What happened to digital deals

When I started this newsletter, buying websites, SaaS products, and content businesses felt like the frontier of entrepreneurship. Then the ground shifted. AI rewrote the economics of content businesses. Google algorithm updates wiped out entire portfolios. Many of the digital assets we used to evaluate simply don’t exist anymore.

I went quiet because I didn’t want to keep covering a market I no longer believed in the same way.

What I did instead

I spent the last few years doing a PhD on business acquisitions, specifically on acquiring small and medium-sized businesses as a path into entrepreneurship (known as Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, or ETA).

What I found changed my perspective. The most resilient acquisition opportunities aren’t always digital-first. In the US, in Europe, and beyond, there are thousands of traditional businesses whose founders are approaching retirement with no succession plan. Manufacturers, service companies, niche B2B players. Profitable, established, and looking for new ownership.

That doesn’t mean digital is dead. The businesses that survived the AI storm, the ones with real defensibility and revenues that don’t depend on a single algorithm, are more interesting now than ever. The noise has cleared, and what’s left is signal.

Introducing Searchers.com

I built a free community for people serious about acquiring businesses, whether that’s a traditional SMB or a battle-tested digital asset.

No courses, no paywalls. Just a place where searchers connect, share deal flow, and learn from each other. Plus a podcast with real stories from real acquirers.

If this resonates, I’d love to have you join us:

Join Searchers.com

And if your interests have moved on, no hard feelings. Thanks for being part of the Dealsflow days.

Talk soon,
Alex

I hope you all are doing great! This time I will keep it short.

One of our readers (Shawn) reached out to me as he sells his website.

Key facts:

• The Company (“Project Titan”) is a leading Canadian technology website (.ca domain) that was founded in 2017. The business has grown substantially over the past 12 months and continues to see positive growth trends in both traffic and revenue. The business primarily generates revenue through high paying advertising partnerships, diversified across a variety of software and
  financial services platforms, many of which are custom agreements.

• DR 48, avg. 73k visitors per month, Display avg. RPM $26

• You can find the project teaser here (PDF).

And a quote from him:

• “Proof of funds is required to move onto the next step, where we can reveal the URL, grant analytics access, and share our 2021 financials. (Our accountant is working on the statements, and we should have everything ready to share in early January 2022).”

• “We've spoken to a few brokers and received a valuation between $500-600k (CAD). We are currently going through the vetting process with Empire Flippers and will list there in about 3 weeks if not sold privately.”

In case you have any questions, please reach out to sg@simcoeventures.com directly.

Also, if you have a website for sale - just let me know! And also, please forward this newsletter to one of your friends who might be interested as well.

Thanks,
Alex

Hi everyone,

In recent weeks and months, more and more newsletters like this came into existence. I really like this one by Peter Askew in particular. I also have compiled some more here.

Also, average multiples for websites seem to have skyrocketed. While a few months multiples were around 30-35x, now they are often >40x. Everybody seems to look for FBA businesses (FT.com). And good deals get harder to find.

Why? People seek assets that actually return money for them: the return of bonds is mostly negative, the equity markets are overheated. So why not look for alternative asset classes? And why not try your own luck and buy your own small website?

For now, I have decided to stay a bit on the sidelines (when it comes to buying new assets) and focus on growing my existing assets, which is fun.

How about you? Are you buying (or looking to buy) or holding off for now? I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Be well,
Alex

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting digital assets to buy.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

NewsWeekMe.com (<$1,000, ends 02/17): With a DR of 51 this 5-year-old domain is quite a catch. It still has a few keywords ranking, 5.edu links, and even a .gov link (from the U.S. Department of Labor). So if you are planning to launch a publication or news-related site. This domain could serve you well!

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• Undie.com (<$1,000, ends 02/17) - create your own DTC brand and sell simple, but good undies around the world. I love it!

• TheColumn.com (<$200, ends 02/22) - build your own political publication. Leverage Substack or Convertkit to build your audience.

Online business to buy:

None this week. But have a look at the specific Flippa Search I keep monitoring.

Brain food

Read 📚

• Empire Flippers introduces Empire Flippers Capital. An “easy” way for accredited investors to participate in website buying.

• John Warrillow writes really good books and just published a new one: “The Art of Selling your Business”. I just bought it as I really enjoyed his earlier one.

• Amazon.com Affiliate Commission Rates: A Historical Guide - If you are running a content site (or are interested in Amazon’s affiliate game) this article will be very interesting. “While it’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges due to a major shift in the Associates’ commission payout model in early 2017, the gist is that the average commission rate for peaked in mid-2012 at 9.25% and has fallen to nearly a third of that with 3.14% in early 2020.”

• The Top Idea in Your Mind by legendary investor Paul Graham. An old, but a good read. Why you shouldn’t get lost in too many different things at the same time. And why you should carefully choose which topics you do on your own and which might outsource.

Listen 🎧

• Acquiring and Scaling E-Commerce Brands - a fantastic listen in the “Think like an owner podcast” by Alex Bridgeman featuring Bill D’Alessandro.

Watch 🎬

• How To Find the Best Affiliate Programs for your Niche in 2021 by the great guys over at AuthorityHacker.com

🎓 Course: How to buy websites for profit

Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. It’s far from being done, but while I work on building it, you can already get early access for $19.

If you like are more polished one, have a look at the course by Ryan Kulp.

👋 Join our community

Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.
Or follow me on Twitter.

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

I always enjoy a good coffee:

Buy Alex a coffee ☕

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting digital assets to buy.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

BeaconInside.com (<$50, expires 01/03): although the Google beacon platform was deprecated as of December 7, 2020, this domain has quite some solid backlinks you could benefit from. Previously run by a startup this domain has caught quite nice backlinks.

Examples: developers.google.com, security.googleblog.com, Fraunhofer.de, Wiwo.de and more. See here how the domain was used before.

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• Showlife.com (<$400, ends tomorrow): are you interested in the show biz? Thought about starting an online magazine?

• LingerieShop.com (<$3,000, ends 12/28): I guess I don’t have to explain much here, do I? 😉

• NatureBased.com (<$50, ends 01/04): A perfect domain for a blog, natural products, anything outdoors really.

Brain food

Read 📚

• Nearly $1 billion in fresh capital has been committed in 2020 to firms looking to acquire Amazon sellers and brands. Read the article. I n s a n e.

• By launching its offering Treasury Stripe does to banks, what Twilio did to the telecommunications industry: it reduces a bank to an API endpoint and strips a bank from its direct customer relationships. Breathtaking.

• The Passion Economy and the Future of Work by Andreessen Horowitz. Great read on how the passion economy will continue to grow and help individuals to leverage their unique skills and knowledge to generate income.

Watch 🎬

• How to Find a PROFITABLE NICHE For Your Sites in 2021 (What Changed!) by Mark and Gael from Authority Hackers.

🎓 Improve your due diligence skills

👉 Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. While I am still actively working on completing the course, you can get early access for $19.

👋 Join our community

Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

If you liked this episode, why not say thanks with a coffee:

Buy Alex a coffee ☕

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting domains and a website to buy.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

• Sampleria.com (<$600, ends 11/23): are you thinking about launching or already running your own audio related website? This domain sold sound samples and presents and still has a nice DR. Go have a look!

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• Gadgets.org (<$3,000, ends 11/20): I do not need to explain much here, do I?

• TravelMania.com (<$3,500, ends 11/21): Oh, this domain shouts travel blog. Prepare yourself for the world travelling again!

• RawFoodie.com (<$100, ends 11/25): RawFood is a huge topic among dog owners. Why not build a content side about raw pet food?

Websites to buy

✨ A reader of our newsletter has a business to sell!

WiseCharlie.com (min. $35k)

The Shopify business is selling an amazingly designed card deck to educate business people, teachers, parents, and students about mental models.

The product was initially launched as a pet project in 2018, but then mainly dormant. In 2020, Mihir used his spare time to improve the design, shop, etc., and sold 101 card decks since then - purely organically. However, his personal circumstances changed, which is why he is now looking to sell his business to somebody with marketing skills who can scale the venture. At this point, he has $21,500 of inventory left (about 860 boxes) and is happy to share supplier details upon a potential acquisition.

🌱 How I would grow it?

The product has good early signs of “growth”, respectively “sell-ability”, but it’s still the very early days. So if you believe in educational products, that expand your audience’s mind, this product could be a great fit. For example, if you are a coach, this could eventually be a nice product extension for you.

Other ideas:

• experiment (carefully) with paid advertising as the product has a great, visual design and could really speak to the right target audience (especially pre-Christmas)

• extend the existing newsletter with 344 subscribers by offering (free) access to mental models and then up-sell readers with the card decks

• idea by the founder: build an automated digital mental model education series to compliment the physical card deck and newsletter

Please reach out to Mihir via his email mihirptl89@gmail.com if you are interested and want to learn more about the business.

🗞 News & interesting finds

• Josh Pigford sold Baremetrics - a very insightful article about his exit, with actual numbers, totally worth a read.

• Tribute Technology sold to Carlyle Group and Vista Equity for more than $1 billion (!). Tribute Technology makes “end-of-life celebrations memorable, meaningful and effortless through thoughtful and innovative technology solutions”.

• Many businesses thought they were insured for a pandemic. They weren’t. Most business interruption insurances in the US do not cover losses from COVID. Considering that so many small businesses did not have a lot of cash at hand before the virus, this is an issue. How will the insurance industry respond to the crisis?

📈 Finance & stock markets

• I really enjoyed this interview by Cathie Wood on Innovation Investing, Tesla, and Bitcoin. Her ETF ARKK did exceptionally well in recent months.

🎓 Improve your due diligence skills

👉 Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. While I am still actively working on completing the course, you can get early access for $19.

👋 My ask to you

1. Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

2. Share this newsletter with one of your friends.

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

If you liked this episode, why not say thanks with a coffee:

Buy Alex a coffee ☕

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting domains and a website to buy.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

• ThemeSaga.com (<$11,000, expires today): this site was used to sell Wordpress themes (see Wayback machine). Are you planning to sell Wordpress themes or website templates? This domain has a DR of 83, with 9m backlinks from >3.7k domains. Go for it!

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• SleepKing.com (<$2,500, expires 11/16): sleep is a tough SEO territory, but if you are eager to conquer it this domain could be great for you.

• NaturalOil.com (<$1,500, expires 11/16): from CBD oils to vitamin oils. With an average CPC of $1.10 about 500 people search monthly for that exact term (US). And, buckle up, 752K search for CBD oil in the US alone. So this is your domain if you are about to hop on that trend.

• GrantWriters.com (<$400, expires 11/17): Productized service anyone? Why not build a productized service for writing grants or build a small marketplace listing grant writers for hire?

Websites to buy

Airshare.com ($60,000+ on Flippa)

A marketplace for flight experiences in Australia. The websites earns a commission (10-25% per booking from each partner).

My thoughts:

• A marketplace, nice - the domain is good, SEO is ok for the stage of the business

• Based on Wordpress, ok to start with, but might need to be replaced at one point

• Severely impacted by COVID (at least for the foreseeable future)

🌱 How I would grow it:

• Full-throttle on performance marketing

• Expand beyond Australia

🗞 News & interesting finds

• How to acquire your first small(er) company by Permanent Equity. Evergreen article, which is worth re-reading.

• Why to never buy a website based on multiple alone podcast with Thomas Smale from FE International. Great listen!

• You can buy the replay of MicroConf remote conference for $25. Inspiring insights from various founders and entrepeneurs.

📈 Financial markets

As I expect the financial markets to see quite some turmoil in 2021, I have spend some time with constructing my own All Weather Portfolio based on various ETFs (and essentially based on this logic, which goes back to Ray Dalio). My aim was to build a portfolio has an optimized risk/return balance to water potential market hiccups.

It’s meant to be an investment plan for the long run - where I ideally set up a monthly savings plan to invest into. Here is the result of my “basic” backtest:

This looks quite promising to me:

• All Weather Portfolio - Return (p.a.) : 7,49%, Risk: 9,41%

• Benchmark - MSCI World: Return (p.a.): 9,9%, Risk: 25,41%

My return is only slightly lower, but the risk by far better. Which confirms my initial hypothesis of building a portfolio that has a higher resilience for trouble.

Here are the ETFs and ratios I chose (for educational purposes only):

• Total-world index fund (25% of portfolio), iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF USD

• Emerging markets (10% of portfolio), iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS ETF

• Bonds (50% of portfolio), Vanguard Global Aggregate Bond UCITS ETF EUR Hedged

• Gold (7.5% of portfolio), iShares Physical Gold ETC

• Utilities (7.5% of portfolio), iShares STOXX Europe 600 Utilities UCITS ETF (DE)

What are your thoughts?

🎓 Improve your due diligence skills

👉 Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. While I am still actively working on completing the course, you can get early access for $19.

👋 My ask to you

1. Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

2. Share this newsletter with one of your friends.

👌 Quote of the week

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

If you liked this episode, why not say thanks with a coffee:

Buy Alex a coffee ☕

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting domains.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

SpyChecker.com (<$600, expires 11/08)

With >33.3K backlinks and a DR of 53 this domain is quite 🔥. I expect the auction to heat up, but if you plan to offer anything related to the topic, this domain could help you quite a bit.

Backlinks from CNN.com, Springer.com, Time.com, and so on. See here what the domain was used for (hint: ad-supported online spyware database).

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• BookMyTime.com (<$500, expires 11/03): why not launch a self-service booking tool as an alternative to Calendly.com.

• Newsflash.com (<$13,000, expires 11/08): Fantastic domain, but quite expensive already. However, if you are planning to launch or already own anything news-related, this domain could be waiting for you.

• SnowMaster.com (<$1,700, expires 11/09): I am sure that there are quite a lot of products that help you “master snow”. From ski to plowing equipment.

Great websites to acquire:

eCommerce Website (min. $400,000 valuation, private deal)

One of our readers is selling his profitable apparel e-commerce business (yearly net profit in modest 5-digit range).

A few facts:

• based in the US, well-established business (started in 2008),

• 100% of sales made via their own website,

• 7 active product lines with approx. 170 SKUs (size, color, collar-style variations),

• strong re-order rate at 34% (2010-2020),

• refund rates <4%,

• over 10,000 reviews, with a 4.6 overall satisfaction rating

🌱 How I would grow it:

• Experiment with various growth channels (e.g. play with look-a-like modeling based on CLV cohorts)

• Migrate shop to Shopify or a similar platform to benefit from existing integrations (e.g. marketing automation tools such as Klaviyo)

• Launch one or more specialty products to enrich the current product portfolio

The seller will share details only with serious buyers. Please reach out to me at hi@dealsflow.com so that I can connect you with the seller.

🗞 News & interesting finds

Thinking about investing has its charm, but also complexity these days. You may have heard about Ray Dalio (and his book “Principles”), but maybe not about his All-Weather Portfolio idea. I love investing in websites and everything that comes with it but might use this approach for my regular investments.

The core idea: mix different asset classes that minimize your risk exposure as they are negatively correlated and behave well in different market environments.

If you backdate the performance of this approach until 1988, you will realize that the return is quite good - but it behaves extraordinarily well when it comes to potential drawdowns in times of market turmoil.

The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) was approx. 9.08%, while the maximum drawdown in times of crisis was only (!) -12.55%, which is astonishing.

Let’s look at the more recent years and compare it to the S&P500:

In other words, if you would have invested in the S&P 500 your risk exposure would have been a magnitude higher as you would be entirely dependent on the financial market behavior of the stocks included in the S&P 500. Comparatively, the All-Weather Portfolio saw a 1.29% lower return, but at a maximum drawdown of only -11.98%. So all in all I feel that this approach can be a great addition to my “digital investments” with an entirely different risk-return profile.

Now the trick is or can be - to replicate this approach with ETFs. John Tyler Williamson wrote a fantastic article about this (and how to even leverage this portfolio approach) on his website: Read more here.

What are your thoughts on this? Hit reply to share your comments.

⚠️ This is not investing advice. I am purely sharing what I learned for educational purposes. See my disclaimer here.

🎓 Improve your due diligence skills

👉 Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. While I am still actively working on completing the course, you can get early access for $19.

👋 My ask to you

1. Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

2. Share this newsletter with one of your friends.

👌 Quote of the week

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

one-click survey —>

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

If you liked this episode, why not share it?

Share

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Again, I found a few interesting domains.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

• Mirror-mirror.org (<$2,000, expires on 10/23): if you are interested in providing content around eating disorders, this domain could be of great help as it has over 17.5k backlinks already and is still ranking for 23k organic keywords. See here what it was used for!

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• EcoWear.com (<$100, ends 10/30) - sustainable, eco-friendly clothes are your thing? Why not build a website around it?

• GetRidOf.com (<$100, ends 10/22 - today!) - do you want to become the next Marie Kondo and help people get rid off their unnecessary stuff?

• FrenchBistro.com (<$300, ends 10/26) - well, this domain speaks for itself!

• Weekdays.com (<$2,500, ends 10/26) - why not build a blog around all things work-life? And recommend products around optimizing your workflow?

Great websites to acquire:

Finding good websites seems to get harder and harder these days. So no news this week! But check out investors.club if you have some spare time. I had a good experience buying a website from them.

🗞 News & interesting finds

• How to build and exit a website for mid-6 figures using the shotgun skyscraper link building technique - another great episode of the Niche Pursuits Podcast by Spencer Haws.

• Another one by Spencer: how to build a niche website that can make $2,985 a month. Great round-up article with interesting insights!

• The Exit - A new podcast by Flippa.com featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it.

• Why, despite the coronavirus pandemic, house prices continue to rise by the Economist

🎓 Improve your due diligence skills

👉 Get early access to my course on how to buy websites for profit. While I am still actively working on completing the course, you can get early access for $19.

👋 My ask to you

1. Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

2. Share this newsletter with one of your friends.

👌 Quote of the week

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

If you liked this episode, why not share it?

Share

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

🔦 Promising assets

Another week, another list of promising assets.

Domains with existing authority:

Buying domains with existing SEO authority can give you a head start. Why?

• YesAdvertising.com (<$2,000, expires 10/08): the domain of an affiliate network is up for sale. Lovely backlinks from Entrepreneur.com, Mozilla.org, GoDaddy.com. Expect the auction to heat up quite a bit, but if you are into affiliate marketing this domain could help you!

Screenshot from the WaybackMachine. This is what the domain was used for a while ago and where all the backlinks are centered around.

Domains to build a brand on:

Those domains have no SEO authority yet but are great to start something new on.

• TinyCabin.com (<$2,000, expires in a few hours): tiny houses are a huge trend and meant to stay. Why not build a resource around cabins you can buy or rent?

• LucidMinds.com (<$200, expires tomorrow): Lucid dreaming is an awesome topic by itself. I could imagine that a powerful blog with instructions how to actually get into the lucid phase (or journaling) could be a great idea.

• SurvivalExperts.com (<$150, expires 10/10): This domain could enable you to do a lot. From survival tutorials to actually selling survival products. A competitive niche, but an interesting one.

By the way - if you are interested in buying domains:
Go check out Sean’s newsletter who focusses on them (& SEO news)! #notsponsored

Website to buy:

PrimAndPrep.com (approx. $260,000)
Views: 9,912 Watchers: 309

This male grooming blog has already seen 39 bids by now.
So it’s neither cheap, nor unpopular - but still interesting.

🔬 What I like & don’t like:

• Relatively passive business model in Evergreen niche earning money from ads (via AdThrive) and Amazon Associates.

• Multiple of approx. 35x net profit is still OK.

• Good SEO profile (DR41 with >2,900 backlinks) ranking for 136,000 keywords. Generating traffic mostly from the US. Survived recent algorithm updates relatively well.

• 🙅‍♂️ Website was hacked a while ago.

• 🙅‍♂️Auction is quite heated, price eventually goes too high.

🌱 How I would grow it:

• Further keyword research and content.

• Experiment with different ad providers (e.g., or even direct deals).

• Add a newsletter and eventually upsell your own or a white-labeled product.

Read on - James is discussing his thoughts on PrimAndPrep.com:

🗞 News & interesting finds

• This Is Why SEO Tools Are Lying About Search Volume by Andrei Prakharevich

• How to Predict the Forward Multiple of a Software Company by venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz

• 99designs acquired by Vistaprint in major local deal

💪 Improve your due diligence skills

• Learn how to buy websites! 👉 Get early access to my course! It’s far from being done yet, but you might enjoy it already. Price is discounted to $19, while I am still busy building it.

👋 My ask to you

Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com. And if you are not on IndieHackers, share this newsletter with one of your friends!

👌 Quote of the week

How did you like this week’s newsletter?

👍 Very valuable. Thanks!
😐 Meh - was ok.
👎 Not interesting.

Disclaimer: Since I share thoughts around investing with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products or services I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read the full disclaimer.

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

👋 Join our group on IndieHackers.com

Join our discussion group Website Investing on IndieHackers.com.

🔦 Assets we looked at this week

This week I am about to finalize the purchase of a new content site. Stay tuned for updates on what I do to grow this asset.

ParmesanCheese.com ($6,000 on GoDaddy.com)

The domain is available via GoDaddy Auctions.

🔬 What we like & don't like:

• 18 years old

• Ends at 7/28/2020 10:46 PM (CEST)

• Ahrefs (US): avg. monthly search volume 32K

🙅 You need to put time and effort into this. Auction gets quite heated currently.

🌱 How we would grow it:

• Sell premium high-end cheese (D2C)

• Enjoy taking business trips to Italy to do local research

Our verdict: ★★★★☆

Science for Sport ($600,000 on Flippa.com)

An online learning resource for all things related to sports science.

🔬 What we like & don't like:

• 3 years old, $17,720p/month net profit (33x multiple)

• Has not suffered from recent Google algorithm updates (quite the opposite)

• Digital product (e.g. courses) with great scalability

• Great SEO strength (UR 36, DR 55 with 28,500 backlinks)

🙅 niche gets increasingly competitive

🌱 How we would grow it:

By monetizing the community and improving cross- and up-sells among existing customers.

Our verdict: ★★★★☆

We really like the scalability and SEO strength. A very promising asset!

What are your thoughts?

Leave your comments on the web version of this article or reach out to me at hi@dealsflow.com.

🗞 News & interesting finds

• 27 Site Audit Tools for Better Website Analysis: you want to analyze your content page or a website you want to buy to spot any issues. Check out this list!

• Common Flippa Scams and How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off: This article is worth your time as it applies to all marketplaces out there. Better be prepared!

• Core Web Vitals - The Next Official Google Ranking Factor: a great Whiteboard Friday video by Moz.com

💪🏻 Improve your due diligence skills

• How to buy an undervalued business on Flippa.com: I wrote a new article, which I hope you enjoy. This post will be work in progress (potentially forever).

• How to Buy, Grow, and Sell Small Companies: I still recommend you to take the course by Ryan Kulp. I did too and like it.

👌 Quote of the week

Disclaimer: Since I share investing strategies with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read our full disclaimer.

👋 Join our group on IndieHackers.com

I have just started a new discussion group on IndieHackers.com, which is called Website Investing. Discuss deals, best practices, and learn more about website investing. 👉 Join the group.

🔦 Assets we looked at this week

Bobblegr.am ($32,285 on Flippa.com)

Personalized Wedding Cake Toppers

🔬 What we like & don't like:

• $1,682 net profit per months (19x multiple), 7 years old, 50% profit margins

• Good niche (lots of $ involved in a wedding)

• High average order value ($180-200)

• Good SEO (7.05k backlinks, 3k organic keywords)

• BUT: dependency from one single supplier 🙅

🌱 How we would grow it:

Dedicated paid media strategy (e.g. new channels, lookalike targeting)

Our verdict: ★★★☆☆

We loved the nice (and never thought that cake toppings can be so expensive), but would question the supplier relationship.

Different category, but still interesting: a domain with already existing authority

OrderUp.com ($6,800)

Auction ongoing (click here).

Image of the old business, which ran OrderUp.com

Existing links from Washing Post, Bloomberg, Airbnb and more

🔬 What we like & don't like:

• Pretty good existing backlink structure

• Catchy name and previously used for delivery start-up

• BUT: You need to invest time and effort to grow this website 🙅

🌱 How we would grow it:

Content blog about all-things cooking, kitchen & food, which earns affiliate commissions.

Our verdict: ★★★★☆

If you are into building websites on your own, this domain can be a great start.

Other deals we found interesting:

Undisclosed SaaS company (details on NickGray.net)
$1,000,000+ ARR, 70% Profit Margin

What are your thoughts?

Leave your comments on the web version of this article or reach out to me at hi@dealsflow.com.

🗞 News & interesting finds

• The Messy Marketplace: Selling Your Business in a World of Imperfect Buyers - a book I am reading and enjoying this week.

• Instant Domain Search: simply amazing for checking domain availabilities quickly.

• Online Business Trends for Buying and Selling Websites in 2020: Multiples went up by 8% on average, while sales prices increased by 54% on Empire Flippers.

• Quiet Giants Trailer by Quiet Light Brokerage: A movie, yes a movie about acquisition entrepreneurship. Nathan Sing went from staring at pastures each day at work, to starting and selling multiple successful businesses.

• Why does everyone recommend Ezoic? They might be good, but they also pay 3% of a publisher’s total revenue on all traffic they send through Ezoic for the lifetime that they use the Ezoic platform. 🤑

💪🏻 Improve your due diligence skills

• Asset vs. Share Deal: Should I buy the whole company or just the assets? Does it make a difference? I just wrote a new article about both options.

• How to Buy, Grow, and Sell Small Companies: Take the course by Ryan Kulp. I did too and like it.

• Recommendation by Shiva (owner of Chainfuel.com) in our new group on IndieHackers: “Prices in auctions [on Flippa.com] end up usually on the higher side. Look for neglected projects that still have good activity from users. This will be the most profitable as you can negotiate a better deal.

👌 Quote of the week

It's waiting that helps you as an investor, and a lot people just can't stand to wait. If you didn't get the deferred-gratification gene, you've got to work very hard to overcome that. Charlie Munger

Did you like this newsletter? Share it with your friends!

Share Dealsflow.com

Disclaimer: Since I share investing strategies with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read our full disclaimer.

🔦 Assets we looked at this week

A French wedding blog ($75,000)

Review the deal on Flippa here. As this is a confidential listing, please contact the listing owner directly.

What looks promising:

• Interesting niche, well-aged with a good backlink profile

• strong SEO positioning (e.g. ranking for lucrative keywords)

• Good monetization potential still on the table (e.g. leads/partnerships)

BUT:

• Relatively high multiple considering the decreasing net revenues

• COVID-19 impacted for a while - but when wedding locations will get over requested and scarce, affluent folks might want to travel to stay fancy even more

My verdict: ★★★★☆ (tending to buy)

Evergreen niche, currently negatively impacted, soon rising again. Well-aged, not cheap but promising for everyone interested in the niche.

Exclusive deal (approx. $45,000)

CryptoWeekly.co, which was founded in 2017 in for sale. I got in contact with the founder recently.

In the last 12 months it generated a total of $45,180 and has two revenue streams:

• Crypto List: digital product with verified contact details of 8,000+ crypto companies.

• Crypto 100: A list of the 100 most influential people in crypto (sells sponsorships).

What looks promising:

• 🔥 niche & exciting customer list of people who have spent hundreds of dollars on crypto

• ranks well for a lot of crypto-related keywords & has consistent traffic

• Fair multiple

BUT:

• Newsletter business not included

• Needs work to update and maintain lists/contact details.

My verdict: ★★★☆☆

Reach out to @KintuLabs on Twitter to learn more.

Would you buy the asset above? Do you want me to analyze more websites?
Leave your comments on the web version of this article or reach out to me at hi@dealsflow.com.

🗞 News & interesting finds

• Online Course - How to Buy, Grow, and Sell Small Companies: I finished Ryan Kulp's course last week and liked it. It's not perfect, but a great start to the website buying business. Learn everything you need to build a deal flow pipeline, identify and close opportunities, then turn them into cash cows. If you sign up, I earn a small commission fee.

• Ahref's published "63 SEO Statistics for 2020" on their blog: fascinating stuff. From average pricing for SEO services to backlink statistics and much more. And another confirmation why buying instead of building websites makes sense: "Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication."

• KKR invests in Artlist: another major PE deal into a content library with a simple subscription model, similar to Storyblocks.

💪🏻 Improve your due diligence skills

• How to value a website: I wrote a basic article on the most popular valuation methods last week. Happy to hear your feedback!

👌 Quote of the week

Disclaimer: Since I share investing strategies with awesome people like you, naturally my content may contain affiliate links for products I use and love. If you take action after clicking one of these links, I'll earn some coffee money ☕, which I promise to drink while creating more helpful content like this. Read our full disclaimer.

Share Dealsflow.com

💡 Why website investing makes so much sense

A lot of people are wondering these days on how to invest their money. While index funds might bring you 4% per year, there is a much more promising asset class.

If you buy a website for a monthly profit multiple of 30x (which is realistic, see below), keep it stable in regards to revenue and cost, it will return your investment in 2.5 years (30 months) - which equates to a 40% return per year. 🔥🔥🔥

But let’s look at it a bit more professionally: Centurica analyzed the market & the median SDE multiple. SDE stands for seller discretionary earnings. Simply put, it is an estimate of the total financial benefit a full-time owner-operator would get from the business per year. Here is a cool explainer video by Quiet Light Brokerage.

YOU CAN RECOUP YOUR INVESTMENT WITHIN APPROX. 2-3 YEARS!

In other words, with the right skills and knowledge, you could effectively retire with 1/10th the amount of capital (as compared to index funds).

But, the market is slowly heating up:

All major business sector multiples have increased in 2019 due to continued strong demand from buyers and the limited number of sellers. - Centurica

So now is the time to start your path to greater wealth!

🔦 Assets we looked at this week

The section below is meant to educate you and get your head spinning around evaluating websites and digital assets. Train your skills, analyze those websites on your own, and share your thoughts:

Sewcare.com
currently at $30,000 USD, buy it now for $42,000 USD

Review the deal on Flippa here, expires July 2nd.

What looks promising:

• Great niche (DIY is 👌),

• fair profit multiple,

• and strong SEO positioning

BUT:

• Weird language & discrepancies: "Autopilot Mode with Zero Investment", the headline says the page is 4 years old, while the actual page age is indicated with 2 years (also confirmed by Ahrefs' traffic overview), etc.

• Technical issues: Site went down multiple times in recent days

• The author is not answering questions in the comment section

My verdict: ★★☆☆☆ (no buy)

While it looks quite shady and something is definitely off, the SEO positioning is quite good. So if you are in that niche already or want to play with the risk, it could still work...

Would you buy the asset above? Do you want me to analyze more websites?
Leave your comments on the web version of this article or reach out to me at hi@dealsflow.com.

💪🏻 Improve your due diligence skills

What to look for in your diligence:

• The originality of content: to ensure that a site is actually posting original content, check for plagiarism. You can use tools such as Grammarly.com (which has a plagiarism checker) or even an API provided by Copyleaks.com. Legal protection: While you need a lawyer to evaluate this (which I am not), specific indemnification clauses in your contract with the seller could eventually protect you from copyright claims.

• Identify Fake followers: If the asset you look at claims to have large follower numbers on pages such as Instagram, evaluate them first. They might be fake or bought. Tools such as Moodash.io can help out here. I also wrote a how-to article here.

• Find bot data or fake traffic in Google Analytics: when evaluating visitor and traffic data, ensure that the Google Analytics tag is implemented correctly and only once (an exceptionally high bounce rate might be indicative), but also do a brief check if the traffic looks like real humans (I wrote a how-to here).

🗞 News & interesting finds

• Flippa will run their Own Your Future event on July 9th. Their group of speakers is impressive. From NYT Best Selling authors like James Altucher to Growth Specialists like Noah Kagan.

• Great Podcast ("Buying Other Businesses to Build Yours") by Quiet Light brokerage advisor Walker Deibel with Kevin Sanderson. Click here to listen.

• Great Hill Partners acquires the stock media marketplace Storyblocks. Another private equity company venturing further into the digital space. I love Storyblocks business model: subscription revenue being (partially) invested in an evergrowing content library. Read the full story on Techcrunch.

👌 Quote of the week