Nik En

Just another Techie🤓
IndieHacker
Building

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Most small businesses don’t get sold when the owner retires. They just close.

McKinsey’s number: 92% of small business exits are closures. Only 5% are completed sales.

Thirty years of cash flow, customer relationships, and jobs, gone because no buyer showed up in time.

Everyone in this market optimizes the deals that already exist. I’m building to increase the number of businesses that ever make it to market at all.

Started building @tryclef recently. Posting what I learn.

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Most small businesses don’t get sold when the owner retires. They just close.

McKinsey’s number: 92% of small business exits are closures. Only 5% are completed sales.

Thirty years of cash flow, customer relationships, and jobs, gone because no buyer showed up in time.

Everyone in this market optimizes the deals that already exist. I’m building to increase the number of businesses that ever make it to market at all.

Started building @tryclef recently. Posting what I learn.

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Most small businesses don’t get sold when the owner retires. They just close.

McKinsey’s number: 92% of small business exits are closures. Only 5% are completed sales.

Thirty years of cash flow, customer relationships, and jobs, gone because no buyer showed up in time.

Everyone in this market optimizes the deals that already exist. I’m building to increase the number of businesses that ever make it to market at all.

Started building @tryclef recently. Posting what I learn.

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Most small businesses don’t get sold when the owner retires. They just close.

McKinsey’s number: 92% of small business exits are closures. Only 5% are completed sales.

Thirty years of cash flow, customer relationships, and jobs, gone because no buyer showed up in time.

Everyone in this market optimizes the deals that already exist. I’m building to increase the number of businesses that ever make it to market at all.

Started building @tryclef recently. Posting what I learn.

[Clef @tryclef]

A reliable signal when you're buying a business is how the team talks when the owner leaves the room.

Ask them something real with the owner there. Then ask again once they step out.

If the answers change, believe the second one.

[Clef @tryclef]

20 years can fly by. And if you never build it into more than a job, this is where it ends.

Talked to a neighbourhood shop owner yesterday who sold his 20-year-old business on Kijiji last week.

No broker. No BizBuySell. Kijiji. Next to a used couch and a snowblower.

One offer came within a few days. He took it. And this wasn't a distressed sale. He just felt it was time to move on. Said he's tired of managing everything. So he posted it on Kijiji.

He's staying on as an employee for a year.

Said he really only ever thought of his business as a job. Never treated it as anything but that. No systems, no real value at the end, except the inventory.

The Main Street deal market is more broken, and more human, than anyone thinks.

#smallbusiness

[Clef @tryclef]

New to buying a business? Here's a trap that catches first-timers and costs real money: working capital.

Every business needs a cushion of cash and unpaid invoices to cover payroll and expenses until customers pay. When you buy, that cushion isn't automatically yours. The seller can collect the receivables and take the cash right before closing.

So you can close on a profitable business Friday and not have enough to make payroll Monday. The business earns money. The cushion that funded it left with the seller.

The fix is a working capital target: an agreed minimum that stays in the business at close, with the price adjusted if it comes up short.

Skip it, and your first month gets scary fast.

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@_adishj @motion_so MOTION

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@theAIdreamer This is the part nobody talks about. AI compressed the build time to weeks but the distribution problem is exactly the same as it always was. Consistent users come from consistent outreach, not from launching. What channels have you tried so far?

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@annhybri hello

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@buildwithshyam Thats pretty cool!! I built a similar extension but its more to generate visual assets for marketing directly from the screenshot. Take a look! https://t.co/sV7OE9WvK0
https://t.co/2dhIe39SuO

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@MrBallaz Ads, social media assets, OG images, feature release graphics, banners etc.

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Day 4: $0MRR
I decided to improve the product yesterday & started with lets add ads category & ended with a decision to overhaul entirely!😃
I am doing a slight pivot turning https://t.co/sV7OE9WvK0 into "Vibe Marketing for SaaS". What does that line tell you? #buildinpublic

[Nik En @nik_enm]

@rezoundous Building what i want to build because people need it 😆

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Day 3: 1 user . $0MRR
From my distribution experience yesterday I realize https://t.co/sV7OE9WvK0 needs to become a bit sticky for my narrow ICP. Today I plan to prototype the ads generation asset category that stay on brand for various platforms. Lets Go! #buildinpublic

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Closing Day 2: It was a busy 2nd day of building https://t.co/mZvO4MMx5P I offered free assets to new launches via reddit and X. a handful of founders were interested. Found major bugs in the extension halfway in the day, spent remainder building a blogging engine and ended the day with my very 1st user! 🔥 LFG!

[Nik En @nik_enm]

IndieHackes, what are you building? Drop your product url/screenshots and I will give you free marketing visuals and PH launchpack!

[Nik En @nik_enm]

Day 2:
0 Users, ~20 unique visitors from my reddit and x engagement. Took some advice on this community and redid the frontend design which i like much better.

Today, I am going to start manual outreach to new founders on reddit and slack communities. Will also test the output with different models and tweaks.

My goal is to get 1 paid user in the next 10 days. and $100MRR in 30 days. LFG!

#buildinpublic #microsaas