The Listing Fix That Led Utilize to a Successful Exit

The Listing Fix That Led Utilize to a Successful Exit

Author: Acquire.com April 7, 2026 Duration: 20:31

Jatin Arora spent six years building Utilize and reached a point most founders recognize: the product worked, customers were happy, and growth was steady.


But when he and co-founder Sameer Sanagala decided to sell, the first listing on Acquire.com fell flat. It lacked the clarity, depth, and data buyers needed to take it seriously.


So they rebuilt it. With support from Acquire’s team, Jatin and Sameer added financials, deeper analytics, and a living Q&A document that kept buyer conversations moving. The second version attracted serious buyers quickly, and the right deal followed.


You'll hear:

  • Why the first listing failed and what changed the second time
  • How better data and documentation improved buyer interest
  • The living Q&A document that kept conversations moving
  • Why buyer intent and speed mattered more than the highest offer
  • The Stripe issue that nearly derailed the deal
  • What founders should prepare before listing


3 Lessons from Utilize's Exit

  1. Fix the listing, not just the business: A strong product is not enough if buyers cannot evaluate it clearly.
  2. Clarity builds momentum: Better data, documentation, and transparency accelerate serious conversations.
  3. The right buyer moves fast: Intent and speed matter more than squeezing the highest offer.


For founders thinking about selling, this episode shows what actually moves a deal forward, and what can quietly kill it.


Follow the guest:

⁠⁠Jatin's LinkedIn⁠⁠

Jatin's X

Sameer's LinkedIn

⁠⁠Utilize⁠


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
Are You Selling an Asset or Selling a Job? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:40
If Ian Fourie could give two pieces of advice to founders selling their SaaS startups, he’d say: Register your business in only one country Start pushing founder responsibilities to employees as soon as you canIan sold h…
How Gabby Rosen Flipped a Newsletter for 18x in Under a Year [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:12
What does it take to sell a startup for almost 20 times what you paid for it?Gabriella (Gabby) Rosen says it comes down to three things:Having an unfair advantage when you buyListing on Acquire.com for slightly less than…
Want to Build an Agency Worth Buying? Spend a Decade Saying Yes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:23
While working full-time as a pharmaceutical sales rep, Bobby Dimovski noticed that medical professionals were: Always looking for new ways to grow their business. Usually 10 years behind on marketing trends. Hard to acce…
Look For This When Acquiring Startups, It Could Triple the Resale [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 12:07
After building and selling one of the first ChatGPT plagiarism checkers on the market in 2024, Tomer Tarsky decided to search Acquire.com for another project in the edtech AI space. He found a promising business, grew it…
Turning Your Weakest Skill into an Acquire’d Startup [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:58
Are you a developer who’s bad at email marketing? Ironically, you may be in a great position to build the next big email marketing tool. Onur Genes wanted to promote his software development agency but couldn’t write goo…