Ep 315: 1-1 Coaching Call] Mental Preparation For Acquiring and Scaling An Online Business with Jaryd Krause

How do you prepare mentally, financially, and time-wise to acquire a great online business and build out your wealth online?

Hi, I'm Jarrod Krause. I'm the host of the Buying Online Businesses podcast, and today I'm speaking with me, myself, and I, but I'm speaking to you, the listener. I went through and on my email list, I sent out an email saying, I want to answer questions that you would ask me.

If you had three questions, you would want to ask me through a one-to-one coaching session, what would they be? And I got a bunch of people reply to that email with a bunch of questions. And a lot of those questions around mindset, getting finance for buying a business, what type of business they should buy, you should buy, what business models are more risky, least risky, what is AI going to do to the online business space for content for the revolution of software businesses, for the revolution of all online businesses, even in regards to e-commerce businesses.

How do we sustainably grow these businesses and make sure that we're not going to be at risk of AI, but also how do we use AI to our advantage to ensure we're on the cutting edge of growth and seeing AI as not a bad thing and not being worried about it, but how do we use AI to our advantage to crush it online? Now, a lot of this is mental stuff. A lot of it is mindsets and thinking and tuning into yourself and asking yourself the better questions.

Typically, the better questions we ask ourselves, the better results we're going to get. And I go through a whole list of questions from my amazing audience. Thank you guys so much for submitting these questions.

There's so much value in this podcast episode. You were to have a one-on-one coaching call with me, and you were to ask me questions, most of these questions are the ones that you would be asking m,e and I provide in-depth answers and stories and examples that are going to help you, and I know that it's gonna be valuable. So please leave me some feedback, but enjoy it for now.

Right, let's get to business. Firstly, thank you everybody who did send in questions. You guys are the MVPs. Helps me create the best content for you guys. It's precisely and exactly what you guys want and are asking. So thank you everybody. Let's just dive in and get straight to business. First questions, three questions are from Tony. How can I purchase a website using my 401k account?

So, I wouldn't suggest buying an online business with your 401k if you don't have many other assets already in place because business is risky. If, for example, you do have a bunch of assets in place and you're ready to acquire something using a portion of your 401k and it's safe to do so, and your investment advisor is saying it's okay to do so, you would need to go to a rollover for business specialist.

First, because you want to use a ROBS, which is rollover for business structure, which is first set up a C corporation and then create a 401k plan within that corporation. And then you roll over your existing 401k funds into that corporation. And then that corporation goes away, it goes away and acquires the business. Now I'm not a qualified financial advisor.

This is not financial advice and you should be speaking to a professional investment advisor to see if you're in a position financially to acquire a business using your 401k. I do not recommend it unless, of course, you have a bunch of other assets that cannot pay for your lifestyle, because business is risky like I mentioned before. And again, that's not financial advice, but it's a great question and it can be done, Tony. The next question is, is it possible to purchase a business with 100 % seller financing? Look, it is possible.

Typically not in the online business space, typically not even in the brick and mortar business space. The businesses that you're buying with no money down are typically distressed assets that are going backwards, that are liabilities that you probably don't wanna take on, especially if you don't have experience.

Most businesses have a maximum of like 20 % self-finance typically, and then you're rolling into, and these are most business acquisitions, I'd say 90 % have maximum 20 % self-financing, and that's when you get to businesses in the seven figure range plus under that mostly it's just all cash. Third question is what is the best place to find a business for sale?

That's a great question. It's difficult to answer. It's a very broad. It depends on what type of business you're looking for. But if you type in online business brokers, you're to find a bunch of different online business brokers. We use Flipper, Empire Flippers, Quiet Light, FI International, Investors Club, Motion Invest. There are so many websites closed, website properties.

There's a bunch that you can go away and check out. Just Google them and there's always bigger and better ones evolving and changing. There's a lot to get through in this one, in this podcast. So I am excited with all of these questions. The next one is from Chris, which isn't exactly questions. He would first like my best business frameworks and just a podcast of my 10 best mindset frameworks.

He says that that would be invaluable and I would love to be able to share that with you guys. He does mention that I've shared a framework with him before. So thanks to this, Chris and that framework or that mindset thing was if you want a million dollar business, you got to behave like a million dollar business owner. And it made him pause and reflect on his behaviors and ask himself, is he behaving like a millionaire or an entrepreneur, and not getting the results?

So let me go through a couple of quick little frameworks for you, Chris. And firstly, I want to share that I have been through a business mindset series, one podcast episode 90, 91, 9,2, and 93. It's a four-part mindset series. The first one is called the one thing every website investor has that you don't. And then there's another one called what stops most people from buying a business.

There's also another one, how to run and grow the business that you just bought. It's based on these things, these three C's to achievement, you need, so they typically say courage comes before confidence. This is what I learned from one of my mentors. I was like, yeah, cool. Courage does come before confidence, but how can you just, you can't just snap your fingers and become courageous. First, you need something that can allow you to become courageous. And that's commitment.

That's a commitment to a course. That's a commitment to a goal. That's a commitment to something. So commitment, courage, and then confidence. And they're the three C's that you need to tick off to achieve any result in your life. And I have explanations about when I first started working as an employee and things that I had achieved like buying my first car and things like that.

There's a bunch of really good mindset frameworks in those episodes. Chris and everybody else, please go away and check those out. Another one that I want to mention is inside out growth. Inside out growth is a philosophy that I like to share with not just business owners, but people that are wanting to achieve something and grow something.

Inside out growth is the opposite of what most people are doing. Most people are growing from the outside in, and typically with their health and their physique, and most things people look for external sources like content and ChatGPT for how to do certain things. What sort of food should I eat? What sort of supplements should I take? What sort of exercises should I do? How should I grow my business? What are the marketing strategies I should take on? It's not the greatest way to grow anything because you're getting information from external factors that know absolutely nothing about your body type, your health, what reacts to the food that you like, how your body reacts to the exercise you work you do, and then also how your business reacts to the marketing strategy you bring in.

The opposite way is the best way to grow anything, is to look inside and grow from the inside out, and tune into your body and ask what exercises do I like and make me feel stronger, healthier, and fitter? What food does my gut like, what food reacts well with my body? What supplements react well with my body? Test that out, tune into your body, tune into your business, and ask us about your business, what's working well in your business?

What's not working so well in my business, and do more of what's working and less of what's not working. It's called the insight out growth philosophy that I like to share. And it's probably the most profound one. If you can use it for all areas of life, that will get you the best results for you, not bringing things in externally. Okay. I've come up with this, I think it must've been in 2015 or 2016.

So almost 10 years ago. And it was when my cousin had a bootcamp training center, and he didn't want people to come to the bootcamp just to look good. His goal was for people to feel good from the inside out. And that's why he changed his strategies and exercise strategies based on who the clientele were to help them make them feel good. And the better that you feel, the better that you look. It works the opposite way versus just looking good that you can feel absolutely crap on the inside.

Okay, another one is that I do want to mention is working less can be more productive, but only works at a certain stage. So when you're first starting, you need to just consume everything and just go at everything and give everything a crack until you work out what, and then when you do drop everything else, you become very productive in that one thing and then you get better results.

And also when you drop everything else, do become, you do less work, and because you're doing less work, you've got more capacity in space and time in your life. Then you think better. And when you're able to think better, you make better decisions. When you make better decisions, your life becomes better and you become far more productive.

That's a very, very valuable one. The start though, sometimes we just need to roll up our sleeves and do all of the wrong things and some of the right things until we work out what those right things are. Now, I have thought for a long period before even starting buying online businesses, of creating another whole podcast just on mindset for business, for life, for health, and all areas.

And I think something will come in the future, maybe in the next few years, maybe within the next year. So stay tuned, look out for my name, connect with me on LinkedIn if you haven't already. And there's gonna be some really good stuff to come. I've made people a lot of money in business and I do love business, but I'm looking at just helping people make their lives better in general through investments, through other strategies as well. So next question is from Chris as well.

What kind of guy like me gets out of business coaching? I'd be more interested in you sharing, explaining the benefits and the value of business coaching, when should you get a business coach? Is it something that I think he's considered, but the main reason Chris hasn't hired one is he doesn't know who would be the perfect coach for me, and who can help me overcome the bottlenecks and find the path forward, and help me resolve the problems within his decision making.

So what can a guy like you get out of business coaching, Chris? It's more so not about strategies that you need. It's more about helping you remove the things that you think that you need and questioning your beliefs and questioning you as a person and your goals because you can be biased towards certain things based on content you consume and questioning, Hey, is this goal really what's going to get you fulfilled? Or is it just something society is going to help put you on a pedestal?

The goal for me, I think, is, and should be for everyone, is fulfillment in life, not just achieving amazing things that society touts as cool. So what can a guy like you get out of business coaching? Can help you remove your thought patterns that are non-serving towards what you truly want for fulfillment, and help you realign and work out what is truly what you want. And then once you know what you truly want, that will get you fulfillment, is to build out a strategy and a framework and a system that can get you there.

So they say, you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. That's a quote, I'll repeat it, you do not rise the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. So what I like to say is it's not about having the best goals, it's about having the best systems that will get you there and your goals being fulfillment, what fulfills you is work out what fulfills you most and then only once you have a system and a framework that can get you there, then can you start to become more fulfilled and mentors don't give people their goals.

They guide people to work out what their own goals are, and then help them build the system to get there. And that's what I think you would get out of business coaching. And I think what most people would get out of business coaching. And if you find a good business coach that knows how to do this, right, and doesn't just push their, there's so many business coaches out there.

And it's difficult because most business coaches have one strategy, and they're one trick ponies, and they want to get you one result based on what you think you want. And that's their agenda. That it's very different when you work with a business coach like me, if we work out, like, okay, you, it's not right for you to do this strategy.

Maybe you should invest in property instead. Maybe you should invest in something else. And I refer you to somebody else that can get you the result because you're number one, you should come first. And it's not about me shoving down your throat what I think you should do so that I can sort of get paid.

How do I help you best with what's truly right for you to serve you in the highest capacity for yourself? And then only work with the people that are right to work with me, right? So not all business coaches are like that. So that's why you want to start to tune into like, what do you want? What strategy and goal do you want for yourself without having to do that with a mentor?

Mentor can help you, and a coach can help you. But once you find that, then you want to go away and find the person that has achieved the results that you want to achieve, and or has helped others achieve the similar results that you want to achieve. And that's how you find the right business coach for you. Also says, I'd love to be a fly on the wall listening to one of your live one-on-one coaching sessions.

And then the next one is about what a good business looks like post HCU world, helpful content update world. As a guest you've had on the pod, he will talk about what good businesses look like. And it's interesting. He says, I think one of the ideas was accountants because the customers stick with you for years. Let's look, what does a good online business look like? It's again, very general.

Like the information that I'm putting out here is very general. And so an e-commerce business may be a great business for somebody that wants an e-commerce business that is passionate about a certain product or selling direct to consumer products or wholesale products and loves marketing and loves working with the marketing team and operations team, right? That's what a good business can look like for one person and it might be a nightmare for another person. So it depends on what is right for you.

And I know that doesn't give you the best answer. So then it means you need to start asking and questioning yourself, what sort of workload do I want? What type of work would light me up? And you might not know yet, but like you can narrow it down, and that would help you look. The business model is the most important. The business model that's going to allow you the lifestyle that you want is typically what most people want, which is lifestyle.

Some people were like, just give me the business that makes the most amount of money, but they're not the people that I work with. And typically they're not the people that listen to this podcast. You guys are typically people like, I want a good life and I want fulfillment in my life, and work out what sort of business would provide that or what sort of business model.

And then you want to have a bunch of things like, yes, it's great to have an accounting business where you've got people that stay around forever. That's a very different business to an online business model, right? Most accountants, I mean, you can have a virtual accounting business now, but most people like to go in and speak to their accountant. It's more of a physical business.

How do you get that in the online space is you work out how you can get a software business with that, where people stick around for a long period. So I'm not going to be able to give you an answer that specific, like what a good online business looks like post helpful content update, because all businesses are going to be decent and all businesses will work, but content will change and we need to adapt with it.

And so we need to stop focusing on just search engine traffic on Google because of the helpful content update. Need to talk and look about, look at how do we make a business whole and build a motor around that business, and yeah, get some Google traffic, but also get traffic from other sources. For example, typically podcast traffic and YouTube traffic for long form content where people listen is far better traffic than just SEO traffic because you're building a deeper relationship with those people.

So how do you find a business that is like that? But Hey, do you want to run a podcast? Hey, do you want to manage somebody that is a host of the podcast? Like they're the questions you need to be asking as well. Let's move on to sticking with the AI thread. We've got two questions, one's from Jay and he says, which online business models do you think we'll be able to survive and adapt and change through the AI world, and what would you avoid?

It's a good question, Jay. All business models are going to be able to adapt. We've always had recurring revenue businesses for all the time, basically since the business being around, right? We're talking about recurring revenue, like people just come in and might be always buying the same food from the same market, right? Repeat customers. Then we've also got media businesses where people will pay money for news and information. And then we've always had people like just direct to consumer and wholesale businesses like e-commerce. So those business models are going to be around forever.

It's more about the question of like, how is AI going to change those businesses? And right now AI is changing just how we create content, right? Like how, what we read, listen, and look at. And that is how we consume content in terms of information through marketing, but also through information through editing that content, and in email, and also content within our drop boxes and Google Drive and all that sort of stuff.

That's what's changing. What would I avoid is difficult to know what sort of media to be going into. I wouldn't be avoiding them because, like, still think YouTube's great and podcasting is great, but text media is, is, is a difficult one. I wouldn't be going down the route of something that just produces text media because it can be replaced very, very easily and podcasts and all that sort of stuff will be starting to get replaced and have, but you're going to have a place for AI podcasts and AI videos and AI bots doing the videos.

And then you can have a place for humans as well. So there's also things that you could lean into AI content for the people that I find with listening to AI stuff. It's a tricky one to answer. And I'm not fully across AI because AI is evolving so fast. And one thing like deep seat comes out and it can just change the whole game and throw everybody off, even the smartest people like Elon Musk, you know? So who am I to be an expert and talk to you about AI?

Hardly anybody's safe in their conclusions. So it's a really difficult, I think, economic business to be blunt, are great and software businesses can be great as well. There's also another question here from Tushar and he says that the Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that AI agents will replace software businesses. Please let me know your thoughts on that, and absolutely agents can replace software businesses because software is just a service, right?

And an online service and an AI agent can go away and provide that service for you. So that just means AI agents become software businesses. And there's no problem with that. That's fine. It just changes the game of software a little bit where you don't have that humans doing development and stuff like that. You've got AI doing it for you. It's a great thing.

AI can make fewer mistakes than humans. So it's not something to be scared of. It's something to lean into, you know, that's, know, I wouldn't avoid. So what Jay's asking is like, would you avoid a software business because AI agents are coming in, they're to provide that service? No, I wouldn't avoid that. I would just use that, as an advantage. And the same with all business models as AI evolves and changes, you stay on top of it, and then you use it as your competitive advantage.

I wouldn't be running away from things. I'd be leaning into it. People are scared, this is a, people are scared because they don't understand it, and they don't understand that they can use AI as a great thing in all businesses and all business models. So people are scared of things they don't understand. So, and then you've got these other people that are like, well, I don't understand it, but I'm going to learn to understand it, I'm going to use it to my advantage.

And all of this AI stuff is a massive win. So how you think about it is so, so key. It's not about what it is, but it's how you use it and how you think about it? So bring it on guys, bring it on. If you have the mindset of like, we can use this to our advantage. And that's what I would, I think all of us should employ.

Okay. More questions. Eric, can I do this without a super technical background? More of an investment manager role and less of getting into SEO and website backend. Yeah, absolutely. Eric, you can acquire a business without a super technical background. I am a plumber and most of the people that I started helping out were construction workers, only knew how to use Gmail and Facebook.

Right. And so the bigger the business you purchase, typically the more resources you have to hire people that can do SEO and website backend stuff. SEO is cheap these days. You can use AI for SEO. You can also use AI for coding for the website backend. You can use virtual assistants and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, of course you can do that. Okay, another one. It's 2025, it's taking over. Okay, great. That's awesome. How good is that? It can be a great thing for us. Do content websites still have a bright future? He asks. Look, yes.

Media businesses have a bright future. It's just, if you're talking about just content websites, look, there's content websites out there that are crushing it and are using AI to their advantage. So yes, the smaller ones under the K range, maybe even under the K range, they are up against some serious competition, which makes it very, very hard. So there's not a bright future for those, unless you have a bunch of resources that can create something just super amazing that nobody can compete with yet.

Right. Or you're purchasing something like that. It's not about content sites and media sites. Do they have a bright future? It's about how do you monetize them and how do you make sure you turn that media business into a business that doesn't just sell ad space. So there is a future for them for sure.

But how do you turn them into like an e-commerce brand as well, and offer a service as well? Like going to the days where it's going to be easy to have a super easy online business with very little work. Like content sites were just so easy. Anybody could build them. I mean, of course, there's a pretty, the success rate wasn't amazing, but anybody could run a content site so easily.

And you can do that with any business. You can run it very easily, but not at a small scale like that. So small businesses don't have a bright future because the competition is just getting fiercer and fiercer and fiercer.

So it's not just about small content sites. It's about all small businesses. It's getting tougher and tougher and tougher. Mike Harrison, when purchasing an online business, what niche is best? Content sites, e-commerce, SaaS. Again, same answer as before, Mike. It depends on what is best for you and the business model that suits you best. All of those businesses can crush it.

Even content sites, if it's done well, it can do well. Turn that content site into a newsletter. Have recurring memberships, buy a newsletter, sell a product, sell a service, do drop shipping like this. They can all work. Another question about due diligence in purchasing a site, what is most important to look for and how do you find it? Answer is everything that's in the due diligence framework.

That's super important. How do you find that information? You ask the seller for that information and get proof of it all. So get my buying online businesses due diligence framework at buyingonlinebusiness.com for slash free resources as that and a bunch of other ones, little plug there.

But yeah, that's where that I won't repeat that whole document on this podcast. Other people have done videos on my own DDE framework and stuff like that as well, in the value that's actually in it. So, all right, last question from Mike, if you're purchasing a media company such as YouTube channel, or Instagram page, how would you scale these businesses or make them more profitable? A great question.

YouTube channel, I would work out what is the best content that's getting the most amount of traffic and the most amount of results in terms of subscribers and ad revenue, and create more videos like that. I'd also be doing shorts, and I'd also be working out how to sell a product or a service outside of the YouTube channel based on what the audience is wanting. I'd create a form and get them on an email list, and then I'd send them a form to work out what they want, and then just give it to them and sell it to them. Simple.

Same with Instagram. Same process. What content's working well? Bring in more sponsorship posts, do more of it, get people on an email list, sell them products and services. Simple one. Simple in theory. Of course, you'd want somebody helping you do that, like me, or somebody that has grown them. Unless you just give it a crack yourself, you can also do that too. Matthew's got a question. He's from Barbados.

Hey Matthew, how much money should I raise before seriously considering buying an online business? Some context of business making 15,000 a month would cover all of my current living expenses. Look, how much money should I raise before seriously considering buying an online business?

It's up to you. How much money are you comfortable raising? You could raise a million if you want, but as a beginner, it's going to be difficult to raise money because who's going to want to invest in somebody that hasn't done this yet. So it can be good starting smaller yourself and getting some runs on the board, and improving expertise and results before you go away and fund bigger investments.

I hope that helps. Now, there's no limit to how much funds you should raise. It's based on your level of risk tolerance. And there are questions that you need to ask yourself or have somebody like myself ask you that can guide you through to like, okay, this is your course of action now based on what feels comfortable for you and is gonna get you the results. Good question, Matt. Steve, I purchased an old SaaS business that I'm rebuilding and transforming with new AI functionality. I want to know how to effectively market to affiliates. Boom. Look at these guys.

We have a perfect example of Steve who has, is using AI to his advantage. Well done, Steve. He wants to know how to effectively market to affiliates. Look, the outreach man, just do outreach. Just, I've built out affiliate systems or affiliate growth systems for businesses like this for membership businesses like thi,s go away, and find people in the space that are already using your software and or the software will be great for and just do massive outreach for influencers to pitch them to become affiliates. Also to be effective in that way, give them a ton of money. Give them 30 % commission, 50 % commission, whatever it is, at least at the start until you get the ball rolling.

And the more money that you give your salespeople, right? Think of affiliates as your salespeople, your sales staff, the more money you give your sales staff, the harder they work because the bigger the incentive, the better the result. Remember that quote, the bigger the incentive, the better result. Okay. So well done, Steve. He's not, the other question is what's the best sort of relaunch approach to the website there? I would just say create the credit demo page, or they call it the standby.

The website rebranded, and then just how to relaunch it is just email it out to everybody on the list, and then let them know why it's amazing, why it's better than it was before, re and do that on social media and content everywhere as well. Next question from Steve is where would I look for assistance in creating a kick-ass marketing approach for Go High Level so I can sell the site once I have sales going well?

I would just look for a go-level marketing genius or a go-level marketing mentor and find somebody that has done that and do the same as them. Pretty simple. Pay them good money for it as well. Lewis has one question. How to finance the deal if we have no or little funds? What would be the minimum amount to buy to be worth it? Small sites sometimes are worth more than the cost of building them. So sometimes it's better to start from zero with time.

Example sites like 10 to 25 K Lewis great question There's not much options in terms of financing smaller deals typically it's like you would need to save some money or Add an extra job in or get a promotion and or all of the above to get some more finances in the door I know it's tough. I've been there. I've worked multiple jobs. I've worked more hours than most people.

I have been through the hungry period, and I've had to do what I needed to do to buy my first small business, which was 15K. And there's not many options for marketing or getting finance unless you're pooling funds together from people that you like, friends and family.

And then what would be the minimum amount to buy if it were worth it? Typically I'm recommending, it depends on how committed you are to working. Like you can buy something for 10K, but you should be spending a ton of time on it to get it going. I typically think the higher, the bigger, better.

Typically, I don't recommend people buy less than 20K, but you've got to start with where you got to start, Louis. There's no perfect starting point. Just do it. Really. Do it with where you can start and start going. Because even if you buy something for $5,000, you're going to learn so much, right? But don't, the biggest mistake that most people make is thinking that if I buy a $5,000 website or business, it's going to be the same experience as buying a $550,000 business. It can't be.

How could you buy it? It's the same reason that buying a $500,000 business would not be the same as buying a $5 million business. It's not the same experience. So don't believe just because it's a lot harder to, it only gets easier, right? It is a lot harder to have the smaller ones and only gets easier with the larger ones because you have more money. You have more resources, making more money.

You can throw things that are problems, right? Without you having to throw your time away on something important, one important thing to remember is don't compare. That's $55,000, the site is not comparable to a $50,000 site at all. But start with where you can start. Solvita. How to acquire an online business without upfront money. You don't. Don't do it because you're probably going to be buying a dying business that's going backwards. That's a liability that's going to cost you more money than no money at the start.

There are a bunch of people out there that are touting that you can buy a business with no money down. Yes, can be a buying a liability. Do you want to do that? No. And it's also going to be like an 80 and 80 hour a week job or something stupid like that. The reality, real life, what's out there in the market, that I know is I know one person that's bought a business for a dollar and it went backwards and it did not go well. And they were super experienced in turnarounds. It's not the right way to go.

I believe. So save up some coin. Like I mentioned before to Loui, save up some coin and start with where you can start. Tom, how do I get started looking for financing for an online business? Good question. Same as all the answers above. And then once you do have maybe more than 20K and you want to get, you could get some SBA financing with 20K. It's a minimum amount, but normally you'd want to go up to the hundred K before you start using SBA.

If you're in America, if you're elsewhere in the world for an online business, there are not many financing options other than friends and family. I mentioned before, what are three criteria you suggest people consider before buying an online business? Three criteria are how committed are you to the journey? Are you willing to throw everything at it and how long are you willing to stay in the game?

I would say the more time you're willing to stay in the game, the higher chance you have of success. If you're just trying to make this work within one year, two years, three years, you're done. Give yourself a 10-year horizon at least to try and make this work. If you try and squash all of your learning into a very short period, the chances are that your success will be smaller.

Set yourself up to win, not to fail. And then the third criteria would be prepared to pay for a mentor. Now the question from Tom is, other than your DDE framework, what sorts of stipulations do you think should be built into the negotiation process? It depends on the business and the risk.

I think an earn out is really good if you can go for an earn out, a 20 % earn out. Maybe sometimes it's seller financing or you have to pay interest on that earn out. I think that's good. Yeah. John, I have a blog and a YouTube channel I'm interested in and would like to review one of those assets. I have questions for both. Maybe leaning towards the blog. What are immediate red flags to look for to not waste time? If no major red flags, what are the green flags that influence a buy?

Okay. And then we'll talk about growth after that. With the blog red flags to look for, it's like a single source dependency on traffic. If it's coming from one source, there's a risk there. Is the traffic going down? That's a massive risk. Why is it going down?

Also, the revenue is going down, and then you've got other things like SEO, like the links, the backlinks, and the quality of content is important to how much content they have, the domain rating, and to check out those things. If they're not great, then walk away. What can influence a buyer is if it's growing.

If it's stable or growing, and so was the revenue, really cool. Then you got growth levers, newsletter, other traffic sources like Pinterest, the hedge against potential Google search issues. Yeah. Like I mentioned before, again, you build out a newsletter, recurring revenue, sell products, and services.

They don't even have to be your own. They can be drop-shipping. Cool. Cool. All right. We're crushing through these. How much more have we got? Not too many more, which is great because we're getting into the 40 minute territory. Solar, I currently have an online business for relationship coaching and counseling. Love that. Thank you. We need more of that.

They're selling eBooks and courses as well as counseling consultation. I created from scratch. Congratulations. And invested quite a bit of money and just relaunched it with no sales. Can you offer business coaching and consultation to improve it, to sell in the future? Yeah, absolutely. I do offer, I do help people grow businesses. Reach out.

Jaryd at BuyingOnlineBusiness.com and let me know that you want to do some one-on-one coaching. Can give you information on what that looks like. And that goes for anybody else listening, if you want coaching. Typically, the businesses should be making a year plus for coaching minimum, absolutely minimum. If it's making more, then I can help you get better results so much faster, right?

Just one small tweet can make a massive effect. But you said you relaunched it with no sales. I'm not sure what you mean by relaunching. It sounds like maybe rebranding, but I can help if you've got traffic and the business making a bit of money, I can certainly help. Next question from Sola, and I hope I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, is can you advise me with what niche or the best industry purchase of business in 2025?

No, I can't. I think it's more about having the right business model first. And then if you find something emotional niche where people will pay money, babies, parenting, pets, health can be emotional as well, those sorts of things. They're good sort of industries and niches. So I guess there is an answer there. And then you have another question. Can we buy a business in our Superfund?

So Sula is Australian because she's got a Superfund, which is the same thing as a 1K but for Australians. And the answer is it's possible, but I wouldn't recommend it unless again, like I said, with a 401K is you have other assets that are in place that can fund your lifestyle and there's not too much risk of you buying in your super fund.

What would it look like? Again, you'd need to set up your self-managed super fund. You need to build out a super fund plan. You need to put that money towards an acquisition. So it can be done. You'd need to have a financial advisor help you with that or an accountant. John, hi Jaryd. I'm a listener and currently looking to acquire my first business.

Cool, John. Congrats.

Here are my questions. What are the most important metrics to pay attention to when looking to acquire an online business? Depends on the business, typically finances and traffic, the most important metrics. For someone who's never operated an online business before, what's the one thing I can do that will increase my chances of success? Challenge yourself mentally as much as you can. So take on hard tasks, read the book, The Obstacle is the Way, and understand every challenge there's value in, lessons, and learning from it.

Bring on the challenges, get crazy with challenges, and just bring them on and strengthen your mindset because that's the biggest reason businesses fail is because the people that run them go backwards, right? Mentally, or they don't make the best decisions. A lot of the reasons that great e-commerce business fails is because the people that are running them, they decide to put less money into ads because they want to take more profits off the table. And then ads don't come back and the business goes back.

It's mindset. That's the number one thing, work on your mindset, and to compound that, have a business coach as well. It's going to help you with scaling and operations and removing yourself from the business. Another question, the third one is if we're starting over today and you had 200K in cash to buy your first online business, what would you do? It depends on where you would be at.

200K cash is typically I'd look at going and buying a business with finance. I'd maybe spend a hunt buying a business with people and I cover, I do everything. I find the deal typically off market, can be from a broker. And then I do the DD negotiations, structures and all that sort of stuff for you. If you're buying a seven-figure-plus business, I can also help you get the right lawyer and I can help you get financing as well. So anybody interested in that, reach out, let me know.

I'm here for you. I'm doing some pretty cool deals at the moment. I'm working on two amazing deals for some clients in the similar range, maybe a little bit bigger than what we're just talking about now, but yeah, really, really cool stuff. So that's where I'd be starting is with 200K cash, probably put 1.5 in financing with 150K deposits and acquire a decent business. A $1.5 million business is roughly going to be making about 500K-ish a year. And then you've got your repayments, which would be 150K a year with interest based on a 10 % interest rate. So you've got 350K.

350K income per year with 150K deposit down on business. It's pretty good because then you could put 50K into growing the business to have a 300K income or put 150K into the business and have a 200K income. There's some pretty cool stuff. As you can see, the larger the business you buy, the more resources you have to do amazing things. So good questions, John. Reach out if you want to chat, Jarradd at buyingonlinebusiness.com. Penny. All right, Penny.

Penny's got some good questions. I think those last questions, I'm a newbie to buying my first online business, spend lots of time looking at Flipper, Motion Invest, Quiet Light, and Acquire. My problem is that my budget is small, around 6K. So I also cannot afford to pay someone to check out any business I find. Also, so many Flipper sites are non-working template sites that are mass produced. What advice would you give people who are in my position?

That's a great question, Penny. And there's a lot of people, you are not alone. This is where I was in the young early days, and a lot of people listening are in this position. My advice is similar to what I said before. If you can save up a bit more money, then you can start to look towards acquiring a larger asset. But if you either way you go, like you've got a lot of time and not much money when you're starting, or you've got more money and less time, right?

People rarely have a lot of time and a lot of money. Typically they're the lazy people like me and you've got, obviously weren't lazy in the early days, right? But you're probably going to have to spend a lot more, you will have to spend a lot more time because you have less money. And that means, do you want to spend your time buying something that is not great, or do you back yourself to just build something out over a 10-year period that is going to be amazing.

Your options are to buy a domain name, right? For maybe a thousand dollars or so, 500 anywhere from like a couple hundred dollars up to a thousand dollars, maybe $2,000 if you want, and then build a business from that. And it can be not just a media business, but you want to have probably a product and a service as well, build out some authority. And that's probably where I'd go. If you're to buy something that around the 6K that the traffic's decreasing, it's going to be so much harder to bring it back up and Google and all that sort of stuff are already on the case of that business is going backwards let's not give, they're not going to give any hope.

So you're better off just starting something from scratch. I know there are people out there that teach people to buy businesses under the 10k range. I personally, that's not my, that's not my thing. It is difficult. And if you've got that sort of cash and with 10k site or business, you're going to have to put a lot of time into it anyway. And it might be worth starting something from scratch. I do not like starting something from scratch. I vote against it. I typically would say if it was me, I'd be saving my money to buy something bigger.

I'd be waiting and saving my money. For myself, and this is not financial advice because what I would do is I would say I would work more and more money, get a promotion, do more jobs, two or three jobs, put all that money into index fund or maybe a term deposit and grow it as much as I can before I get into the market and buy business. That's typically what I would do. Yes. Wow. Okay.

That's such a good pod. I hope you guys got a lot of value from it. There are such amazing questions. Everybody did it, sending questions. Thank you so much. If you guys have further questions and you want me to do another one of these, please do let me know. I love feedback. Let me know what questions I could have gone into further and given more of an explanation.

I tried to get through everything in under an hour and I've successfully done that. So I'm happy for you guys and I'm happy for myself that we crushed through it and it was still valuable. Let me know your feedback. Please reply to the email where you got this podcast episode, or if you're watching it on YouTube, let me know what you though, and if you want more of the se because I can bring it.

All right, sending love guys, all the best and wish you guys the most success ever and the most fulfilled life you can get. Speak to you soon.