April the 13th, 2026 – The inspiring story of how a young Šibenik woman successfully sold her company online, seeing it highly respected in the United Kingdom.
As Forbes Hrvatska/Bojan Bajgoric Santic writes, Barbara Maheshwari from Šibenik has sold her company Remote Bob, which she started seven years ago. Forbes Hrvatska already reported on the company, which also finished on the list of the top 25 fastest growing virtual assistant agencies in the United Kingdom in 2026.
Maheshwari revealed more about the story so far, adding that Remote Bob’s assistants are now used by some of the most popular British entrepreneurs, including Jonathan Wan, who was named in the top 30 under 30 by Forbes Europe, and famous rugby player Stevie Ward. Although most of the clients are based in the United Kingdom, America, Switzerland and the Emirates, the majority of the virtual assistants that Remote Bob hires are still from the Balkans.
what prompted the sale of remote bob?
She started the company with a mere 120 euros, and learned how to make a website via YouTube while she was stuck in India for seven months during the coronavirus lockdown with her laptop and a backpack. She has decided to sell the company now for multiple reasons.
One reason is the desire to switch to the tech sector and build a global business. Remote Bob has an agency model that focuses on people, which is why 50% of the founder’s time was spent on promotion and arranging new collaborations, and 50% of her time on delivery supervision. She also admits that some situations with people really disappointed her, which is why she lost part of her motivation.
She would prefer to own a business that depends on tech, so when she agrees on a sale or partnership, her part of the work ends there. She thought about developing an app or platform and going digital, but then she realised that it would be like building two businesses in parallel at the same time, and that it would be simpler to finish the Remote Bob project first, and only then start something new.
She also made the decision due to health problems. She explained that she didn’t learn how to take breaks and rest when needed. Because of this, she unfortunately became unwell and received a serious diagnosis, and instead of traditional treatment, she chose to change everything that subconsciously brought her body out of balance. She wasn’t sure if it was her husband or the company, so she decided to change both. She divorced, sold the company, and stated that she has since recovered completely.
it wasn’t all smooth sailing…
She loves designing landing pages, writing blogs, making videos for social media, negotiating deals, partnerships, giving speeches, mentoring people, building systems.
“Yes, that’s what I truly enjoy and what comes easy to me. In the company, I always delegated the established part, and left it to myself to solve unplanned problems and situations, so lately I’ve often felt like dealing with dismissals, debt collection, and conducting lawsuits in London. It wasn’t much fun anymore.
Her initial intention behind starting Remote Bob was to help people across the Balkans who were struggling to find work get projects. That didn’t really turn out to be sustainable, because it turned out that if they hire people who are struggling to find work, they’re mostly not responsible enough, or they don’t have enough knowledge to be ready to bring value to a given company.
Because of this, they had to invest a lot of resources in their education, which didn’t really prove to be sustainable. After that, they adapted and decided to hire only people who are already excellent at what they do. However, since the aspect of “helping people” was lost a little and everything became “just business”, she says that she lost a little passion.
a successful internet sale
For all these reasons, she researched more deeply into how companies are sold online, and anonymously listed Remote Bob’s profile on the Smergers, UK Businesses for sale and Acquire platforms. She entered the data that was used to estimate the real value of her company into an online calculator and then put in an average number. She also sent a request to a couple of brokerages and consulting firms that offer mediation in the sale of a company, but by the time they responded, she had already started receiving inquiries from potential buyers, so engaging them seemed pointless.
Having previously worked as a Startup Scout for the Accelerator and as a Startup Consultant in London, she easily prepared a pitch deck and other sales materials.
She received about 76 inquiries from potential buyers. She responded to 42, held 39 meetings, and received six offers. She was lucky that Remote Bob is 100% remote-based and is based in London, where the market for selling companies is much, much larger and faster.
She stated it was very important to her to put Remote Bob in good hands, because the company is like her own child.
then came the stress
It wasn’t until she started meeting with potential buyers that things got stressful. Some seemed not to be seriously interested in making the purchase but were instead gathering information and researching the market, some tried to lower the price and convince her that the company was worth next to nothing, and some made excellent financial offers but didn’t come across like decent people, which is why she didn’t have the heart to let the company go to them.
After that, she finally met the potential buyers with whom she clicked from the start. A married couple from England who already have a couple of successful experiences behind them, left an impression on her as serious business people with a strategy. They were honest and kind to people, enthusiastic about everything related to the company, stating that it was exactly what they were looking for, and immediately after the first meeting and reviewing the materials, they sent her an excellent offer.
They signed a preliminary agreement in mid-September 2025 and scheduled November the 1st as the date when the sale would be finalised. “We agreed so easily and quickly that the whole situation seemed almost “too good to be true, and then they bought Remote Bob through Dynamicus Group,” recalled Barbara.
They asked her what the best way to inform the team about the change would be, which coincided with the upcoming team building event.
“The British are usually very approachable, friendly and relaxed at first, but it’s actually a tactic because they want you to relax and tell them everything honestly because you’ve become friends,” said Maheshwari. She didn’t think there was any need to warn the team about it because they’re always professional, but at the team building event she had a few too many drinks and relaxed a little bit too much.
The team told the customer about their biggest mistakes, their craziest binge drinking sprees, and how one colleague’s babysitter cancelled at the last minute and she took her small baby out with her. At that introduction, they came across as extremely unprofessional, to say the least, and she was afraid that the couple would go to the airport and simply block them, which she wouldn’t have blamed them for. However, that didn’t happen, and it seemed that such sheer honesty paid off.
more growth on the horizon for remote bob
“Although the target date for the sale of Remote Bob was the first day of November last year, both the buyer and I wanted to resolve everything as soon as possible, due to a poor choice of lawyer, everything became complicated and was only finalised on March the 9th of this year,” Barbara noted.
When she hired a lawyer in England to represent her in this process, she received offers from 5 to 30,000 pounds. To her, this seemed like a huge sum of money, considering that the seller’s lawyer only needs to review and comment on the documentation, while the buyer’s lawyer actually has most of the work to do with the preparation.
She hired a law firm that was among the cheaper ones which didn’t go particularly smoothly, but eventually resolved the whole saga.
All members of the Remote Bob team will remain with the company, so nothing changed for clients. Her colleague, who has been running the company operationally for almost two years, is well aware of everything, so the departure of the founder should not affect anything. She will also be rewarded financially for her help in running the company so far.
The new owners have guaranteed her that they will not lay off anyone or reduce salaries, and they plan to invest significantly more in the growth of the company than has been the case so far. This will open up additional opportunities for advancement and growth for all people who work with Remote Bob. In the last six months during the acquisition process, the company’s revenue has grown by 22%.
When asked about role models from the Croatian startup scene, Barbara revealed that they are Rimac, Orqa and Infobip. “I’m also impressed by what the teams from Rearm are building. I think their AI startup has huge potential, and that no one in the Balkans is probably building anything like it,” she noted.
a long break looms for barbara
After the sale, her first plan is a very long holiday, and then she would like to do something that is good for people, has great scalability, is fun and is related to tech.
Along the way, she joined the SocialiteWorld community for fun, where they organise unusual parties and trips for those over 28, founded by Gorana McDonald. Among other things, they have held the Celebrate Divorce Party, Bottomless Brunch, Cowboy party and others.
She still runs the Human Potentials association, which helps people with career advancement and provides its members with various education and support programmes. She’s also enrolled in acting classes, choir, goes to dance, and is currently learning how to become a DJ. Potentially buying a motorbike again is also an option.
Assuming she gets some rest, she plans to get back to work after the summer. She hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll join a startup as a co-founder, find another job, or start a new project. She’s received several job offers or co-ownerships over the last few weeks, so she believes she’ll find something that suits her well. However, she’ll make a decision in September when she’s rested and decides what’s best for her.
