Acquiring Fireside

First, let's set the scene. It's Saturday, July 20th in South Bend, Indiana. My kids are playing in the driveway (yes they left their toys out) while my wife and I work on some tweaks to our camper.

My phone dings. Just kidding. My phone never dings. It's always on silent. Let's pretend it buzzes. And please pretend I actually feel it in my shorts pocket (hint: I never feel it buzz, ask my wife).

It's a text from Garrett...

The Text

Garrett: Wanna buy fireside?
Me: What is it? Is that the podcast thing? I mean I’m interested in all things that make money haha.
Garrett: Yes. Fireside.fm. Will do an intro. Dan’s down to talk.
Me: Called Dan. Went well. We’ll catch up soon. 🤷‍♂️ 😬

Ok, now let's fast forward two months past the "getting to know you", late night talks over a glass of wine 10 states apart, a letter of intent, a purchase agreement, an operating agreement, a revised operating agreement, a new LLC, the terrible herding of cats the last week before signatures, the lack of communication from the bank in the final days, and the Kir Royale (thanks Emily in Paris) toasts after signing to today.

Today? Well, I'm sitting in my hotel in that perfect state of exhaustion and excitement following two days of nerding out at Rails World. My voice is mostly gone and I overslept the morning talks. But I'm pumped.

Pumped for Rails World? Sure. But really, I'm pumped because this week me and my merry band of skilled SaaS artisans acquired fireside.fm from Dan Benjamin.

Dan is a notorious OG podcaster, who scratched his own itch by starting Fireside back in 2016. He grew it and then a few years ago, as one sometimes does, fell into other things.

Fireside continued to chug along. But Dan wasn't ok with it just chugging along. Fireside was his baby. He wanted to see it be cared for and grow. That's where Garrett comes in.

The Team

You see Garrett worked on Fireside in 2021 for quite a while. He wrote a lot of the billing and worked on many other parts. So he knows the code base well. But Garrett has ran a SaaS by himself before and wasn't going to try that again.

For the past year and change, he's worked with me on Flipper Cloud and Box Out Sports. It's been great. We've always wanted to work together. So when Dan reached out to Garrett about Fireside, he knew just who to text.

First, I drummed up Kris to help with marketing. As they say, first time founders are obsessed with product and second time founders are obsessed with distribution. I'm past my second time founding something, but my obsession of late has definitely been distribution.

Anyway, back to Kris. Kris has helped us level up marketing (among many other things operationally) at Box Out. Also, he and I have become intertwined on a couple real estate things. I'll talk more about those another time.

Lastly, I brought Steve in as passive investor. I knew he wouldn't have time to put hands to keyboard on Fireside, but he's been my business partner for the better part of 15 years. So I knew he'd be good to have on board.

The Future

Very Good Software (my second company named as an ode to Parks & Recreation) is going to be my attempt at a money ball approach to a software holding company. I'm reading the Essays of Warren Buffet right now if you haven't already figured that out.

I have a thesis that there are a lot of profitable Rails apps sitting out there with founders who've peaked and want out. And to be honest, I'm tired of building and selling. I've entered the period of my life where I want to build (or buy) and hold. Fireside will be the first.

The second will be Flipper. Once the dust settles on the Fireside deal, I'll be acquiring/merging Flipper Cloud into Very Good Software. Currently, Flipper is owned by Fewer & Faster which has two owners on paper (myself and Brandon). But I've already talked with Brandon about a buyout or merger. We'll look at the tax implications and decide what's best for both of us.

Garrett will be the primary dev on Fireside and I'll be the primary on Flipper. But we'll hop between the two quite often, if not weekly. Kris will help with marketing on both but initially he'll focus on Fireside.

I'm not a focus on one thing kind of person. And I've finally come to terms with that. I'll help keep Box Out growing. I'll help Fireside turn from a very slow downturn to growth. And the commercial side of Flipper will continue to do its thing.

The Podcast (coming soon)

Lastly, you can't own a podcast host without having a podcast. I'm pretty sure it's a cardinal sin. So we'll be firing one up to talk more about all this. As you can guess, we've learned a ton in the past 2 months. And we have a lot to share!

I'll post everywhere when we do so just pick a spot to follow me. But I wanted to at least mention it.

That's all for now! It's been a big week between this acquisition and attending Rails World in Toronto. I'm pumped for the future!