Dirk Sahlmer

Acquiring SaaS companies @ saas.group | saas.wtf Newsletter

Engineer turned M&A professional. After 20+ transactions on the buy-side, I'm now helping tech founders run a structured exit process.

Posting regularly here on LI and in my saas.wtf newsletter on SaaS and  M&A topics.

Head of Origination

It's Sunday and you're scrolling LinkedIn instead of doing anything productive? Cool, I have something for you..


Alexander from MRR Unlocked 🚀 asked me to contribute to a playbook for SaaS founders scaling from 0 to €1M ARR.

My brief: Share your #1 tip.

If you've been following me for a while, you can probably guess what mine was ab

(Spoiler: It involves KPIs)

The article also includes insights from many other people who are smarter than me covering positioning, ICP, content strategy, pricing, and CRM.

Definitely worth a read: https://lnkd.in/es-EzACY

One more thing: Alex asked me to post about it tomorrow. But I'm doing it on Sunday evening because I like to make life difficult.
 
Please engage and help me send this to the moon, so he won't complain that I didn't follow directions.
 
Thanks in advance. 🫶

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

Alexandru Stan

I am just an entrepreneur, just a normal person, a normal husband, a normal guy. 

Nothing special for real, I am just a normal guy.

But because I am on the stage, I have a strong personal branding and we run tekpon awards where we have 1000 strong leaders from AI and SaaS industry, people consider me more than a person. 

But trust me, I am just a normal guy! 

And I love to help others! 

From the bottom of my heart,
Alexandru Stan

City Leader

My wife to me:

“ALEX, that is our dinning table not your Photo Booth…” 

*on the cover is Jeko Kolev CEO Nextoria (the M&A guy you should meet)

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Who I Am

I’m Alexandru Stan, the founder of tekpon, a marketplace for SaaS and AI solutions. I’m a simple man, but deeply passionate about what I do. A family guy, a community builder, a serial entrepreneur, and occasionally an angel investor.

I’ve written six books, three of which are published. Only one became known to the wider public: King of Networking. That’s also how I earned the nickname King of Networking in the software industry.

I love lifting people up, connecting people, inspiring people. I love writing. I’m extremely active at global tech conferences, and we also organize two annual events with 1,000 participants each. I’m a member of several exclusive elite clubs. My office is on a boat. I’m passionate about marketing. I love people, dogs, and cats. I love traveling and collecting old or foreign coins. And I never stop learning.

I founded my first company at 18. Today I’m 36.

I work out, I swim, I run, and I spend time in nature (mostly swimming). I’m used to speaking on big and small stages. I wear a suit almost every day. I’ve made several exits, and I have a collector’s car that I use to pick up guests from the airport when they come to visit our beautiful country, Romania.

Speaking of which, I’m Romanian. And I wanted to put Romania on the map. Some say I already did. I believe I’m just getting started, even with 18 years of business experience behind me.

After my last exit I thought I would spend all day on my boat. But it seems some people are meant to contribute to the lives of others. So I stepped off the boat, returned to people, and went back to work without thinking about the fact that I could simply relax now.

I love barbecuing and cooking for people. I’m not a developer, but I know the difference between HTML and CSS, or PHP and JavaScript. I can handle SEO. I’ve built several websites with millions of monthly visitors (never alone).

I wish every person on Earth maximum success, to buy everything they want, to do everything they want, and eventually realize that life isn’t about that.

At tekpon awards, our event with 1,000 founders and executives, a kind of Oscars for SaaS, I cried on stage from emotion. I thought people would laugh. Instead, they applauded my courage.

I’m human. And that’s pretty much it.

I wrote this text because I know a period is coming when many people will search to find out who is “this Alexandru Stan from tekpon”. And beyond the Forbes articles, event photos, and books I’ve written, I wanted them to also find a text written by me. From the heart.❤️

In order to succeed like a rockstar, you need more people than you think:

- a supportive wife 
- a great team around you (CTO, CMO, CRO, COO, C….)
- strategic investors
- experienced advisors
- community 
- friends 
- family 
- lots of business connections 

And you also need to be good at sales, marketing, product, seo, geo, finance, legal, management, people, content, design and a lot more…

I started in 2007 so you also need resilience, passion, lots of energy, routine, to practice a sport, to be crazy! 

I failed many times, more than you think and more than my own expectations of course. But I started again. And again…

You also need to think about other people success not yours! Success of your team, success of your customers, success of your investors, you are the last one on the list. 

And sometimes people don’t talk that much in public? 

Being successful comes with lots of pressure, you need to learn how to manage stress, how to take strategic decisions fast, you need to have your own values and you need to use your heart more than your brain. 

And you are not allowed to use ChatGPT or other tools to create content for your LinkedIn, people are smart here!

On Tuesday I will make an announcement, probably unexpected. But I will be the same Alex as you know.

Thank you so much everyone for your support, thank you to my team, family, friends, customers, sponsors, business connections, thank you everyone! 🙏

AFTERMOVIE 2025 
(tekpon AI summit) 

1000 people from 36 countries 
Mostly SaaS Founders and Executives 

#tekponAIsummit

Content with AI = poor quality 
Paid reviews = zero trust

Don’t get me wrong, AI could be used in multiple ways and it’s fantastic, but think about it…

No one wants to read content created with AI and no one trusts paid reviews

⚠️ It was a real pleasure to be an SFM member and it is the best community for B2B SaaS founders in Europe by far.

I was also an ambassador for SaaStock Founder Membership (SFM) in Eastern Europe and my honest opinion is this:

For a B2B SaaS founder with $1M ARR, it is the easiest way to understand what needs to be done to scale to $10M. 

Tekpon’s rapid growth forced me to step down and let other people join the community. 

SFM made a significant contribution to our growth, and I’ve met a lot of great founders, participate in retreats, learn from this community and I hope I was also able to help the community.

Ruxandra Ion, the CEO and Founder of Ventivo Group, brought the coffee to the tekpon AI Summit.

I never imagined they would be so creative as to “print” our logo on it…

By the way, if you ever need an app or a complex platform, they are the right partner.

taplio

The Battle

Dirk Sahlmer

Alexandru Stan

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taplio

The Battle

Dirk Sahlmer

Alexandru Stan

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dirk Sahlmer's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAlexandru Stan's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDirk Sahlmer's LinkedIn Performance