The Business Inquirer #045
In this weeks issue, I highlight seven listings including a booking WordPress plugin, a payment provider, and a dev and design Agency.
The Business Inquirer covers the most interesting tech-enabled business acquisition opportunities. Written for entrepreneurs, search funds, investors, and business owners. It’s completely free and you’re guaranteed to learn something new.
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Hello Friends!
In this week’s issue:
🛒 eCommerce - 1 listing
☁ SaaS - 3 listings
🕸 Content/Marketplace/Service - 3 listings
The Business Inquirer is brought to you by DueDilio. DueDilio is the first M&A due diligence marketplace connecting business buyers and investors with quality, verified due diligence experts.
🛒 eCommerce
Journal FBA Brand - $376k + Inv
For sale is a 5-year-old brand selling unique journals on Amazon.
33 SKUs; Unique artwork, design, faux leather;
2,200 reviews across all SKUs;
Fulfulled by Amazon and a 3PL partner;
TTM Revenue: $596k; Profit: $116k; Margin: 19%
Asking: $376k + Inv; Multiple: 3.24x
✔ What I Like
Well aged business. Fulfilled by third party. Lifestyle business. Evergreen product that can be iterated on.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Would prefer to see higher margins for this type of business. How are the products sourced and how reliable is that supply chain? Have COGS increased recently? Who designs new products? How does this compare against competition?
You can view the listing on Quiet Light Brokerage.
☁ SaaS
Booking WordPress Plugin - $98k
For sale is 7-year-old Booking Ultra Pro which is a WordPress scheduling plugin. The business generates revenue through subscriptions and custom work.
Clients pay annual subscriptions; $50 - $500/yr
5.6k active licenses; $300k+ lifetime revenue;
Client support takes 4/hrs per day;
TTM Revenue: $41k; Profit: $38k; Margin: 93%
Asking: $98k; Multiple: 2.58x
✔ What I Like
Well-aged business with operating history. Scheduling plugins have a large TAM. Detailed listing description. Large install base to market additional services. Strong margin and reasonable multiple. Business easy to manage/maintain for someone without a tech background. Financials are consistent without spikes or dips. Well-designed website. I like the annual plans but perhaps offering a monthly plan would be additive.
❓ Questions & Concerns
A lot of competition in this space from other plugins. The listing doesn’t provide a lot of detail around marketing and customer acquisition. Mentions Facebook Ads as one channel. The cost of running FB ads is going up. Unclear who handles the 4-hours a day or support. What type of support is typically required?
You can view the listing on Flippa.
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Reviews Analyzer - $350k
For sale is a 5-year-old SaaS that helps consumer brands and service businesses to collect and analyze customer reviews from any e-commerce or reviews website.
Competitors: Channel Signal, Gominga
Marquee clients like P&G, Nestle
Tech: Bootstrap, Python 3, Flask, Django ORM
30-Day Revenue: $14k; Profit: $9k; Margin: 64%
TTM Revenue: $110k; Profit: $62k; Margin: 56%
Asking: $350k; Multiple: 5.65x (3.24x est)
✔ What I Like
Large TAM. Nice marquee clients but my guess is that these large firms use many similar tools. There are large competitors to learn from. Valuation is reasonable if you assume a similar run rate but tough to tell from the listing. Channel Signal doesn’t have any G2 ratings so perhaps there’s an opportunity there. Bootstrapped business. Some operating history.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Valuation is a question mark. Expensive if you go by TTM profit but reasonable if you take the 30-day profit and annualized it. What has led to this increased revenue? What’s the churn? Any customer concentration risk? How are clients acquired and what’s the trial to paid conversion? What has prevented current owners from scaling? How easy is it to maintain the tech stack? Unclear if this tool actually aggregates reviews from other sources - would be interesting if it does.
You can view the listing on MicroAcquire.
— — — —
Payment Provider - $4.5M
For sale is a 6-year-old payment service provider. They developed a variety of payment web services including blockchain payment solutions. I’d toss this into the “interesting” listing bucket.
Competitors: ZarinPal, IDPAY, Pay, Zib
Tech: Python, Php, Flutter
16 person team;
30-Day Revenue: $318k; Profit: $19k; Margin: 6%
TTM Revenue: $3.7M; Profit: $276k; Margin: 7%
Asking: $4.5M; Multiple: 16.30x
✔ What I Like
Business has operating history. The blockchain payment product could be interesting. Feels like payment solutions are always in high demand. Appears they just rolled out a new Business Billing Facilitator product.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Valuation is crazy. Clearly they’re looking for a strategic acquirer. Had to look this up but payment processing company margins are typically single digits so the 7% is not out of the norm.
You can view the listing on MicroAcquire.
🕸 Content/Marketplace/Service
Virtual Team Building Events Service - $1.9M
For sale is a 6-year-old virtual team-building business targeting corporate clients.
Fortune 500 clients including Google, Tesla, Amazon
$680 AOV; 25% repeat booking; +122% Y/Y revenue growth; 70+ NPS score;
Serviced 2.2k events LTM;
TTM Revenue: $1.7M; Profit: $529k; Margin: 31%
Asking: $1.9M; Multiple: 3.59x
✔ What I Like
Remote work is here to stay so demand for virtual events should continue to be elevated. High-profile clients and high NPS score are great for marketing. Team is willing to stay on with the new owner.
❓ Questions & Concerns
The listing doesn’t offer a lot of detail. Have to be extremely cautious with these types of businesses that clearly benefited from COVID as evidenced by +122% LTM revenue growth. Careful with the valuation. Gut feeling is that the owner is selling at the top. A lot of questions on this listing.
You can view the listing on FE International.
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European Dev & Design Agency - $2M
For sale is a European Agency that designs and builds digital products. They provide web and mobile design and engineering services to clients.
Competitors: Netguru, The Software house, Thoughtbot
Mostly yearly retainers $100k - $700k; 50-person team;
30-Day Revenue: $300k; Profit: $90k; Margin: 30%
TTM Revenue: $2.7M; Profit: $660k; Margin: 24%
Asking: $2M; Multiple: 3.03x
✔ What I Like
Typical agency margins are 10-20% so this one is trending higher. Makes sense for someone doing a roll-up or an acquihire.
❓ Questions & Concerns
I’d have the typical Agency questions. What’s the risk that clients churn with the new owner? How to guarantee that employees stay on? I’ve heard some horror stories about this point. Any client concentration risk? Customer acquisition strategy and costs?
You can view the listing on MicroAcquire.
— — — —
Conservative News Publisher - $13M
For sale is a 2-year-old collection of 10 conservative news websites and newsletters.
3.7M e-mail subscribers; 28% CTR
7 person in-house content team publishing 20-45 original articles daily
1.7M website visitors; 7.4M pageviews/month;
Owner wishes to remain as consultant
TTM Revenue: $4.4M; Profit: $2.6M; Margin: 59%
Asking: $13M; Multiple: 5.00x
✔ What I Like
I love these types of niche businesses. Politics and religion sell. Just a fact. The listing is relatively detailed. Team already in place. Seller wishes to stay with the business so perhaps there are some creative financing options. Great margins and cashflow. Doesn’t rely on Facebook ads.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Young business without a lot of operating history. I’d want to understand how they’ve gained subscribers and what the growth metrics look like. How are they sourcing advertisers? Where’s traffic coming from?
You can view the listing on WebsiteClosers.
That’s all for this issue of The Business Inquirer!
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