Buying & Selling an Online Business (21:48) with Mark Daoust, the founder and owner of Quiet Light Brokerage. He shares stories from his entrepreneurial journey, and his philosophies on how to run and grow a small business. Then we get into the topic of Buying and Selling an Online or Internet-based Small Business (starting at 21:48), including what makes for a successful online business and how to make sure it can be sold. Mark introduces the four key drivers of value for an online business, and why buying an existing business may be better than trying to build your own.

Mark Daoust is the founder and owner of Quiet Light Brokerage. Mark founded the Quiet Light Brokerage in 2007 after assisting a close friend to sell his website for a dramatically higher price than most other websites were even daring to ask at the time. Since then, Mark has helped hundreds of online small business owners to maximize the value of their websites and to divest themselves of their business in the most profitable way possible. In part, Mark has achieved this by embracing a philosophy of reckless honesty. That is to say, he believes that chasing the most money for himself at the expense of honesty winds up costing much more in the long run.

Mark lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Area.

Buying & Selling an Online Business:

• What makes for a successful online small business?
• What are the types (what products of services do they sell) of online businesses that are most successful now and are most valuable?
• What makes an online small business valuable?
• What are the Key Drivers of Online Business Value?
  1. Risk Profile
  2. Growth Potential
  3. Transferability
  4. Documentation
• Introduce us to the Five Common Problems That Destroy Website Value: Messy Financials, High Owner Workload, Poor Financial Trends, Limited History, Easily Transferable.
• Why should I consider buying an online small business, versus building my own?
• As a potential buyer, what type of experience should I have – both technical and related to the product or service?
• What’s the key to not letting the business become a poor paying job (i.e. working too many hours for little returns)? (You talked about hiring people smarter than us on a recent podcast episode.)
• When do I know it’s time to sell my online business? What’s are the disadvantages of trying to sell it myself?

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Acquiring Entrepreneurship: Buying and Operating Small Business for Growth
• Why We Sleep and Dream: Powerful Secrets of Better Health

Other Episodes:

Buy or Sell Episodes

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