In this episode of the M&A Launchpad Podcast, hosts Feras Moussa and Casey Minshew welcome special guest Marc Andre, who transitioned from being an auditor at a finance company to building, growing, and selling an online business. Marc shares how he discovered his passion through a side hustle aimed at making some extra money. Marc explores the process of building an online business from scratch and identifying opportunities to monetize it. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in the online business space and shares his thoughts on the impact of AI on it. Our guest explains how he leverages his network to sell his business and what people look for when buying a website.
In this podcast episode, we discuss:
- The journey for building, growing and then selling a website/online business
- Email Marketing as a useful resource
- The impact of AI tools and changes in the content sites and online business space
- What are people looking for when buying a website
You can connect with Marc Andre by email and website: marc@flipmysite.com and https://flipmysite.com
Additional Resources:
- Access our archive of video interviews on YouTube
- Checkout our upcoming Conference – https://malaunchpad.com/
- Get in touch with show hosts Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa at – info@equitylaunchpad.com
- Looking to invest in M&A opportunities or partner with an advisor to acquire, scale or sell your business? Visit Equity Launchpad
Transcript
00:00 all right on today’s episode we
00:02 interviewed Mark Andre and talked about
00:04 something a little bit more near and
00:05 dear to my heart right which is really
00:06 online websites and businesses and
00:09 really how you can get them started and
00:10 how you can generate some Revenue so on
00:12 this one we talked through a bunch of
00:13 different things including some of the
00:15 kind of pitfalls some of the ways to
00:17 look at it and ultimately where that
00:18 market is now so Casey what were some of
00:20 your big takeaways man I’ll tell you the
00:22 an attractive thing for any entrepreneur
00:24 is the idea that you don’t have to have
00:25 employees you can generate income from
00:27 home you can be there anywhere in the
00:28 world you know what these things take a
00:30 lot of time and energy and expertise to
01:32 to understand what you’re doing know and
01:34 I think Mark really hammered in on some
01:36 of the key things for people to know
01:37 about this space right now because
01:39 there’s a lot of there’s a lot of
01:41 changes happening with Google websites
01:43 SEO Ai and how you use it so um anyways
01:47 it’s pretty powerful but I’ll tell you
01:48 my biggest takeaway from Mark was you
01:50 know he likes to focus on one thing
01:53 maybe two and do it really really well
01:56 you know not letting any distractions
01:58 get in the way and if and if he’s done
01:60 with it bored he moves on and that’s not
01:02 a bad way to live you know no it’s an
01:04 interesting way right you know there’s
01:05 not that drive to continue to to grow
01:07 bigger necessarily right he’s
01:09 comfortable and it really shows behind
01:11 the curtain right like Casey you’re
01:12 mentioning online businesses is kind of
01:15 that sexiness right now right it’s that
01:17 aure of money but while I’m sleeping
01:19 kind of thing and you know there’s a lot
01:21 of work that goes into it right it
01:23 doesn’t just generate money by itself
01:24 there’s a lot of you know kind of uh
01:27 what’s what’s the word kind of bait and
01:29 tackling of getting a business going
02:31 tracking it and figure out how to turn
02:33 it profitable and so we kind of dive
02:35 into some of that here with with Mark
02:36 and he kind of tells you that’s exactly
02:37 why he’s focusing on just one and a half
02:39 right kind has his main one and his side
02:41 hustle just because of the energy it
02:43 takes and some of the things to think
02:44 about so but I’m gonna go check out flip
02:46 my site because I think it’s got
02:48 incredible information about online
02:49 businesses so it’s gonna be pretty
02:50 interesting awesome so let’s hop right
02:52 into
02:55 it all right on today’s episode we have
02:58 Mark Andre Mark welcome to
02:01 thank you thanks for having me Mark
02:02 great to have you all right so we’re
02:03 going to talk about something a little
02:04 bit more near and dear to my heart right
02:06 and kind of where I got started as an
02:07 entrepreneur which is really web
02:08 development and selling online
02:10 businesses so Mark you want to give
02:11 people maybe the thousand foot view of
02:14 kind of what you’re doing today and how
02:16 you got there yeah so basically um I
02:19 work mostly independently um I don’t
02:21 have any employees it’s it’s it’s just a
02:23 small business I run myself do use
02:25 Freelancers at times but I grow small
02:28 online businesses um with the intent of
02:30 selling them at some point I typically
03:32 will work on a project for a few years
03:34 before selling it I have acquired a few
03:36 websites in the past but it’s mostly
03:38 stuff I started from scratch I’ve done a
03:41 lot of content based websites like blogs
03:43 um Niche sites and then a little bit
03:45 with e-commerce and so yeah basically
03:48 just look to to build up an asset to get
03:50 it to the point where I can sell it and
03:51 move on to something else got it so
03:53 surely your focus is just growth and
03:56 driving that revenue and figuring the
03:57 multiple to to make the exit right it’s
03:59 not about hey I’m going to hold this for
03:60 20 years kind of place no yeah I’ve
03:02 typically held for like 2 to 5 years and
03:05 so I I like to work on something for a
03:08 while and then like personally I kind of
03:10 get bored with working on the same
03:11 project for a long time so usually you
03:13 know after I start to kind of get tired
03:15 of it and ready to do something else and
03:16 I’ll look to to move on and that’s
03:18 usually a few years that’s pretty great
03:20 because you know I looked at a uh one of
03:22 those Amazon you know businesses where
03:25 somebody was going to where their group
03:27 ran it one of those managed did not work
03:30 out would never do it again right
04:32 totally was not a good investment but
04:34 the appeal of having an online business
04:37 right that that you’re able to do some
04:39 basic things to manage so what do you
04:41 what type of businesses are you looking
04:43 at like what are your products or is it
04:44 mostly content based mostly
04:47 content-based I have uh each website
04:49 each business I’ve had has been a little
04:51 bit different I I’ve done a lot with
04:52 content where it’s monetized with ads
04:54 and affiliate programs so basically
04:56 promoting other people’s products in
04:57 exchange for a commission um I’ve done a
04:60 good bit with digital products so um as
04:03 an example my first website was the
04:06 topic of the site was web design and so
04:08 I monetized it initially with ads and
04:10 then I also went into selling digital
04:12 products so I sold things like Photoshop
04:14 templates icon sets U other Graphics
04:17 that people would use in their um in
04:20 their design and then I later had
04:22 photography websites where I sold things
04:24 like um Lightroom presets and Photoshop
04:27 actions or basically like for photo
04:29 editing so definitely some with digital
05:31 products as well um but yeah each each
05:33 site is a little bit different depending
05:35 on you know the target audience and what
05:37 opportunities there might be there for
05:38 for selling products yeah so I guess
05:41 tell me a little bit more about that so
05:42 were you you know were you doing the
05:44 research on the niche and then you went
05:45 out and found an existing website to
05:47 Source into that so then you can start
05:48 to grow it or were you doing the
05:50 research into a specific Niche find one
05:52 that does have competitors starting one
05:53 from scratch or did you just kind of
05:55 stumble into what you found and then try
05:57 to build something from there yeah
05:59 initially it was just stumbling into it
05:01 um so I mentioned that my my first one
05:03 was on web design and that was basically
05:05 I started with completely different
05:07 intentions than what I wound up doing I
05:09 was um I had a full-time job as an
05:11 auditor for a finance company at the
05:13 time and I was just looking to make a
05:15 little bit of extra money on the side
05:16 and I I had done some web design I took
05:18 a course on HTML in college and um I
05:22 could by the end of the course create a
05:23 really basic very basic website and so I
05:26 was kind of studying on my own and I was
05:28 doing some websites for family friends
06:30 and I wanted to do a little bit more to
06:32 make some extra money so I put up a
06:33 little portfolio website to try to
06:35 attract some clients and to get traffic
06:37 to the site I I set up a Blog and the
06:39 blog wound up really taking off and I
06:41 was getting a lot of traffic and I liked
06:43 working on the blog more than I liked
06:44 working for the clients um I didn’t get
06:46 a lot of clients but I did get some
06:47 clients through it and um but I decided
06:50 to kind of focus on the blog instead and
06:51 so that’s when I started to monetize it
06:53 in other ways like putting ads on the
06:55 site and affiliate programs and stuff um
06:57 and so then digital products really what
06:59 how that came about was um the downside
06:02 of of monetizing a Content site with ads
06:05 is you’re constantly chasing traffic
06:07 like if you’re traffic drops your income
06:09 is going to drop so there’s this
06:10 constant pressure to at least keep up if
06:13 not grow and so it’s just like a
06:15 NeverEnding grind basically and I did
06:17 that for a couple of years and then um I
06:20 saw you know other other sites selling
06:22 products I bought some of these products
06:24 before so I knew you know there was a
06:25 demand for it and um so I created some
06:29 on my own I outsourced some of the work
07:31 to Freelancers to create some products
07:33 and that really changed the complexion
07:35 of the business in terms like I wasn’t
07:36 necessarily tied to the traffic anymore
07:38 like I could if my traffic dropped and I
07:40 needed to make money I could run a sale
07:42 I could email my email list I could find
07:44 Affiliates to promote it for me and so
07:46 that’s kind of how the the development
07:48 into creating and selling products came
07:50 about and and were those for I guess
07:52 niches that you already had right and I
07:54 guess I’m trying to understand for
07:55 listeners is it your creating site from
07:57 scratch or finding something and then
07:58 evolving it from there creating sites
07:00 from scratch um in in that case I had I
07:03 had the audience already com to a web
07:05 design blog and so I created products
07:08 that would appeal to that existing
07:09 audience that I already had and then
07:12 later on when I went into the
07:13 photography websites I um it was just
07:16 photography was a hobby of mine and so I
07:18 said you these types of products have
07:20 worked well for designers I wonder if I
07:21 can create something similar but you
07:23 know for photographers instead and so I
07:25 kind of built a site around those
07:27 products and started it from scratch
07:29 there so it says so was just read a
08:31 little here on your bio that we just
08:33 kind of went through so in 2013 right so
08:36 it sounded like that’s when this
08:37 adventure started for you creating right
08:40 and it sounds like you sold your company
08:42 for pretty good amount of money so talk
08:44 to talk to us a little bit about that
08:45 Journey yeah so it actually started 2007
08:49 that was when I started my web design
08:51 blog and then I sold that blog in 2013
08:54 so that was my first I had sold another
08:56 site earlier actually I sold a couple
08:58 sites earlier but they were like just
08:60 small projects nothing significant I
08:02 wound up selling the the web design blog
08:04 for $500,000 in 2013 so it was about six
08:08 years old at the time so when you went
08:09 through the sale of that I mean so what
08:11 do a what is a business an online
08:13 business if you sell for a half a
08:14 million dollars what kind of what kind
08:16 of Revenue is it generating at the time
08:18 it the it was generating around $25,000
08:22 a month in Revenue my profit was about
08:24 in the low 20s and that was about the
08:28 you know the going multiple at time I
08:30 think I got about two years worth of
09:32 profit um when I sold it multiples have
09:35 increased since then although they’ve
09:37 dropped a bit in the last year or so um
09:40 they were much higher for you know
09:42 probably in like 2021 um did you even
09:44 know what multiples were at the time I
09:46 mean were did you kind of right or did
09:48 you you know again did you stumble your
09:49 way through just that transaction right
09:51 like did some approach you or you
09:52 actively look at to sell and you know
09:54 how much did you understand on kind of
09:56 the the business valuation side of
09:58 things I knew I was fairly aware of
09:01 things from you know from from hearing
09:03 other people selling and seeing you know
09:05 other other sites that sold I had sold a
09:08 smaller site before on Flippa and so I
09:11 was fairly familiar with that stuff um I
09:14 I did talk to a broker about listing it
09:16 and he gave me his his valuation it was
09:18 actually slightly lower than what I got
09:20 for it on my own but I wound up I was
09:23 intentionally looking to sell and I did
09:25 um I reached out to people in my network
09:27 people who owned similar sites um and
09:30 wound up getting a sale or finding a
10:32 buyer through my network and you feel
10:33 like they were happy with that
10:34 acquisition and a postacquisition have
10:36 they been able to grow it they did for
10:38 um so it did really well for the first
10:40 year and then after a year there was a a
10:42 pretty significant Google algorithm
10:43 update that took away a good chunk of
10:46 traffic and I know it it declined a bit
10:49 after that um but I think it was still a
10:51 decent business for them for probably
10:54 five six years did fairly well and then
10:58 they kind of lost interest in it and I
10:01 actually bought it back in uh what year
10:04 was that 2021 and sold it again in 2023
10:09 so I bought it back for a fraction of
10:10 what I sold it for and then sold it for
10:13 a little more again so how many of these
10:16 projects do you are you able to maintain
10:18 now that you’ve kind of got this craft
10:19 of building is are you keeping two or
10:21 three Deals going are you keeping 10
10:23 going I me what what’s typically your uh
10:25 your bandwidth on your your projects I
10:27 usually have maybe like two different
10:29 websites that I’m working on at any
11:30 given time I try to what I like to do is
11:34 to have one that is fairly well
11:36 established and making the the bulk of
11:38 my income and doesn’t require you know
11:41 100% of my my time or effort and then I
11:44 have something else that I’m working on
11:45 on the side um so that when I sell the
11:47 main one I’ll have something else
11:49 already started I don’t have to start
11:50 from scratch I struggle to manage too
11:54 many different things at once I’m I’m
11:56 just personally not great at you know
11:58 managing five different websites and and
11:00 you know not having a lot of time or
11:02 attention for any of them um so I don’t
11:04 have a ton of different projects and I
11:06 also do a lot of the work myself right
11:08 so um no employees right so you’re this
11:11 is this is all your effort yeah so um
11:15 yeah I typically have two maybe three at
11:17 the most different things going on at
11:19 one time but usually there’s one
11:20 priority well but have you given thought
11:22 to you essentially accelerating that
11:25 front end just by buying an existing one
11:28 that you then you know because presuma
11:30 right you know how to monetize these
12:31 better than a lot of existing people
12:33 right so have you looked at cutting out
12:35 kind of the because I I know exactly
12:36 what it looks like to start from scratch
12:38 for a website and build up all the the
12:40 content the SEO and the domain rating
12:42 and all of the stuff that it takes to
12:43 start to gain some momentum right versus
12:46 let somebody else deal with that and you
12:48 instead buy something that you know is
12:49 already has traffic that’s kind of under
12:51 monetized underutilized and accelerate
12:53 that piece of it yeah I have um I have
12:57 purchased a couple sites in the past
12:59 cool and really I I guess I purchased
12:02 three one was pretty small and I wound
12:04 up just not really doing much with it I
12:06 still have it the other two that I
12:07 purchased I wound up selling um for a
12:10 profit later um but like you said they
12:12 were they were under monetized they
12:14 weren’t really um the owners weren’t
12:17 really doing a whole lot with them and
12:19 so it was a pretty good project for me I
12:22 the things that I would be open to
12:25 buying another site in the future and I
12:26 probably will at some point right now I
12:29 I mostly work on content sites and the
13:32 the industry for Content sites has been
13:35 very turbulent in the last year because
13:36 of Google algorithm updates a lot of
13:39 websites have lost a ton of traffic and
13:42 so I’m kind of hesitant to right now um
13:45 invest any significant amount of money
13:47 into something that is is fairly risky
13:51 um and also I I do enjoy starting from
13:53 scratch so for now I’m not really
13:55 looking to buy but for the reasons you
13:57 mentioned it does make sense and it is
13:59 something would consider in the future
13:00 so what are you seeing on the horizon so
13:02 so that like you are seeing you know
13:04 Google’s making their updates everything
13:06 a lot of things are shifting to video
13:08 and mobile who’s the bigger one right
13:10 mobile that’s the one that scares me the
13:11 most of the web space as a whole so I
13:13 imagine on your your your your website
13:15 flip mysite.com you probably talk about
13:17 and have content so what what’s changing
13:19 with AI and how do you see the next you
13:22 know two to five years in in the space
13:25 that you’re dealing with what what are
13:26 the changes what are you seeing on on
13:28 the horizon right now now with so many
14:30 people losing traffic from Google
14:32 everyone’s like looking for another
14:35 platform or another source of traffic so
14:37 obviously a lot of people are moving
14:39 more towards social media Facebook is
14:42 kind of more popular right now for
14:43 traffic than it was the last few years
14:46 Pinterest is a big one email one of the
14:49 things that I I see as being the biggest
14:51 opportunities or biggest shifts is um is
14:55 email marketing I guess it’s not really
14:56 a shift it’s always been important but I
14:58 think um now that you can’t rely on
14:01 Google as much for traffic makes sense
14:03 to prioritize building an email list
14:05 that you can Market to at any time so I
14:08 think you know getting away from just
14:10 relying on a site where you’re getting
14:14 80 90% of your traffic from organic
14:16 search and then just monetizing it with
14:17 ads that’s about as risky as it can get
14:20 um because you’ve got really just one
14:22 main source of traffic and one main um
14:25 source of Revenue so anything where
14:27 you’re mixing that up and getting two or
14:30 three different sources of traffic at
15:31 least and making money in a few
15:33 different ways um but I see an email
15:36 list as being really valuable regardless
15:37 of whether you’re promoting affiliate
15:40 products selling your own products
15:41 offering a service there’s you know you
15:43 can use an email list for just about
15:45 anything you want so for our listeners
15:47 out there that are saying okay because
15:48 there there are a tremendous amount of
15:50 entrepreneurs out there that are
15:51 attracted to online businesses I mean I
15:53 talked to we just had our conference and
15:56 uh I would say there was a very good
15:58 handful that were like hey I’m looking
15:60 to buy an online business this is why
15:02 and I think it’s the attraction of not
15:03 having to have a staff or having people
15:06 or a lot of those things you can always
15:08 you know maybe use a third party VA and
15:10 those kind of those pieces so how would
15:13 one person let’s just say it’s listening
15:15 how would they go about building an
15:16 email list in today’s how would what is
15:18 the what’s kind of the the blocking and
15:20 tackling of and the biggest mistakes
15:22 people do trying to build it I’m
15:24 building that list well my Approach I
15:26 like I said before my sites are usually
15:28 content based and so I my main way of
16:31 generating building an email list is
16:33 through content so in order to get
16:35 people on the site or in order to get
16:37 people to subscribe I have to get them
16:38 on the site first get them to see you
16:40 know a sign up form or a popup or
16:42 whatever it is that’s collecting that
16:43 email address and typically I’ll use a
16:46 free resource or what referred to as a
16:48 lead magnet so you give somebody
16:50 something in exchange for their email
16:52 address so it might be like a a
16:54 checklist or some kind of report or
16:57 something like that um that they’ll they
16:59 want up giving you their email address
16:00 in order to get that free thing that
16:03 they want um other ways to to build an
16:06 email list advertising is really
16:08 effective like Facebook has um lead ads
16:11 that are extremely effective if you can
16:13 get um you know get your ad dialed in
16:16 where you’re getting leads for
16:18 relatively inexpensive it’s one of the
16:19 best ways to grow a list because you can
16:21 scale up a little faster than than you
16:23 can scale with um with content because
16:25 you can just increase your ad budget um
16:27 gradually and and get more leads so yeah
17:31 those are I think the the main ways of
17:34 of growing a list um you kind of have to
17:37 have like it kind of depends on on your
17:39 list and what you’re what you’re
17:41 offering to people like why do they want
17:43 to be on your list and in my case U with
17:45 a content-based website the reason
17:47 someone would want to be on the list
17:48 aside from the lead magnet is getting
17:50 that ongoing content so as I publish new
17:52 content to the site I’m also emailing
17:54 them so you know it aligns with their
17:56 their interest yeah mistakes you yes
17:59 something about like mistakes that
17:00 people make I think with email one of
17:02 the biggest mistakes is is not really
17:05 giving people a reason to subscribe like
17:07 you can uh like a lot of bloggers have
17:09 an email list and maybe they have like a
17:11 a sign up form or something but there’s
17:13 no real reason for someone to subscribe
17:16 you’re just kind of waiting for people
17:17 to to put their email address in and
17:20 today if you think about you how many
17:23 how many email list you’re signed up to
17:24 most of us don’t want to sign up for
17:25 another email another email list unless
17:28 there’s some specific reason and so we
18:30 have to we have to give people a reason
18:33 and we have to ensure that um the emails
18:35 are are good it delivers on what they
18:37 want so that when they see your your
18:40 email in their inbox they’re going to
18:41 click to open it otherwise they’re just
18:43 going to you know ignore it or
18:46 eventually unsubscribe or something yeah
18:48 there’s there’s a whole art to emails
18:49 and you know I I kind of disrupt I mean
18:52 one of the biggest my biggest pet peeves
18:54 is actually over emailing and so I kind
18:56 of have to really clamp down on the
18:58 marketing team and make them think about
18:00 hey how much are we communicating what
18:02 are we communicating what’s the value of
18:03 each one of those emails and you know
18:05 there’s there’s a whole
18:07 industry there in email marketing and so
18:10 takes a lot of energy to do it and do it
18:12 well and and question how much do you do
18:14 around like AB testing and really
18:16 playing with the messaging that you’re
18:17 doing or whether it’s emails or your
18:19 call to actions and the
18:21 websites I personally don’t do a ton of
18:23 AB testing and that’s not to say that
18:25 it’s not effective I think it is I’m
18:28 just not the type of person like I don’t
18:30 really enjoy digging into analytics and
19:35 um it’s rare most of the the web the web
19:38 Guru junkies are right it’s all data
19:40 driven yeah I I just I get bored with
19:43 that kind of stuff like I check my
19:44 analytics quickly but if I’m spending a
19:47 ton of time making a ton of like a bunch
19:49 of tweaks to just get like a small
19:52 change um I get kind of bored with it
19:55 and like I said it’s not to say it’s bad
19:57 I think it can be very effective
19:59 um it’s just not something I enjoy doing
19:02 and I’m not great at it so I kind of
19:04 don’t do as much as I should to be
19:06 honest no I think that’s pretty good
19:08 though you got you got to know those
19:09 things that you enjoy doing and then
19:11 you’ve gota especially because you’re
19:12 you you are a team of one right and so I
19:15 would imagine it’s not like you can go
19:16 hey I I love this and I don’t like this
19:19 so I’m gonna give this to someone else
19:21 that is better at that right so you for
19:23 your time probably for your best Roi
19:26 you’ve got to you’ve got to find those
19:27 things that you enjoy doing and and and
19:29 do them well right is that kind of your
20:31 your mentality when it comes to this
20:33 stuff yeah yeah that’s that really is um
20:37 so I if I don’t enjoy it I’d rather just
20:39 go get a regular job um and so I don’t
20:42 really want to like work on something
20:44 that I hate and so I do try to focus on
20:47 the things that I enjoy um like you said
20:49 and then try to do them well that’s
20:51 awesome so talk to me about like how are
20:54 you using any of the new tools are you
20:56 using chat GPT AI like what are there
20:59 any tools that you’re using that you
20:00 found that have just really helped you
20:03 know accelerate what you’re doing I use
20:06 chat GPT I also use Jasper which is
20:08 another um AI writing tool um I’ve tried
20:12 several others those are the two that I
20:14 use currently um I mostly use it I use
20:17 it a lot for
20:18 brainstorming um like for example um if
20:22 I’m looking for um article ideas for a
20:25 Blog um I’ll give it a list of what ever
20:29 ideas I have and say you know create
21:32 more ideas that are similar to this um I
21:35 use it for outlining and um organizing
21:39 an article I basically just you know
21:41 tell what I’m writing what article I’m
21:43 writing what the target audience is and
21:44 ask it to to generate an outline and I
21:47 rarely use it as is but it definitely
21:50 really helps for picking up on things
21:51 that I might have
21:53 overlooked um I also use it a lot of
21:56 times for titles I’m I’m not very good
21:58 with titles or headlines and so I’ll ask
21:01 AI to to help with um creating a more
21:05 catchy title um because yeah because I
21:08 struggle with it and then it can give me
21:10 a list of ideas really fast that I can
21:12 choose from that’s great are you doing
21:14 any video at all on your content I I
21:16 don’t currently do video um I have
21:19 thought about it but currently I’m not
21:22 you’re G level up your Tik Tok dancing
21:23 right yeah so what are the uh so what
21:25 are the different it sounds like you’re
21:27 attracted to certain things so what a
21:29 type of content what are you what are
22:30 you really driving towards on your
22:33 content it depends on the website um a
22:37 lot of it is informational content so
22:40 I’ve had sites and uh web design
22:43 photography personal finance um and so
22:48 it’s basic you know I’ve historically
22:51 focused on SEO content like U for for
22:55 search traffic so that’s usually
22:57 informational things like answering
22:59 questions or comparison like this
22:02 product versus that product or this
22:04 company versus that company with
22:06 personal finance was a lot of lists so
22:09 um things like um different real estate
22:13 investing apps that you could could use
22:15 um or different uh sites for side
22:19 hustles for making money so there’s a
22:20 lot of lists um but basically like I was
22:24 focused mostly on things that people
22:26 were searching for um now I’m working on
22:30 um a a site that’s travel photography
23:33 related so it’s it’s got like a
23:35 photography aspect but it’s also got
23:37 travel aspect and I’m going more after
23:41 um social media traffic and so it’s more
23:44 um it’s not so much in-depth it’s more
23:46 like Visual and inspiration and um you
23:49 know something that if someone’s
23:50 scrolling on Facebook what’s going to
23:52 catch their attention that they’re going
23:53 to want to going to want to look at it
23:56 it’s not I’m not going for search
23:58 traffic where it’s like
23:59 as long form content um with where it’s
23:02 just strictly informational driven and
23:05 what’s been maybe the just before we
23:06 wind up what’s been kind of the most
23:08 surprising Niche that you kind of got
23:10 into and you’re like oh man this there’s
23:11 a lot of potential here um I most of my
23:15 stuff has been in like the bigger
23:17 Industries I know a lot of people have
23:19 always people especially with content
23:21 based websites a lot of them have taking
23:23 the um riches in the niches yeah and you
23:27 know I have definitely started some
23:29 sites on like some really specific
24:32 niches but I’ve always lost interest in
24:35 them and I don’t I don’t really enjoy
24:38 working on a site if it’s something I
24:40 have no interest in um so I’ve always
24:43 kind of steered towards like the bigger
24:45 things like design photography Finance
24:48 travel like big topics that are pretty
24:50 broad um things that I happen to be
24:52 interested in as well um so I of my
24:55 successful stuff I really haven’t had
24:57 anything that um that was in a really
24:00 surprising Niche I did have a site that
24:03 did okay for a little while that was on
24:05 um it was like game game room type
24:08 products it was like an Amazon affiliate
24:09 site so I had like reviews of dartboards
24:12 and fball tables and you know stuff that
24:15 you would put in a game room but um I
24:18 didn’t put as much time into it because
24:19 I got bored with it and it faded and now
24:22 it’s still there but it doesn’t do
24:24 anything so anything being right now so
24:26 you’re like right now your main thing is
24:29 flip my site is that your main focus
25:31 right now that you’re working on or is
25:32 that the side hustle that we talked
25:33 about yeah which one is it that is more
25:37 of a side hustle right now so I’m I’m
25:39 still I’m kind of in a transition phase
25:41 because I sold a few sites in the last
25:42 year and so um I I was I started flip my
25:46 site and I did a bunch I’ve done a good
25:49 bit of client work over the last year
25:51 and um I’m also working on the um travel
25:54 photography site that I mentioned yeah
25:57 um so those two are kind of both both
25:59 kind of side hustles right now and
25:01 client work has been more of my focus
25:05 than than my own sites in the last year
25:08 so when you uh so for most of our
25:10 listeners if they wanted to find go take
25:12 a look at flip my site tell us a little
25:13 bit about the site what’s what’s the
25:15 what’s the key stuff here sure it’s U
25:17 flipy site.com and basically it’s just a
25:21 website about um buying and selling
25:23 online businesses growing valuable
25:25 online assets um there are some artic
25:28 Arles on you know things like how to
25:30 sell a website um how to buy a website
26:33 how to increase the value of your
26:35 website how to determine the value of
26:36 your website um but I’d say more than
26:39 half of the content on the site is um
26:41 success stories so it’s stories or
26:43 interviews um featuring people who have
26:46 grown and sold or in some cases bought a
26:49 an online business I think they’re
26:51 really interesting I know I enjoy them
26:52 because I get to see and hear a lot of
26:54 different people and see you know what
26:57 what was unique about their story how
26:59 they grew the business how they sold it
26:01 and how it’s changed their life how are
26:04 people buying websites right now what’s
26:06 the what are you seeing right now in our
26:08 time leverage buyouts Casey lbos come on
26:10 I know I know but say what what are the
26:12 multiples what are what what are the
26:14 like tell us kind of the highlights of
26:17 what people are looking for right now
26:18 when they buy a website people are
26:20 buying websites it’s definitely slowed
26:22 down from from what it was a couple
26:24 years ago I think the biggest thing I
26:27 mentioned the Google search traffic
26:29 that’s huge for content-based websites
27:31 other types of websites haven’t been
27:33 impacted as much like e-commerce sites
27:35 SAS businesses haven’t been as impacted
27:38 as as content-based websites um so
27:41 there’s definitely still a good bit of
27:43 Interest I think that the multiple
27:44 really depends on a lot of factors
27:46 obviously Empire flippers one of the
27:48 leading Brokers of online businesses
27:51 shares some data on their website about
27:53 multiples and um they updated every now
27:55 and then it has dropped a bit I think I
27:58 want to say it’s around 30 months uh you
27:01 know if you were to take the average net
27:04 profit for the past 12 months and then
27:06 multiply that average monthly profit by
27:08 about 30 I think is kind of a ballpark
27:11 range right now um obviously some are
27:14 going for higher some are going for Less
27:16 um and you it depends on the business
27:18 model as well SAS businesses typically
27:20 sell for a little bit more because they
27:21 have that recurring Revenue that
27:22 everybody wants there’s definitely still
27:24 a market I think what’s the sites that
27:26 are really struggling to sell right now
27:28 is the ones that were completely SEO
28:30 dependent you know no one really wants
28:32 those for obvious reasons because their
28:33 their traffic is down pretty
28:34 significantly in a lot of cases awesome
28:37 very insightful yeah so let’s flip
28:38 mysite.com for those listeners all right
28:41 so let’s go ahead and move on to our
28:43 rocket round awesome so first question
28:46 here so what do you like to do in your
28:47 free time I enjoy hiking and photography
28:51 so that’s kind of how I I landscape
28:52 photography is is a hobby and that kind
28:54 of led me into hiking because I have to
28:56 hike to get to a lot of places um so I
28:58 enjoy doing that I don’t get to do it as
28:00 much as I would like because I have um
28:02 two young kids and so I’m pretty busy
28:03 with family stuff but yeah that I would
28:05 travels got to be one of those too
28:07 because you’re doing the travel blog now
28:08 so yeah and I I do like to you know I
28:10 like to travel to to go see different
28:12 places and take pictures so I just got
28:14 back from Mount reneer um and I made an
28:17 attempt to the mount to the top the
28:18 summit uh I did not get Ferris Summit
28:21 that but he did it much younger age um
28:24 but man talk about next year with you
28:25 man talk about the pictures that we got
28:27 and the and the Venture I mean if I was
28:29 a writer I mean it would just be so if
29:32 if you like that kind of stuff that’s
29:33 one of those trips I think you could
29:35 write a ton of content about I’m sure
29:37 yeah yeah so that’s a good segue to
29:39 question number two what’s been the most
29:41 memorable moment in your business
29:42 Journey the most memorable moment has to
29:45 be when I sold my site in 2013 um that I
29:49 got I sold it for 500,000 and I got
29:52 400,000 UPF front so you know getting
29:56 that amount of money um in my bank
29:59 account in one day was was pretty big I
29:01 know um you know I’ve had other sales in
29:04 the same ballpark since then but that
29:06 first one was uh it was didn’t set me up
29:09 for retirement or anything but I would
29:10 Define it as a life-changing moment like
29:12 it definitely impacted things going
29:15 forward it’s exciting I totally know
29:17 what you’re talking about all right and
29:18 last question so what is your favorite
29:20 tool or resource that you like to use I
29:22 like stuff that helps with organization
29:26 and efficiency and making things easier
29:28 so I don’t know if there’s necessarily
30:30 one tool in particular but I’d say like
30:33 Google Drive I know it’s pretty basic
30:36 everybody uses Cloud stuff but that
30:37 totally changed things for me like being
30:40 able to access files from a laptop and a
30:42 desktop and while I’m traveling and you
30:44 know not have to worry about my hard
30:47 drive dying and losing everything um so
30:50 Google Drive I use a SAA for organizing
30:53 tasks um I’ve been using notion as well
30:56 a little bit recently for organization
30:58 so I really like the organizational
30:00 tools awesome is a new one I have not
30:02 used that but we used sauna for I don’t
30:05 even know man 15 years 10 years I
30:07 remember it first came out cool well
30:10 Mark thanks for being on the show really
30:12 appreciate it if listeners want to get a
30:13 hold of you how can they get a hold of
30:14 you the best way is is through flip my
30:17 site um there is a contact page on there
30:20 my my email is Mark MC at
30:24 flip.com all right thank you very much
30:26 yeah great to have you here Mark that
30:27 was great stuff
30:29 great thanks for having me thank you for
31:31 listening to the m&a Launchpad podcast
31:33 if you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast and
31:35 would like to support us please leave us
31:36 a rating and a review after you listen
31:38 I’m Casey menu and I look forward to
31:39 talking with you next week
