What if you attracted 50 buyers in two months - for a product you almost didn't list?

That's not a marketing strategy. That's exactly what happened when 21-year-old Ovi Shekh posted Wisdomic AI on Acquire.com and watched his inbox fill up faster than he expected.

Ovi is a CS student from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He's already exited two businesses before most people his age have submitted a single job application. His first exit came almost by accident - a COVID-era grocery delivery startup, quietly acquired after the buyer tracked him down on Instagram. His second was Wisdomic AI. An AI-powered academic research tool he'd spent eight months building. Ten thousand signups. Nineteen hundred active users. Fifty-plus universities. And a product he genuinely didn't want to let go of.

But he listed it anyway. Just to see.

Fifty-two inquiries later, he had a signed LOI with his chosen buyer. And then a better offer showed up. More money. Different vision. And Ovi walked away from it.

Because here's the thing most first-time sellers never think to use as a dealbreaker - vision alignment. Not the highest number. Not the cleanest terms. Whether the buyer actually believes in what you built and will carry it forward the right way. That was the filter. That was the whole decision.

The buyer Ovi chose went on to raise $700,000 using the asset Ovi sold him. Let that sit for a second.

In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Ovi to unpack how a 21-year-old from Bangladesh navigated two exits, turned down a better offer on purpose, and figured out the rules of the acquisition game earlier than almost anyone around him. How he valued an eight-month-old SaaS with no ARR and a niche user base that didn't behave like typical consumers. Why he applied to Y Combinator eight times, got rejected every single time, and what that finally told him about where his leverage actually lived. And the one thing he says nobody tells you when you're building - that you don't get rich owning a startup. Only selling one.

Most founders fall in love with their product and never let go. Ovi fell in love with his, listed it just to see what would happen, and walked away with a lesson worth more than the exit itself.

🎧 Hit play - this is what acquisition-minded thinking looks like when it starts at 21.

 

Episode Highlights

00:55 - Why Ovi Listed Wisdomic AI And Got 52 Inquiries Almost Immediately

02:55 - The Moment a Better Offer Arrived After the LOI Was Signed - And Why He Turned It Down Anyway

06:43 - How You Value an Eight-Month-Old SaaS With No ARR and a Niche User Base That Doesn't Behave Like Normal Consumers

09:36 - The COVID Grocery Startup, the Hub and Spoke Model, and the Instagram DM That Turned a Shutdown Into His First Exit

12:33 - Eight YC Rejections, a Grant But No Funding, and the Moment He Realized Bangladesh Was the Ceiling

18:04 - What He Told His University Audience About Leverage, Product Market Fit, and Finding a Buyer With Complementary Skills

22:12 - The One Piece of Advice That Has Nothing to Do With Business - And Everything to Do With Why You're Building

 

Key Takeaways

➥ Vision alignment beats the highest offer. Price gets you to the table. The right buyer gets your product to where it was always supposed to go. Know the difference before you sign anything.

➥ Your unfair advantage is the thing you build from. Ovi could code. His co-founder could market. Know what you bring that nobody else in the room has - and build your exit strategy around it.

➥ A low churn rate is a valuation argument. Researchers don't bounce like casual app users. When your user base is sticky by nature, that's a story worth telling every buyer in the room.

➥ You don't get rich owning a startup. Only selling one. Building is how you create the asset. The exit is how you actually collect. Most founders confuse the two until it's too late.

➥ An MVP with product market fit is worth more than a perfect product nobody's using. Acquirers and investors are buying traction, not polish. Ship it, prove it sticks, then have the valuation conversation.

➥ Retaining a small equity slice post-exit is insurance, not greed. Five percent of something that raises $700K is a very different number than 100 percent of something you can no longer scale alone.

➥ Time is the one thing money cannot buy back. Twelve-hour days in Claude Code mean nothing if nobody's waiting for you when you close the laptop. Build the business. But don't lose the life funding it.

 

About Ovi Shekh

Ovi Shekh is a 21-year-old entrepreneur and CS student from Bangladesh who has already exited two businesses. He co-founded GetGroceryBD during COVID - an on-demand grocery delivery platform acquired by Bponi in 2023. He then built Wisdomic AI, an AI-powered academic research tool that grew to 1,900+ users and 50+ universities before attracting 50+ buyers on Acquire.com and successfully exiting. Now building Arklab AI and actively investing in small businesses, Ovi represents a new generation of acquisition-minded founders.

 

Connect with Ovi Shekh

➥ https://www.ovishekh.com/
➥ linkedin.com/in/ovishkh 

 

Resource Links

➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause

➥ FREE Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/

➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com

➥ Online Business Due Diligence Services -https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/duediligence

 

Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥

➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE

➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5

➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO

➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR

 

*This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you.

 

What if you attracted 50 buyers in two months - for a product you almost didn't list?
That's not a marketing strategy. That's exactly what happened when 21-year-old Ovi Shekh posted Wisdomic AI on Acquire.com and watched his inbox fill up faster than he expected.
Ovi is a CS student from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He's already exited two businesses before most people his age have submitted a single job application. His first exit came almost by accident - a COVID-era grocery delivery startup, quietly acquired after the buyer tracked him down on Instagram. His second was Wisdomic AI. An AI-powered academic research tool he'd spent eight months building. Ten thousand signups. Nineteen hundred active users. Fifty-plus universities. And a product he genuinely didn't want to let go of.
But he listed it anyway. Just to see.
Fifty-two inquiries later, he had a signed LOI with his chosen buyer. And then a better offer showed up. More money. Different vision. And Ovi walked away from it.
Because here's the thing most first-time sellers never think to use as a dealbreaker - vision alignment. Not the highest number. Not the cleanest terms. Whether the buyer actually believes in what you built and will carry it forward the right way. That was the filter. That was the whole decision.
The buyer Ovi chose went on to raise $700,000 using the asset Ovi sold him. Let that sit for a second.
In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Ovi to unpack how a 21-year-old from Bangladesh navigated two exits, turned down a better offer on purpose, and figured out the rules of the acquisition game earlier than almost anyone around him. How he valued an eight-month-old SaaS with no ARR and a niche user base that didn't behave like typical consumers. Why he applied to Y Combinator eight times, got rejected every single time, and what that finally told him about where his leverage actually lived. And the one thing he says nobody tells you when you're building - that you don't get rich owning a startup. Only selling one.
Most founders fall in love with their product and never let go. Ovi fell in love with his, listed it just to see what would happen, and walked away with a lesson worth more than the exit itself.
🎧 Hit play - this is what acquisition-minded thinking looks like when it starts at 21.
&nbsp;
Episode Highlights
00:55 - Why Ovi Listed Wisdomic AI And Got 52 Inquiries Almost Immediately
02:55 - The Moment a Better Offer Arrived After the LOI Was Signed - And Why He Turned It Down Anyway
06:43 - How You Value an Eight-Month-Old SaaS With No ARR and a Niche User Base That Doesn't Behave Like Normal Consumers
09:36 - The COVID Grocery Startup, the Hub and Spoke Model, and the Instagram DM That Turned a Shutdown Into His First Exit
12:33 - Eight YC Rejections, a Grant But No Funding, and the Moment He Realized Bangladesh Was the Ceiling
18:04 - What He Told His University Audience About Leverage, Product Market Fit, and Finding a Buyer With Complementary Skills
22:12 - The One Piece of Advice That Has Nothing to Do With Business - And Everything to Do With Why You're Building
&nbsp;
Key Takeaways
➥ Vision alignment beats the highest offer. Price gets you to the table. The right buyer gets your product to where it was always supposed to go. Know the difference before you sign anything.
➥ Your unfair advantage is the thing you build from. Ovi could code. His co-founder could market. Know what you bring that nobody else in the room has - and build your exit strategy around it.
➥ A low churn rate is a valuation argument. Researchers don't bounce like casual app users. When your user base is sticky by nature, that's a story worth telling every buyer in the room.
➥ You don't get rich owning a startup. Only selling one. Building is how you create the asset. The exit is how you actually collect. Most founders confuse the two until it's too late.
➥ An MVP with product market fit is worth more than a perfect product nobody's using. Acquirers and investors are buying traction, not polish. Ship it, prove it sticks, then have the valuation conversation.
➥ Retaining a small equity slice post-exit is insurance, not greed. Five percent of something that raises $700K is a very different number than 100 percent of something you can no longer scale alone.
➥ Time is the one thing money cannot buy back. Twelve-hour days in Claude Code mean nothing if nobody's waiting for you when you close the laptop. Build the business. But don't lose the life funding it.
&nbsp;
About Ovi Shekh
Ovi Shekh is a 21-year-old entrepreneur and CS student from Bangladesh who has already exited two businesses. He co-founded GetGroceryBD during COVID - an on-demand grocery delivery platform acquired by Bponi in 2023. He then built Wisdomic AI, an AI-powered academic research tool that grew to 1,900+ users and 50+ universities before attracting 50+ buyers on Acquire.com and successfully exiting. Now building Arklab AI and actively investing in small businesses, Ovi represents a new generation of acquisition-minded founders.
&nbsp;
Connect with Ovi Shekh
➥ <a href="https://www.ovishekh.com/about">https://www.ovishekh.com/ </a>➥ <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/ovishkh">linkedin.com/in/ovishkh</a>&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Resource Links
➥ Connect with Jaryd here -<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause"> https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause</a>
➥ FREE Download the Due Diligence Framework -<a href="https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/"> https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ </a>➥ Buying Online Businesses Website -<a href="https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/"> https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com</a>
➥ Online Business Due Diligence Services -<a href="https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/"> </a>https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/duediligence
&nbsp;
Buy &amp; Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥
➥ Empire Flippers -<a href="https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE"> https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE</a>
➥ Flippa -<a href="https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5"> https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5</a>
➥ Motion Invest -<a href="https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO"> https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO </a>➥ Investors Club -<a href="https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR"> https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR</a>
&nbsp;
*This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you.
&nbsp;

Jaryd Krause quit his plumbing job in 2015 by acquiring online businesses and never looked back. Now one of the world's leading Online Business M&A advisors, he's helped thousands of people acquire profitable businesses, made his clients millions, and scaled companies from 6 to 8 figures.

The Buying Online Businesses Podcast cuts through the noise on acquisitions, M&A strategy, and building real wealth through buying already profitable online businesses. Whether you're looking to replace your income or build a portfolio that funds the life you actually want, this is your show!

Jaryd Krause quit his plumbing job in 2015 by acquiring online businesses and never looked back. Now one of the world's leading Online Business M&amp;A advisors, he's helped thousands of people acquire profitable businesses, made his clients millions, and scaled companies from 6 to 8 figures.
The Buying Online Businesses Podcast cuts through the noise on acquisitions, M&amp;A strategy, and building real wealth through buying already profitable online businesses. Whether you're looking to replace your income or build a portfolio that funds the life you actually want, this is your show!

Buying Online Businesses Podcast

Hosted by Jaryd Krause who went from plumber to creating an online business empire through buying websites for passive income. 

This podcast will unfold his secrets as you explore the highs, lows and light bulb moments of his personal journey in each episode. He will show you that no matter where you are in life an alternate lifestyle is more than possible. You will gain the knowledge you need to start buying online businesses yourself and live a fulfilling lifestyle.