Summary

Chris Ikharo successfully built and sold a pre-revenue B2B SaaS product, TacticalEngage, designed for sales enhancement, using no-code tools, and it was acquired for a 5-figure sum within two months.

Abstract

Chris Ikharo, an entrepreneur with a background in e-commerce email marketing and no-code tools, created TacticalEngage, a no-code SaaS tool for sales professionals. The product facilitates personalized micro-sites and notecards for prospecting, leveraging AI for content personalization. Despite being pre-revenue, the tool's potential for scaling and monetization attracted a non-technical founder with sales expertise to acquire it. The acquisition process, managed through acquire.com, concluded with a 5-figure sale after just two months of development and listing. Chris emphasizes the importance of validating ideas for motivation and stress reduction and shares his insights on using cold emails for user acquisition in the B2B space.

Opinions

Chris believes in the power of no-code tools, having transitioned from coding to using WordPress and later platforms like Bubble, Zapier, and Airtable.
The product was designed to address a specific problem in the market, which made it attractive for acquisition by a buyer with industry knowledge.
Chris advocates for the effectiveness of cold emailing as a primary user acquisition channel, with specific strategies to optimize its impact in the B2B sector.
The buyer's interest in TacticalEngage was driven by the potential to scale the product, demonstrating the value of a scalable product to non-technical founders.
Chris advises other makers to validate their ideas early to maintain motivation and avoid unnecessary stress.
The success story of TacticalEngage is presented as inspiration for others in the no-code community, showcasing the viability of no-code solutions in the SaaS market.

A pre-revenue B2B sales tool built without code and acquired for 5-figures

For this week’s No-Code Exit story I talked with Chris Ikharo. He built and sold a product without revenue for 5-figures. I think it was possible because the product was ready to scale:

🩹 Solving a clear problem for a certain niche

💎 Sleek website and branding

🏗️ Functional product

💰 Ready to monetize (subscriptions and email flow set up)

This makes it attractive for non-technical founders with marketing skills and specific industry knowledge to acquire a product and use their skills to monetize it as quickly as possible.

I hope the interview can inspire you and happy building!

Hello, what is your background?

Hi, I’m Chris. My journey to no-code started long before no-code was a thing. I always fancied the idea of location freedom and being able to make money online. I remember reading John Chow’s blog in 2010 and getting inspired to build one for myself, so I started learning to code. After a while I discovered WordPress and this was my first real experience of seeing how powerful no-code is. Later I got to explore a number of no-code tools like Zapier, Airtable, Make, Notion, Bubble…

Tell us about your product that you made?

In 2021, I was running an e-commerce email marketing agency. For one of the Black Friday campaigns for a client we wanted to send out personalized notecards to all their customers via direct mail. AI wasn’t on the horizon yet, so we could only do the basic personalizations.

Fast-forward to 2023, I wanted again to send out personalized cold emails and notecards via direct mail for another product I was building. This time AI has become a thing.

So I glued a number of tools together for my campaign. Afterwards I thought others might be interested in a product like this so I decided to turn it into a SaaS. TacticalEngage was born, a sales enhancement tool that helps sales people create personalized micro-sites and notecards for prospecting.

What went into building the initial version?

There wasn’t much of validation that went into it at the early stage. I just built it, as it was solving my own problem. The tools I used were:

Bubble for the web app
Open AI to personalize the different prospecting pages, note cards and also email content.
Zapier for connecting with other tools
Loops.so for emails

Can you share how you got your first users?

Cold email is what I like to use as main acquisition channel for my projects. Here are some things I learned:

Never use your main domain for sending cold emails.
Only do it if you’re in the B2B space, I noticed it doesn’t work well for B2C.
Keep your message brief. Don’t talk about each feature but hit one major pain point and the benefits.
Focus on one CTA to buy right away with a discount or a free trial.
Send 4 followups and then stop sending

Tell us about the acquisition?

After a few weeks of building I decided to list TacticalEngage on acquire.com. It was pre-revenue but had a couple of users on the free tier. I believed it would do better in the hands of someone with experience in the niche. I listed it on Acquire and after a number of signed NDAs and 3 real interested offers, it was acquired for 5 figures. From building to acquisition took 2 months.

Why did they buyer acquire your project?

The buyer was someone without technical knowledge but with 10+ years experience in sales. He was in the market for a project he could acquire and scale, TacticalEngage seemed like a no-brainer for him.

What’s your advice for makers who are just starting out?

Validating your idea can save you a lot of stress and especially motivate you to keep building. I feel that when I don’t validate an idea I lose motivation to finish it.

☝️One more thing

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