Order my USA TODAY Bestselling book: toxicgrit.com TOXIC GRIT: How to have it all and (actually) love what you have. It will help you create a new approach to ambition and find space for all the diverse parts of yourself. Join 75K+ others who read my newsletter 🧩 Life's a Game at amandagoetz.com. It’s full of free tips to play the game of life at a whole new level. In 2018 I found myself at the height of my marketing career with 3 kids under the age of 4 and filing for divorce. In a world telling me to find alignment......I realized that was impossible. The work version of me didn't want to leave early to go be with the kiddos. The mom version of me didn't want to miss a moment with them. I wanted to be fiercely independent and yet also wanted to find love again. Other versions of me didn't want to feel responsible for anything or anyone. This diversity within me led to the creation of my Character Theory Framework. This framework helped me to create space for the 10 characters that make up the movie of your life:  The CEO → wants to pursue big goalsThe Partner → desires companionship  The Soloist → cares about personal growth and development The Caregiver → deep desire to take care of others and show up for themThe Goddess → wants to be desired and pursue pleasure  The Lazy One → loves to couch rot, no goals whatsoever The Socialite → values connection The Creative → desires creation and creativity The Doctor → your inner health &amp; wellness character The Explorer → craves novelty And it helped me. I was able to let go of the idea of balance and give permission for hierarchy, boundaries and the transition sequences necessary to embody these diverse characters. So I put it all in a book and it was an instant best seller!! I'm so excited for you to create space for all parts of you and to see ambition as multi-dimensional. Follow me here for advice as I build a multi-hyphenate life as a CMO, Author, Mom of 3 and getting married again. 

Amanda Goetz

23 Year Old Shopify App Founder \\ Sharing my Startup Journey with the World

Creating the best popups in eCom

Trusted by Nike Strength, Hexclad, Comfrt, Milk Makeup, Hot Ones, and 3K+ others

Shaan Arora

This feels surreal to say. Alia has officially been acquired by Dotdigital.

There were a lot of nights I pictured writing this post.

[more emotional parts below, but I need to first talk to our customers and partners before anything else]

NOTHING will change for our partners and customers.

We're not asking anyone to move their ESPs to keep working with Alia.

If you have Slack channels with us, those channels will remain and you'll still keep your current CSMs with us.

Our same commitment to customer support and customer success for our customers and partners will still be there in full force.

We're not done building Alia by any means. Our team and product are staying intact.

And we're excited to build and move quickly as we've always done, but now with the resources of a much larger company.

-

I want to first express gratitude to my co-founding team.

Cory, Bill, and Jake have challenged me every single second of this journey and I appreciate it more than they'll ever know.

I try to read more and listen to more podcasts so that I can understand what they're saying when they're chatting to eachother at work.

I'm forever indebted to them, and I'm excited to keep building with them for a very long time.

I'm extremely grateful for the broader Alia team as well. I know that we ask a lot and that we're not the most typical company in many respects, but I'm damn 
proud of you all and your commitment to the company.

I'm very grateful to my family for the unwavering support and all the thoughts and prayers they've been sending since we started this whole thing four years ago.

When I asked my parents if I could live with them after college and work full-time on my crazy idea that had no funding or revenue, they didn't hesitate for a second.

Living at home with them when our company had no money gave me the chance to ground myself and work as hard as humanly possible.

My parents have supported me and given me space when I needed it, and I appreciate them dealing with me when my mood swings based on the revenue growth of the company on a week-to-week basis.

I also want to thank my friends for supporting us and caring. I know we can act crazy sometimes about this company and I appreciate you bearing with us.

Thank you to Dotdigital for trusting us and our mission. We’re just getting started, and we’re thrilled to build the future side by side.

Cory and I first started building Alia four years ago when we were 20 years old, 
both interns at a bank.

Being able to celebrate this with the same person who I've been with since the start is a feeling I can't put into words.

Oh, and by the way, we didn't take a dollar of outside funding to build Alia. 

As I'm holding back tears, I'll conclude with this:

I've been posting almost every weekday since January 2024 on LinkedIn and Twitter. And, at least once a week since then, I've dreamt of writing this post and how it'd feel to write it.

It feels better than I could've ever imagined.

Bootstrapped to $60M Exit // Building The Next Generation of Popups

I've always thought it'd be cool to have a proper sales team in person. And here they are 👇🏽

Like having people in the office just ripping the phones. 

And having other people taking back to back to back demos and closing deals. 

And having the sales team learn from eachother and exchange tips. 

And ringing a bell when a big deal closes. 

Like all of that I thought would be so cool to do. 

And now we're actually doing it and they're all here in the office and I get to just watch all of this unfold. 

I used to do every cold call, knock on every retail store in NYC to get demos, take every sales call, and send all the follow up emails (and I liked to follow up A LOT) to get closes. 

And now I get to watch people who are better than me at these things just go out there and CRUSH IT. 

Let's get after it Sameer Soomro, Raihan H., Rohan Duvvuru, and Abdul Anwar

Bootstrapped to $9M ARR // Building The Next Generation of Popups

We just shipped one of the most requested analytics features from our brands

LTV and repurchase rate analytics👇🏽 

Specifically, we now track the following, amongst others:
- Cohort data showing the number of shoppers at each order milestone (1st, 2nd, 3rd order, etc.)
- LTV
- Repurchase rate
- Median time to purchase

And A LOT of filtering capabilities as you can see attached. 

Bill Wohlers builds and ships at the speed of lightning ⚡️

'i just can't go back to the bank' -- this was my mantra in the dark days of our now $9M ARR B2B SaaS

tldr; if our startup failed, i'd have to go back to being a cog in a machine at a bank. thinking that i'd have to go back was my motivation to work harder. 

When we first started ideating for Alia, I was in college and living w/ my co-founder in NYC doing a 6-month internship at Credit Suisse. 

We'd go work at the bank and then come back at night and work on our crazy idea. 

And I hated going to the bank. Like dreaded it. 

I felt worthless and meaningless when I was there. 

Nobody cared if I lived or died. And if I died, they would replace me within the hour. 

That feeling was torturous to me. 

Moreover, nobody even really cared about the work I was doing. It was busy work and I knew it and they knew it. 

I also looked around me and didn't want to be like anyone that I was sitting near.

But when I went home and worked on our crazy idea, I loved it more than anything. 

And working on it wasn't glamorous. 

We did the worst grunt work imaginable in the early days. 

Like going on Etsy and commenting on items, trying to get visibility to the brand and begging them to chat with us college kids and give us advice. 

BTW, we did that for two weeks straight and made over 20 Etsy accounts that all got blocked because we were spamming. 

I'd walk around NYC, pitching our idea to businesses, only to be rejected by all of them. 

I'd email hundreds of people a day and get no response. 

We had no good signals and it was pure brainless work. 

BUT I LOVED IT. 

I loved it because it was all for us. 

One day, when we'd become successful, we'd reap the rewards of the hard work. 

And not just reap them in a small way, but reap them in a massive way. 

Fast forward to graduating college and going full time on our startup. 

Still nobody cared about us and nobody wanted to pick up my calls. 

I dialed more and worked harder because if I didn't succeed, I'd have to go back to Credit Suisse. 

And I WAS NOT GOING TO GO BACK TO THE BANK. 

Every hour I worked and every call I made was getting me closer to not having to go back to the bank. 

This was my motivation when things were hard. I hope you find yours. 

[pictured is me at work during the day]

The Alia Scratch Off popup for Portland Leather Goods is crushing 🫡

The Queen of England died 42 months ago. 

She ruled an entire nation and accumulated more wealth than 99.99% of humans. 

And yet, you haven’t thought about her except for this post.

No matter how big your dreams, you’re gonna die.

Everyone will move on.

Do what you want.

-

It sucks not to be liked, but it sucks even more to not be yourself. 

-

Heard this on a Chris Williamson x Alex Hormozi pod. Wanted to share because I love this framing.

I tweeted this before we were at $1M ARR. Younger Shaan was delusional and I'm so glad he was.

Excited to see yall in Vegas for Shoptalk

Here's what we're co-sponsoring 👇🏽

[all the links are below in my comment for the events]

03/24 from 4pm - 6pm: Unofficial Opening Night Meetup 

-

03/25 from 12pm - 5pm: Agency Masterclass - Financial Operations 

- 

03/25 from 7pm - 10pm: An Evening at the F1 Arcade - Caesar's Palace

- 

03/25 from 7pm - 9pm: Private Agency Networking Dinner

- 

03/25 from 10pm - 2am: Table at Hakkasan

-

Let's gooo 🚀

I help Tech founders exit | Partner @ FE International | saas.wtf Newsletter

Two 20-year-old bank interns. Zero funding. $30M-$60M exit in under 4 years.

The acquisition of Alia by Dotdigital (AIM-listed, $30M initial, up to $60M total) is one of the more interesting SaaS deals I've seen recently – and because Dotdigital is publicly listed, we get a rare look at the actual numbers.

Here's what makes this deal worth studying:

The value creation story first. Shaan and his co-founder Cory started building Alia in 2022. They were 20. Both interning at a bank. No funding, no revenue. 
Shaan moved back in with his parents to make it work.

Now the deal structure:

→ $30M cash at close – funded from Dotdigital's cash reserves. No debt, no equity issuance. 

→ Up to $30M in contingent cash consideration over two years – tied to maintaining historical growth at accretive margins. 

→ Total max: $60M. If earnout targets are hit, the max multiple caps at 2x forward-looking ARR.

What the multiples tell you:

The $30M initial on $8M ARR equals roughly 3.75x ARR. Solid – not euphoric, but this is a public company paying all cash from its balance sheet. Different risk calculus than a PE deal.

If you look at recognized revenue (only $4M in FY25, since ARR ramped from $1M to $8M during the year), the initial price looks more like 7.5x recognized revenue.

The real upside for the founders is in the earnout. If Alia keeps growing at anything close to its current trajectory, hitting the full $60M is very achievable.

And at max payout, Dotdigital caps its cost at 2x forward ARR – still disciplined from a buyer's perspective.

One detail I find smart: the deal is expected to be earnings-enhancing from day one. Alia already has >$1M EBITDA. They're buying profitable growth – a much easier pill for a public company board.

Why this matters for the Shopify ecosystem:

Ben Jabbawy – founder of Privy, the OG Shopify popup tool that sold to Attentive for ~$120M in 2021 - publicly said he advised Shaan to take the deal. 

His take: meaningful exits in the Shopify app ecosystem are extremely rare. Nobody is paying $100M+. Klaviyo isn't acquiring. Shopify isn't acquiring. IPO requires $500M+ in revenue. Know your exit universe.

Zero outside funding means the founders kept the entire cap table. No liquidation preferences eating into proceeds. $30M cash at close – all theirs.

Congrats to Shaan, Cory, Bill, and the Alia team. This is what bootstrapped execution looks like at its best.

“Wtf, how did a Shopify app sell for that much?”


I’ve been hearing this a lot in the week since we closed.

People hear “Shopify app” and they think something like a Wordpress plugin.
It’s understandable, but it underestimates 1) how big Shopify is and 2) what you can accomplish if you stay focused and execute ruthlessly.

1 - Shopify is not just some cute build-your-own-shop company. It powers many of the brands everyone knows and loves, including Alia customers like Comfrt, Hexclad, and DRMTLGY, as well as future Alia customers like Red Bull, Kylie Cosmetics, Gymshark, and literally millions of other brands.

2 - Our company is at the cutting edge of popups, which almost all Shopify brands depend on. They might seem simple, but anything that drives this much revenue can unlock millions of $$ in lift when you go as deep and remain as focused as we have.

Despite this, there’s one question I get asked constantly - “How much left is there to build in this space?”

The honest answer is - I don’t know, but I know we’re not anywhere close to the limit.

How do I know that?

Because in a few weeks, we’re dropping a feature that no competitor has released yet. Something that will up the standard for personalization in e-commerce, and add yet another bullet to the long list of reasons that Alia should be THE go-to for every single Shopify brand.

Stay tuned, more coming soon.

Enjoy this photo of us on a Times Square billboard with a George Washington actor at Mt Vernon:

Founder @ The SaaS Hub | Helping Shopify Apps Get Seen, Trusted, and Installed

View Yuvraj Kewate - building TheSaasHub’s profile

🚀 From $1M to $8M ARR. Bootstrapped. 
That’s the journey of Shaan Arora, Founder of Alia the Email & SMS Popups app on Shopify.

We recently recorded an in-depth conversation for The SaaS Hub Podcast | Shopify App Founders Edition, and it’s one of the most honest founder discussions we’ve had so far.

Starting today, I’m dropping a few short clips from our conversation on YouTube.

The full episode goes live tomorrow.

In this episode, we talk about:
• Scaling from $1M to $8M ARR
• Building in a highly competitive pop-up category
• Bootstrapping vs raising capital
• The discipline behind sustainable SaaS growth
• What most founders get wrong about scaling

What stood out to me the most was not just the growth numbers but the clarity and conviction behind the decisions.

If you’re building on Shopify or running a SaaS company, you’ll want to watch this one.

Short clips dropping today.
Full episode tomorrow.

Subscribe & watch here: https://lnkd.in/dBMZSbf7

#ShopifyApps #SaaS #Bootstrapped #Ecommerce #FounderJourney #TheSaaSHub

Founder & CEO of Contara: The Retention-Driven Conversion Agency

Most Shopify pop-ups convert at 3-5%. Here's how we increased that to 15%+ for our clients.

1. We use Alia to power our pop-ups (highly recommend)

2. We lead with a fun question

Here's your game plan:

When someone lands on your site, prompt them with something interactive. Something that makes them WANT to engage.

Examples for CPG brands:

- "What's your biggest wellness goal right now?" (for a health brand)
- "What's your go-to morning routine?" (for a supplement brand)
- "Pick your flavor personality" (for a beverage brand)

It should be just one click, something fun, make it feel like a quiz.

THEN after they answer, hit them with:

"Nice choice. Here's 15% off your first order, just drop your email."

Why this works:

1. Micro-commitment
They already engaged. Psychologically they're more invested in finishing the interaction. Giving you an email feels like the natural next step.

2. It feels personalized
A question says "we want to know YOU." 

3. You collect zero-party data
Now you know what they care about. Their first email from you can be tailored to exactly what they told you. Open rates go through the roof.

4. It breaks the pattern
A question stops the scroll because it's unexpected.

Check out this example on our client's site.

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