly. An earlier investment-banker process produced only lowball offers, which were declined while the business kept throwing off cash. When a large company made an inbound offer, Aaron took it to the board and then told all previous suitors 'we're not running a process, but we got this offer' ('two is one, one is none'). Chose a smaller acquirer that fit the product better.
What happened
Multiple options; good returns for founder, employees and investors.
- Stage
- exit
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · From Idea to 8-Figure Exit in 10 Years Flat — Aaron Foss, Nomorobo“So I went back to all the other people that and said, "Hey, look, we're not running a process, but we got this offer." Because of that, we had our choice.”
“And we worked with an investment banker, and effectively, all of the deals that we got were just kind of like lowball.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Nomorobo: Enter a government prize contest with a working prototype, demo video and catchy nameWon and split the $50K prize out of ~800 entries; launched the company
- Nomorobo: Talk to every reporter after a public win and send them to an email waitlist3,000 signups in a few months, 30,000+ emails by launch day
- Nomorobo: Request 5 years of government complaint data to seed your blocklist on day oneMany false positives, but enough to launch and start collecting real data
- Nomorobo: Give landline blocking away free forever to gather data and users for the paid appCost up to $120K a month in phone bills; replaced any ad budget
- Nomorobo: Email your free landline users asking them to try the paid mobile appFounder calls it huge; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Charge $1.99 a month through Apple's in-app subscriptions instead of building billingBecame the business's turning point; Apple's cut was cheaper than self-run billing
- Nomorobo: Give a 2-week free trial so users see it block a robocall firstFounder credits it for the app's success; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Soft launch quietly, fix the bugs, then tell reporters who covered you beforeFounder says the press flywheel kept going; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Publish a page for every robocaller phone number, with the call recording and a block buttonFounder calls it a moat that worked really well; no traffic numbers
- Nomorobo: Pitch local reporters this week's top scams in their city, with call audio2-3 unpaid press mentions a week for 10 years, including NBC Nightly News
- Nomorobo: Let phone carriers turn on your free service in one click from their control panelsAnother huge free channel with no biz dev team; no numbers
- Nomorobo: Build it Apple's privacy-first way, then ask Apple to feature it as App of the DayFeatured by Apple early; founder calls it a competitive advantage
- Nomorobo: Hand off customer support first, using contractors you meet through your networkBuilt the whole team without job posts; the support contractor's brother became product manager
- Nomorobo: Track just one number early on: robocalls blockedFounder recommends it; no measured result
- Nomorobo: Raise small amounts on a rolling note only when you need the next stepAbout $2.25M raised in total; reached profitability and kept a big stake
- Nomorobo: Ask your biggest supplier for 90-day payment terms while waiting for Apple payoutsGot down to $944 in the bank but survived without predatory investor terms
- Nomorobo: Add a $5 a month premium tier with call screening and a family plan