03 · My story
The whole thing, start to finish.
The acquisition story end to end — why we bought instead of raised, and how the first deal nearly came apart.
Founder story
M&A: how I tripled revenue with acquisitions
The League
Samir Growth by acquisition
When the X/Twitter API repriced overnight, buying the competition became the way through — four of them in six months, with zero outside capital.
3x revenue by 4 acquisitions
Founder · X-platform social listening
01 · Where it started
Fedica — X-platform social listening
Data access costs suddenly went up 10-20x. When Twitter was bought and the APIs got drastically less affordable for martech firms, the maths under the whole business changed in a week.
I came looking for help with my first acquisition, to survive. Four acquisitions in six months later, we had grown through it — with zero outside capital.
02 · What I learned
Three things that got the deals done.
Samir is an engineer by trade, not a dealmaker. Here is what he says helped him most, in his own words.
“The first company we acquired is someone I really respect, it’s a competitor… but we had to close the transaction within days.”
01
Primary objectives
First thing both sides did was write down their two most important goals — and the two biggest fears or risks to avoid.
02
Calm, regular dialog
Never, ever have a dispute over email. Pick up the phone and talk it through calmly and openly.
03
An M&A exec
Someone who has done this before, to prepare you for what is coming and manage the emotions. It takes 100 things to go right for it to work — and only one bad day for the whole thing to explode.
04 · What I’m doing now
Grew through acquisition, zero debt, and still growing.
Four of these done now — and the playbook gets easier every time.
My honest favorite part: I’m back to focusing on product, and we’re moving upstream to a true mid-market product.
We’re still growing, but we see some customers from the big players leave them, and come run their full social footprint with Fedica. It’s exciting to really focus on the little details that matter — and we’re now #1 in the Hootsuite app marketplace too.
05 · Talk to me
How you can work with me.
Happy to talk to founders looking at their competition and wondering whether buying beats raising — what the first deal really takes, and where they go wrong.
Want your name up here?
Two calls. Free 12 month GTM Gameplan.