This Founder Sold His Startup, Bought it Back for Pennies, and Resold it on Acquire.com for 5 Figures

This Founder Sold His Startup, Bought it Back for Pennies, and Resold it on Acquire.com for 5 Figures

Author: Acquire.com March 5, 2024 Duration: 31:50

If someone told you they did what you just read in this title, you’d probably think they’d committed a crime.


But Qayyum Rajan’s good fortune was a surprise twist of fate.


Early in 2023, Qayyum sold his business, ESG Analytics, to a private equity firm. But, his acquirer ran out of money and offered the business back to him for next to nothing a few months later.


Qayyum got back in the driver's seat of his startup, spent $10,000 to redesign its website, and then listed it on Acquire.com for another sale.


ESG Analytics was popular with buyers. Its clients were mid-level private equity firms and portfolio managers who needed to evaluate environmental social good (ESG) performance across large numbers of businesses.


No other tool provided affordable ESG industry reports at the time. Within days of listing on Acquire, Qayyam was pitting a handful of small PE buyers against each other in a bidding war.


He finally sold for five figures, spent 20 percent on a vacation for himself and his wife, and set the other 80 percent aside for savings.


Post-acquisition, listen to Qayyum’s Startup Acquisition Stories Podcast episode with Andrew as they discuss:

  • The huge ESG industry problem Qayyum capitalized on
  • The advantages of selling a business multiple times
  • What founders need to do to increase their sale valuation
  • Why future sellers need to be extra careful when applying for a business credit card


Qayyum is just getting started and you can follow him on his journey here:


▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬


Follow the Guest: Qayyum Raja

Follow the Host: Andrew Gazdecki -

Follow Acquire.com


▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

About Acquire.com:

Acquire.com is the largest and most active acquisition marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. Acquire.com is the highest rated platform for both ease and quickness to match buyers and sellers.

We cater to all types of online, revenue-generating businesses while producing the highest success rates for SaaS and eCommerce/DTC businesses in the M&A industry. Join over 350,000 entrepreneurs making life-changing connections and deals everyday.


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
From a Real Problem to a SaaS Product Buyers Wanted [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:20
Jacob Miller didn’t set out to build a SaaS product. He was running a home services business when a shift in how customers search started to affect lead flow in a real way.Instead of relying on agencies, he built his own…
A Profitable E-commerce Brand Built for Acquisition [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 14:17
Charles Kenny built a profitable e-commerce brand after solving a recovery problem he experienced firsthand. The product worked, customers were buying, and the business ran cleanly.Still, as the brand matured, one limit…
The Listing Fix That Led Utilize to a Successful Exit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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 fi…
How One Acquisition Solved a Critical Growth Bottleneck [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:50
Joel Graber built Modern Outbound from zero and watched the same problem show up across every client: design bottlenecks he could not solve. Building a service from scratch meant years of hiring, finding product-market f…
Bootstrapped, Profitable, and Acquired in Four Days [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 12:28
Customer support software is one of the most crowded SaaS categories out there. Intercom, Crisp, and dozens of others have been around for years. Building something new in that space and actually finding customers takes…
How Usage-Based Pricing Led to a Seven-Figure Exit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:30
Jeremy Redman didn't set out to build a team. TaskMagic began as a no-code browser automation tool built to eliminate repetitive tasks. While it solved a real problem, it also revealed early limits.Rather than stopping t…
How a Simple Academic Tool Became an Acquired Startup [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:02
Ovi Shekh didn’t set out to build a startup. Wisdomic AI began as a practical response to an academic challenge, where literature review work demanded time, structure, and careful organization.The first version was inten…
Valuable, But Not Truly Scalable [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:30
Hugo Pereira didn’t build Ritmoo chasing hypergrowth. The product emerged from real operating experience inside scale-ups, where goal management often looked structured but repeatedly failed in execution.Ritmoo was desig…
How Pre-Revenue Startups Became Repeat Exits [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:36
Faizan Muhhamad didn’t build software to scale teams or chase traction. He built products to work, transfer cleanly, and make sense to the right buyer from day one.By treating software as a transferable asset, Faizan bui…
Why Local Habits and Simple Tech Created a Perfect Exit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:03
Renata Raya didn’t chase a complex tech idea. She solved a simple problem: cart abandonment in Latin America.By building GoRecover around WhatsApp instead of email, she achieved a 20% recovery rate and created a stable,…