“I bought an app for two thousand dollars, fixed it up, and ended up selling it for a pretty good amount of money — like 10x my money — and realized I could do this.”

Buying a $2K app and 10x-ing it proved the roll-up model before pitching investors

Before pitching a single VC, Michael Ritter validated the Maple Media concept with his own money. A $2K roadside-game app he acquired and monetised became the proof-of-concept that eventually raised $1M from angel investors and attracted a private equity backer. Cheap first experiments compress the hypothesis-test cycle for any acquisition-driven strategy.