The Business Inquirer #071
The Business Inquirer #071
In this week's issue, I highlight four listings including a gifting business, an Etsy optimization tool, and more.
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 - 2 listing
☁ SaaS - 1 listing
🕸 Content/Service/Other - 1 listing
🛠 Tools & Resources
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🛒 eCommerce
Wool Blankets FBA - $742k + Inv
For sale is a 6-year-old FBA business that sells high-quality Merino wool blankets.
1 SKU with 7 variations
Operated by husband and wife founders; Work 5-7 hours per week;
3PL used for storage & shipping; 18k IG followers; SBA pre-qualified;
TTM Revenue: $576k; Profit: $201k; Margin: 35%
Asking: $742k + Inv; Multiple: 3.69x
✅ What I Like
A lot of operating history. A simple business model with just one product and seven variations. A lot of automation and outsourcing are already in place. Decent margins.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Typical e-commerce due diligence questions around supply chain, operations, customer acquisition, returns, and more. Business experienced stockouts in 2021.
You can view the listing on Quiet Light Brokerage.
————
Corporate Gifting - Open to Offers
For sale is 2-year-old Keep Your City Smiling which is a corporate gifting company. The business has been idle for over a year as the founders shifted focus to another startup. It’s an interesting story and opportunity that I recently came across.
Here’s the story as told by the owner in the Trends Facebook Group:
2015 to 2020: My main company, Snapbar, kills it in the photo booth game. It becomes one of the fastest growing photo booth co's in the US and lands on the Inc 5000 list at #473 in 2018. Growth rate was over 1000% from 2015 to 2018.
March 2020: We almost die because events (which we were 100% reliant on) fall off a cliff.
Also March 2020: We pivot HARD.
Snapbar launches Keep Your City Smiling in about 8 days (Trends wrote about this in 2020). We don't go viral, but feels like it. Get featured in Forbes, NYT, the news, and more. This spinoff is a completely different biz model than Snapbar, but we had to it to stay alive. We ran KYCS from March 2020 until February 2021, did over 1 million in sales, and it saved our company. We shut it down because of the next bullet.May 2020: While most of my team pivoted to the new biz, one developer keeps working on our next Snapbar product...something for the virtual event landscape. We launch it in May, call it Virtual Photo Booth and in the next 4 months is goes from 0 to 100.
December 2020: my brother and myself get voted as some of the most innovative people in events for 2020 which leads to more press and helps all our efforts.
January 2021: we stop offering any of our 'traditional' or in-person photo booth services because the tech side is growing too fast.
February 2021: we stop operations at KYCS because the opportunity is better on the tech side and I needed my team focused on that.
February 2020: we decide we need to part with KYCS as we really don't feel like we're going to touch it again.
You can view the deck with more details here.
☁ SaaS
Etsy Listing Optimization - Open to Offers
For sale is 1-year-old Crest which combines location-based customer analytics with real-time listing search optimization for Etsy shop sellers.
Competitors: Marmalead
Based in the UK; 1 founder; Bootstrapped
Priced at $12.99/month;
30-Day Revenue: $1.3k; Profit: $1k; Margin: 77%
TTM Revenue: $20k; Profit: $15k; Margin: 75%
Asking: Open to Offers
✅ What I Like
I haven’t seen a lot of tools come up for sale that specifically serve Etsy sellers. With the Shopify app space being crowded, there may be a lot of opportunity in this market. The website looks well designed. Pricing appears to be very affordable so perhaps there’s an easy win by simply increasing it. This solution has some traction and could be well-positioned for someone with marketing skillset to grow it.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Young project. Not a ton of detail in this listing. I’d want to understand the competitive dynamics of this market and how clients are acquired. What type of tech now-how is required to maintain it?
You can view the listing on GetAcquired.
🕸 Content/Service/Other
Weekly Startup Newsletter - $15k
For sale is a 2-year-old Substack newsletter that is tailored toward startup founders.
Target audience are actual and aspiring startup founders;
Sponsorship business model; $500 ARR;
Takes about 4-hours to write an issue; ~13,600 subscribers
Asking: $15k
✅ What I Like
Newsletters are great businesses. The audience here is very wide. A lot of potential sponsors. Opportunity to take the newsletter off Substack and introduce other monetization options.
❓ Questions & Concerns
Newsletters are all about open rates, engagement, and growth. What do those numbers look like? Why have they not been able to attract more subscribers? How much would you have to spend to just build this from scratch? Is it < $15k?
You can view the listing on Microns.
If you want to subscribe to Microns, use this link.
🛠 Tools & Resources
These are tools & resources that I personally use. They may contain affiliate links so I’ll get a few shekels if you sign-up.
Cerebro Capital - Cerebro has a network of 1,500+ lenders who can provide debt financing for your acquisition, refi, etc. $500k minimum.
X5 Deals - Proprietary deal sourcing. They do the outreach and send you relevant, actionable deals directly into your inbox.
Curators - Proprietary deal sourcing. You need targets that fit your investment criteria, and Curators delivers week after week - we even update your personalized database on a daily basis with new information on best-fit targets.
BizNexus - Proprietary deal flow, deal aggregator, and exit prep.
PrivSource - Deal aggregator for lower and middle-market listings.
Calendly - Leading scheduling platform to easily schedule meetings without the back and forth. I’ve been using it for several years now. Free 14-day trial.
ProjectionHub - Access to 50+ CPA-developed financial projection templates. 25% discount using code “duedilio” at checkout.
Logology - Best automated logo & brand identity tool I’ve come across.
DeepBench - Access a cutting-edge expert network. $200 discount.
OpenPhone - The best business phone solution that I have found. $20 credit.
Eloquens - Knowledge marketplace. I’ve bought a few guides and templates here.
Deal Flow Scout - Peer-to-peer deal flow exchange. Free, open, transparent.
Deal Sourcing Guide - A directory I put together of online marketplaces, brokers, DFY deal flow, and more.
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.