Every week I highlight interesting online businesses which are for sale adding my own commentary. This newsletter is for those who are interested in business, finance, and entrepreneurship. Subscribe below to receive it directly in your inbox.
This week I want to try a different format with the newsletter. I’ll highlight more listings but less of my commentary. Please do let me know if this style/format provides more value to you.
In this week’s issue:
eCommerce - 3 listings
SaaS - 4 listings
Content - 3 listings
What I Learned Last Week
🛒 eCommerce
Jewelry - $1.3M For sale is an ecommerce store selling unique jewelry targeted at the goth, hippie, and occult markets. Established in 2019, store traffic is primarily driven by Instagram where there are 35k followers generating 200 - 500 orders per day.
TTM Revenue: $1,545,717
TTM Profit: $1,325,000
Asking Price: $1,325,000
Multiple: 3.68x
📝 TBI Commentary I like products for niche markets. Easier to target the buyers. I’d streamline the inventory by focusing on the best selling items. Diversify website traffic to include TikTok, affiliate, and other sources.
Wedding Rings - $170k For sale is One Camo, a 6 year old ecommerce company selling wedding rings with unique inlays. The company sells through own website, Etsy, Walmart, and Amazon. Products sourced directly from China and freight forwarded to Amazon warehouse.
2020 Revenue: $188,065
2020 Net Profit: $38,253
Margin: 20%
Reserve: $169,995; BIN: $395,000
Reserve Multiple: 4.44x
📝 TBI Commentary A lot of moving parts in this business. I think this would be an interesting add-on for someone who already has a team in place and runs an ecommerce business. I’d try and focus on driving traffic to higher margin distribution channel. Perhaps there’s even an opportunity to try and sell the rings at wholesale.
Rock & Crystals - $783k For sale is an Etsy Best Seller store which sells polished rocks, raw crystals, geodes, and crystal jewelry. The store has more than 55k sales and 11.5k shop followers.
125 SKUs; $31 AOV; 60 orders per day
Products sourced in the US.
Seller holds inventory and employs several people to help with business
📝 TBI Commentary Crystal industry is seeing strong growth that will most likely continue as more people WFH and add crystals to their décor. Might be an opportunity to build a standalone website to capitalize on the brand. Do some paid marketing, content, build e-mail list, etc.
Shopify App - $90k For sale is a 1.5 year old Shopify app which helps stores create and schedule deals for their products. The value-add is increase in sales, order values, and CLV.
Competitors: ReConvert, Cross Sell
Tech Stack: Node, React, MongoDB, AWS
TTM Revenue: $26,360
TTM Profit: $21,000
Margin: 80%
Multiple: 4.29x
📝 TBI Commentary Seller is the 2nd owner of this business. Important to understand what they learned and why they’re selling. Do a full competitive analysis to understand pricing, features and reviews. For Shopify apps need to know churn and trial to paid conversions.
Tweet Deleter - $5M For sale is Tweet Deleter, a SaaS which lets users delete multiple tweets with just one click. Founded in 2011, the website has a very strong SEO position on many keywords related to deleting tweets and others.
TTM Revenue: $450,000
TTM Profit: $300,000
Margin: 67%
Asking: $5,000,000
Multiple: 16.67x
📝 TBI Commentary Really interesting SaaS which demonstrates that simple ideas can win. I am not sure about the valuation here but it’s certainly a healthy startup with growing M/M revenues. They’re only monetizing 3% of the users so there’s opportunity to increase conversions. This would also make a great add-on for a social media management agency or another SaaS which is in a similar space.
Shopify App - $20k For sale is a Shopify app founded in Jan 2020 which helps store owners customize their unit pricing. All customers gained through organic growth.
TTM Revenue: $10,200
TTM Profit: $7,600
Margin: 75%
Asking: $20,000
Multiple: 2.63x
📝 TBI Commentary The valuation here is less important since there’s such low revenue. The key questions would revolve around reviews, competition, and if there are any quick wins. If the tech stack is solid and there are good reviews then this could be a great “starter” app.
Meeting & Collaboration - $350k For sale is a 4 month old desktop app (Mac & Windows) in the meeting and collaboration space. Tech is solid but needs someone who knows marketing, optimization, and pricing strategy.
60k - 70k new downloads per month
Top 25 mac App Store Productivity
250 reviews 4.5/5 stars
Last Month: Revenue of $8,000; Profit of $7,250; Margin: 91%
Asking: $350,000
Multiple: 4.02x
📝 TBI Commentary There are a lot of risks with buying such a young business. Having said that, the download numbers and reviews show that there’s certainly a product market fit and strong demand. Someone who has a SaaS growth and marketing background could take this to the next level.
Building, Plant & Facility Management - $1.1M For sale is a 17-year old SaaS which provides web and mobile based total asset management systems which help commercial business owners efficiently manage their buildings, people, and work orders. This software suite includes janitorial software, maintenance, and landscaping. The business operates across 18 separate industries.
📝 TBI Commentary It’s not often that you see such an established business for sale. Listing mentions that all sales have been organic. If this is true, someone with the relevant marketing experience could come in and grow this.
📝 TBI Commentary Domain itself is worth a few bucks. Great domain to continue with content or create a directory. Continuing with content, I’d do a full SEO audit of the site as I’m assuming it’s been neglected. I’d add affiliate offers directly from brands and continue to add new content.
Recipe Blog - $20k For sale is Contemplating Sweets, a 4.5 year old recipe blog generating revenue from Amazon Associates and display advertising. Traffic and financials are very stable. The most popular recipes are the #1 spot on Google search results, with rave reviews and tags on social media. This website has minimal upkeep, and low cost to maintain. Main focus are desserts with Japanese influence.
📝 TBI Commentary The blog gets 630k monthly views on Pinterest and I’d focus on converting those to visitors. I have a feeling that this website is close to being as optimized as you’ll get. I’d continue to add new recipes and explore direct affiliate offers with brands. The multiple here seems very reasonable so even if there isn’t a ton of growth, you’re still getting a great asset (if it all checks out) and ROI.
Conservative News - $110k For sale is Stead Fast Daily which is a conservative news website. Founded in 2019, the website uses a freelancer writer to publish several unique articles per day. Traffic is primarily driven by a 150k subscriber e-mail list. Revenue is driven by display ads as well as newsletter advertising. Writer costs around $20k/year and the relationship will transfer with the website sale.
📝 TBI Commentary I know the seller and they are experienced in the conservative niche. I’m sure there’s some room to negotiate here as well. The listing is very detailed and I think there’s a lot to learn here from their business model. As I’ve previously stated, I love businesses with a niche audience. Religion & politics are some of the best IMO.
Better to buy or build a website? For those interested in owning an affiliate website - you have a few choices. You can build one from scratch, hire someone to build it for you, or purchase an existing website. I think if you’re getting into this space for the first time then there’s value in starting from scratch and learning the ropes. If you’re short on time and/or have some extra cash then the other two options may be more attractive.
Mushfiq Sarker of The Website Flip did a great write-up about done for you (DFY) affiliate websites.
Approach #1: DFY Sites
Pros:
Hands-off; no involvement needed except answering a few emails
Beginners can understand what goes into building a niche website
Cons:
High-cost compared to building yourself
Less control on how the agency sets up the site
No control on content quality, or keywords
Approach #2: Build Your Own Site
Pros:
Exact control of the on-page, site structure, and keyword selection
Strict control on costs
Much cheaper than DFY sites
Cons:
Requires understanding of how to set up a proper niche site
Requires doing it yourself or finding specialists to write content, set up a website, keyword research, etc.
Brand value It’s an interesting exercise to think about brand value and how to calculate it. It’s not something that I’ve ever seen mentioned in a business listing. Ana Andjelic writes the Sociology of Business newsletter and her latest issue is about how brands are able to create value.
Brand value is a cumulative result of sales volume, equity, audience size, and the brandʼs market potential.
But unlike other assets like stocks, bonds, commodities and real estate, there is no active market in brands that would provide comparable values. The main issue with brand valuations is their arbitrary measurement and few agreed-upon systems and processes for evaluating brand assets.
Ana provides some guidance on how brands can create value on a micro and macro level. Admittedly, explicit brand value isn’t the first (or 50th) thing I think about in my business but perhaps it should be. Having a few simple goals in each of the categories in the above infographic would go a long way towards increasing the value of a business. I’d encourage you to read the full “How brands create value” post.
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Bitcoin at tipping point I know I discuss finance often in this section/newsletter and it’s not always relevant to the general topic of this newsletter. But, I think it’s interesting and worth paying attention to. With that - Citi published a great report on Bitcoin. It’s long but well worth the read. Bitcoin: At the Tipping Point
If this type of “stuff” is interesting to you then I’d highly recommend checking out Blockworks and subscribing (free) to their daily e-mail.
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Our Early Marketing Strategies conference for bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped SaaS founders is meant to crack the code for one of the biggest challenges you face: finding your first customers.
We're going to focus on 4 different channels/strategies for early stage marketing success: ProductHunt, AppSumo, Content Marketing and Authority Establishment.
This isn’t just for SaaS founders. If you’re purchasing a micro-SaaS then I bet there’s some value here for you as well. Tickets are $35 and well worth it. (Not an ad, no affiliate)
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That’s all for this issue of The Business Inquirer!
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Important Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided for informational & educational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. This newsletter may link to other websites and certain information contained herein has been obtained from third-party sources. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified. The Business Inquirer makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. References to any companies, securities, or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any business, tax, or investment decisions. Content in this newsletter speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others.
