Latest / The Indie Hacker Podcast with Fexingo: Solo Developers, SaaS Side Projects, and Independent Tech / How a Solo Dev Built a SaaS Using Micro-Acquisitions
Transcript
- Lucas: So Luna, there's a path to building a SaaS that doesn't involve writing a single line of code from scratch. Luna: Wait — you mean buying something already built? Lucas: Exactly. Micro-acquisitions. Solo devs buying small, often neglected projects with existing users and a trickle of revenue. I've been looking into this after Simon's story popped up on Indie Hackers last month. Luna: Simon who? Lucas: Simon. Just Simon. He's a solo dev in Germany. He bought a tiny email newsletter tool — think something that helps people send simple text newsletters — for two thousand dollars on Acquire.com. The thing had maybe twenty active users and a hundred dollars in monthly recurring revenue, but it was built on a solid codebase. Luna: Two grand for a codebase and twenty users. That's basically the price of a used laptop. Lucas: Right. And within six months, Simon had grown that tool to eight thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue. He didn't rebuild it. He added a paid tier — the original was free — and automated the onboarding flow. He also spent maybe two hundred dollars on a few small ads targeting newsletter writers. Luna: So the key was that the product already had product-market fit, just under-monetized and under-marketed. Lucas: Exactly. That's the thesis behind micro-acquisitions. You're not buying a business at a multiple. You're buying a piece of code that has proven it solves a real problem. Then you apply distribution and pricing. Luna: And Simon's story isn't unique. I've seen similar on TinyAcquisitions. The median price for these deals is around thirty-five hundred dollars. Lucas: Right, according to their 2025 data. And top performers — the ones that actually grow — see about five times MRR growth within a year. But here's the catch: the failure rate is also high. Over half of micro-acquisitions fizzle out. Luna: Why? I'd assume the code quality is a big factor. You buy someone's abandoned project, it might be held together with duct tape. Lucas: That's one. Technical debt is a real risk. But the bigger issue is user engagement. You can buy a project with a hundred users, but if those users haven't logged in in six months, you don't really have a product. You have a graveyard. Luna: So due diligence needs to go beyond the code. You need to see active usage, maybe even talk to a few users. Lucas: Exactly. Simon did that. He asked the seller to introduce him to three active users. He learned that they loved the simplicity but wished for a few features — like custom templates and analytics. He built those in three weeks. Luna: That's smart. He validated demand before committing to a build. And that's the advantage over building from scratch: you already have a user base who can tell you what to build next. Lucas: Precisely. Now, where does one find these deals? There are marketplaces like TinyAcquisitions, Acquire.com, and also a Slack community called MicroAcquire. But you have to be careful. Some sellers inflate metrics. I saw a listing claiming five hundred users, but upon digging, only forty had logged in the past month. Luna: Oof. So you need to ask for raw data. Monthly active users, churn rate, cost to run the servers. The basics. Lucas: And also the seller's motivation. Are they just bored? Or is the codebase a mess they're trying to offload? Simon's seller was a designer who built the tool for himself but got busy with client work. He genuinely wanted it to live on. Luna: That's a different energy from someone trying to dump a lemon. So what's the typical profile of a solo dev who succeeds with micro-acquisitions? Lucas: They usually have some technical skills — enough to fix bugs and add features — but also a marketing muscle. They're not afraid to do cold outreach or run small ad tests. They treat it like a side project at first, then scale it up. Luna: And the upfront cost is low enough that they can take a swing without risking everything. Simon's two thousand dollars — if it failed, he'd be out a weekend's worth of effort. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the appeal. Building a SaaS from zero takes months of unpaid work. With a micro-acquisition, you can start with revenue on day one, even if it's small. Then you optimize. Luna: You know, this actually reminds me of something — and it ties back to why we keep this show ad-free. We deliberately don't run ads because we want to give you honest, unsponsored takes like this one. If you find value in that approach and want to support it, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the independence going. No pressure, but it helps. Back to micro-acquisitions — I think the biggest mistake I see is overpaying for a project that looks bigger on the surface. Two thousand dollars is one thing, but I've seen people drop fifty thousand on a project with high churn. Luna: Fifty grand? That's serious money. What's the due diligence checklist for that kind of investment? Lucas: First, get a full code audit from a developer you trust. Second, ask for six months of server logs to verify active users. Third, run a cohort analysis: are users sticking around after month one? If churn is over ten percent monthly, that's a red flag. Luna: And what about the technology stack? Is there a particular stack that's easier to maintain for a solo dev? Lucas: Simplicity wins. A monolith with a database is easier to manage than a microservices architecture. Simon's tool was written in PHP with MySQL. Not sexy, but easy to deploy and cheap to host. That matters when you're solo. Luna: So it's not about the shiniest framework. It's about whether you can keep the thing running while you sleep. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing — the niche matters. Simon's newsletter tool is in a space that's growing. Newsletter platforms are having a moment. You want to buy into a rising tide, not a shrinking pond. Luna: Right. So micro-acquisitions are a viable strategy for solo devs who have some technical chops and a willingness to do the boring due diligence. And you can start small — like two thousand dollars small. Lucas: And if you're curious, the full breakdown of Simon's acquisition and growth is in the Indie Hackers forum from last month. I'll link it in the show notes. Next episode, we'll talk about a solo dev who built a SaaS by solving his own dog-walking scheduling problem — and turned it into forty thousand MRR. Luna: Can't wait. Until then, happy acquiring.