Buying An Online Business From Empire Flippers (PART ONE - WHY DID I DO IT?)
It's been 12 months since I closed on my 2019 purchase from Empire Flippers. Here's the background story leading up to it, one that I think a lot of us can relate to.
This is part ONE of this multi-part series about my 2019 Empire Flippers experience. When the other parts are available, I will come back and link them.
Part Two: Negotiations and Closing
Part Three: Migrations Challenges
Part Four: Running the Business for 12 Months
Part Five: Takeaways/Hindsight is 20/20
Why post this personal backstory?
Normally I don’t delve in so deeply to my own origin story.
The primary reason is that I find it boring to talk about myself. I’d much rather talk about you!
The secondary reason (and probably of equal significance) is that I am still embarrassed about many of the decisions I made as I worked to find my feet in the make money online world.
I have received many questions lately though about my background experience and motivations leading up to my purchase of a business through Empire Flippers.
Given the nature of those questions, in general coming from folks with lots of enthusiasm but little to no experience in the make money online world, it seemed right to put these details out there.
One of the things I tell people regularly is DON’T RUSH. Another is SLOW DOWN.
This story should explain why I say those things.
2018 to 2019 was a huge year of taking risks and growth.
I got started trying to make money online seriously in the American summer of 2018. My youngest child was just over a year old, but I was not ready to put her into daycare so I could return to work. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not relevant here, I also found myself unexpectedly being in the position of having to support myself.
I reviewed my financial position. If I budgeted conservatively, I concluded that I could stay at home for several months with my daughter. But I figured that if I could make some money some other way, I could extend that period.
Because of the changes in my personal life and situation (meaning divorce), I was highly motivated to focus on my children’s needs and being available and around for them.
Not stuck in my office.
And thus my “make money online” journey began.
I recognized right away that I was a babe in the woods. While I didn’t know what I was doing, I was painfully aware of the lack.
I became hyper focused on consumption of information, and testing out the information in the real world to see if what I had learned would work.
I dipped my toes into writing e-books, affiliate marketing, websites, dropshipping, Shopify, email marketing, paid traffic, and funnels. I researched products to sell with Amazon FBA, and tried to learn how to get started on Amazon Merch.
I designed print-on-demand t-shirts, All-Over-Print sweatshirts and blankets, purses and yoga mats. I sold some cheap jewelry off of AliExpress.
I even recruited my grandmother and some of her friends to be affiliates for my Shopify store.
I talked to Kevin David’s sales team about getting into his FBA program.
I started a Facebook group dedicated to affiliate marketing.
I started my YouTube channel.
I even started not one, but two websites in 2018, with the goal of monetizing the sites with affiliate offers (Amazon and SAAS products).
At first, I was very enthusiastic about the process. It was exhilarating to start what was essentially a new career, one that seemed to have limitless possibilities. I set what seemed (at the time) to be very a realistic goal of earning $3,000/month by the end of 2018. After all, it seemed like everyone else around me was easily making $10,000/month or even more.
All I needed was to do the work, right?
And boy, did I work.
I poured every free second into my growth. I was happy to spend money on subscriptions and tools, because it seemed clear that I would earn that money back soon.
Making money online is a whole new world, and jumping into the online world is almost like starting completely over from scratch.
But as the months went on, the money didn’t come. I made a few dollars here and there.
I didn’t come anywhere close to meeting my goals of making $3k/month by the end of 2018. It was much closer to $100/month by the end of 2018.
I bounced around for about 9-12 months trying to settle on a business or business model to sink my teeth into in the make money online space.
I spent too much money on courses that I didn’t use or even finish.
I was stuck in an endless cycle of consumption and testing.
Writing this down here for other people to see makes me cringe. After all, I was previously a lawyer with years of experience guiding other people in complex business and legal affairs.
I was used to having the status my career afforded me.
I was also used to succeeding at anything (everything) I set my mind to.
Yet, I was failing.
And all around me, there were teenage boys on YouTube living in their moms’ basements, who had barely sprouted a single whisker, making thousands of dollars a day.
I can see now that my dollars and hours weren’t truly wasted, because they put me on the path to what I am doing now.
But, this was not a comfortable time. I felt like there was a gold rush happening, and it was passing me by.
I didn’t want a fancy car or a mansion. I just wanted a small fraction of what the big dogs were raking in.
I believed that I could make it work. Somehow. Making a few dollars had proven to me that the concept of making money online was sound, but my problem was in execution.
So I kept searching desperately for the thing that was going to WORK.
And much like a cliche’ sales pitch, I finally had my turning point.
I came across Jon Dykstra’s Fatstacks blog in March of 2019, and signed up for his email list. Within two weeks, I bought a year’s worth of access to his blogging course for $47 on April 1, 2019. After previously wasting close to two grand on info-products, this seemed to be a reasonable price.
His method seemed solid and simple enough for a tech-phobe like me, and the up-front investment to make it happen (a domain and hosting and my time) was the right one.
My previous fails gave me the confidence to start his course and take action right away. While I wasn’t a success just yet, my experience starting two affiliate sites in 2018 helped me recognize that Jon’s course was quality and that it was what I had been looking for.
Feeling like all the pieces were falling into place, I bought a new domain and hosting to follow his strategy, and launched my new website/blog on April 5, 2019. (This site is the Adsense case study site I talk about on my YouTube channel).
I diligently wrote and published articles, even diving into outsourcing for the first time as recommended by his course. With his method, I was able to get about 200 articles of unique content posted in the first three months.
But even as I did so, what should have been obvious to me at the start, became crystal clear. It would be a long time before this new project was profitable.
I was impatient to become successful online.
Up to this point, I had not told many people my dirty secret (that I had quit my profitable career as a lawyer to try to make money online).
Even now, I still have not fully disclosed to my friends and family that I am full-time working on making money online. Most people assume that I am still working as a lawyer, I haven’t yet had the courage to enlighten them.
The people I had told (my parents and a few friends) were outwardly supportive, but you could see that it was lukewarm.
I needed to prove myself, and soon.
Discovering that I could jump start the process.
In my first year online, I laid the foundations to start earning from multiple sources (KDP, Skillshare, YouTube, affiliate programs, ad networks, etc).
I had some money set aside. This was money that I could use to continue to finance my conservative lifestyle while I waited for my online business efforts to bear fruit.
Or…
Instead of spending it month after month, could I invest it into something that would produce an income, month after month?
I’m not going to lie, I spent a few months in early 2019 trying to learn to day-trade on Robinhood and TD Ameritrade. I quit after quickly realizing that I didn’t know s$*($&t about what I was doing and was destined to lose money.
Yes, in 2019, I bought courses, almost jumped into e-commerce, tried day-trading. Like I said, I worked REALLY hard.
And then YouTube, in all of its glory, served me a video about looking up potential niches for e-commerce by hunting around on the Shopify marketplace (where you can sell your shopify store) and also on Flippa.
So naturally, after I started looking at these marketplaces for a potential niche, I realized that these websites could offer me something better than niche ideas.
I could just BUY a business.
Rather than trying over and over to start something that might not work, I could just BUY IT.
For those of you who are already deep in the MMO space, this isn’t earth shattering news. But it was for me at the time. I had never even realized that it was possible to just BUY a business.
Big Time FOMO
The more I researched the idea of buying an online business, the more excited I got. Remember, I had a small amount of cash on hand that could be invested into a business. After my brief experiences failing at day trading and starting a physical products brand of my own, it just seemed right to put my money in something that seemed less risky.
And this is where FOMO set in.
FOMO=Fear Of Missing Out.
Once the idea of buying an existing, proven business clicked, I wanted to do it RIGHT AWAY. I didn’t want to let another day go by.
If you thought I was impatient before, when I didn’t know very much, you should have seen how impatient I had become, once I had gained some knowledge (through consumption and trial/error).
While I had not yet had any significant success in any of my endeavors, I had started to make a little money online. Further, I knew a whole heck of a lot about what NOT to do.
I could see evidence all around me of people buying and selling websites, on YouTube, in Facebook groups, at the online auctions.
I felt like I was missing out.
I had built up some knowledge, some expertise, made a little money, and had some cash in hand.
I wanted in.
This is PART ONE of this multi-part series about my 2019-2020 Empire Flippers experience.
When the other parts are available, I will come back and link them.
Part Two: Negotiations and Closing
Part Three: Migrations Challenges
Part Four: Running the Business for 12 Months
Part Five: Takeaways/Hindsight is 20/20