Kamil Almost Went Broke Growing His AI Startup – An Acquisition Saved It

Kamil Almost Went Broke Growing His AI Startup – An Acquisition Saved It

Author: Acquire.com February 4, 2025 Duration: 22:35

Have you ever fantasized about quitting your job and living off savings until you built a successful business or ran out of cash?


SaaS builder Kamil Zowczac nearly accomplished both at the same time.


While living in Bali off the money he’d earned as a project manager at a startup, Kamil taught himself to code and built a fast AI reel-video creation app called Copycopter.


Marketing his product was slow at first. Kamil started offering a free subscription and then mysteriously went viral among Chinese Tiktok (Douyin) users after posting about it on Twitter. After installing a paywall and successfully launching on Product Hunt, he began to make a bit of money, but it was all too little too late. He’d spent too much time building his product and not enough time marketing it and was out of money. He needed an exit, fast.


After posting about his dilemma on Twitter, Acquire.com’s CEO, Andrew Gazdecki, helped Kamil list his business for free. After a few difficult negotiations with buyers and one deal that fell through, Kamil encountered his dream buyer. Within 24 hours, he’d finished all the deal paperwork and completed the sale of Copycopter.


Now Kamil is back to building businesses in Bali living comfortably off his acquisition and resting easier knowing if he needs an exit, serious buyers are only a few clicks away.


Listen to Kamil’s interview with Andrew post-acquisition as they discuss:

  • Kamil’s tech recommendations for anyone wanting to get into AI video editing.

  • The unfair marketing trick that applications like Copycopter can pull off better than any other SaaS.

  • Andrew’s top piece of advice for sellers who don’t want to get locked into negotiations with an unserious buyer.


Kamil is just getting started and you can follow his journey below:

  • Twitter: @ky__zo



Behind every successful startup acquisition, there's a story-a complex mix of strategy, emotion, and paperwork that rarely gets discussed openly. Startup Acquisition Stories, from the team at Acquire.com, pulls back the curtain on those real-world transactions. Each episode features founders and entrepreneurs who have personally navigated the process of selling or buying a business through their platform. You'll hear them recount the nuanced decisions that don't make it into press releases: the challenging conversations around valuation, the subtle art of vetting the opposite party, and the critical, often overlooked, steps after the handshake. This podcast digs into the practicalities of due diligence, structuring terms, and managing the transfer of assets, all the way through to escrow and the crucial post-deal transition. It’s a grounded, detail-oriented look at the mechanics of a business exit or expansion, straight from the people who’ve lived it. For anyone curious about the actual path to a deal, beyond the theory, this series offers a rare archive of lived experience and hard-won advice.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Startup Acquisition Stories
Podcast Episodes
How to Build a Profitable SaaS in 6 Months and Sell it in 5 Days [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:49
Software businesses can be immensely profitable in very little time. But they can also die just as quickly. Software engineer Mark Jivko built Go index me!, a tool that speeds up Google page indexing, in six months for a…
Startup Acquisition Stories With Eric Pacifici of SMB Law Group [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:46
What are the three biggest mistakes SME buyers make when choosing an M&A lawyer? M&A professional Eric Pacifici says new buyers often pick lawyers who: Aren’t entrepreneurial Bill hourly rather than flat rate Don’t have…
Startup Acquisition Stories With Jeel Patel, Founder of InvoiceOwl [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:28
Jeel Patel and his father built InvoiceOwl, an online invoicing tool for tradesmen like plumbers after Jeel noticed his family’s landscaper using an inefficient paper invoicing system. Three years later, they sold the co…