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How to Replicate This Business That Is Selling for $400K on Flippa

48 points by coreyturner 5y ago

granshaw 5y ago
Would love to see more bootstrapped-entrepreneurship content like this on HN
antisthenes 5y ago
Keep in mind that when you're replicating a business, you're devaluing both businesses - your own and the competitor at the same time. In particular businesses who are driven by Google Adword spend will compete for the highly contested first page of search results, stealing revenue from each other. This is all pretty good until you get into a bidding war for keywords and/or a price war for the actual merchandise. Ecommerce is a tough business - yes, it is seasonal, it requires good photography and it is very much hands-on. I'm not sure if that particular business is ran by a single person (that would be pretty impressive) or if it's actually a team effort and the owner is trying to get rid of it based on the COVID Ecommerce hype-train. Either way, beware of people who tell you that something can simply be "replicated" in a blog post with a few paragraphs worth of content. It's usually either too good to be true, or is just another case of survivorship bias.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  Can be single, look at cosmetics.
soared 5y ago
Rofl. The author wants you to build a site, social accounts, and a supplier then spend $15k and it’s rebuilt? Anyone can do that. Running profitable digital advertising is a highly skilled job and not something anyone can do. It takes a lot of learning and a lot of money to burn. There is a reason media buying agencies exist. Taking over just the paid search account is worth more than $15k.
- coreyturner 5y ago
  I threw out a rough number. And I agree digital advertising takes time to learn. But with a rough number of $15k and spending less than $75k total you absolutely can get help to run some proper ads. You may not be profitable immediately, but you can get the ball rolling growing your social accounts, growing your email list, and generating some sales. Then you can snowball off that. My point was you can spend much less than half of the asking price to build a similar company. In this case it’s probably better to build vs buy. That’s the only point
  - soared 5y ago
    Okay yeah I see what you’re saying that if you spent the same amount building v buying you’d end up better for sure.
ianhawes 5y ago
Posting a business publicly on Flippa is the fastest way to have low-effort competitors pop up that simultaneously bid up your ad costs and create clones of your business. Source: This has happened to me.
didntknowya 5y ago
it's actually very easy to replicate an ecommerce/dropshipping site. the hard part is getting customers. In this case they've probably set up their SEO, backlinks, fb ads, etc. so that's what you're actually paying for. If you already have the cashflow and experience then adding another store might be worth this price tag for saving your time, though if you are new to the industry it's probably easier to start from scratch.
- cirrus3 5y ago
  > I don’t think their traction and social accounts are worth $350K.

48 points by coreyturner 5y ago

Would love to see more bootstrapped-entrepreneurship content like this on HN

Keep in mind that when you're replicating a business, you're devaluing both businesses - your own and the competitor at the same time. In particular businesses who are driven by Google Adword spend will compete for the highly contested first page of search results, stealing revenue from each other. This is all pretty good until you get into a bidding war for keywords and/or a price war for the actual merchandise. Ecommerce is a tough business - yes, it is seasonal, it requires good photography and it is very much hands-on. I'm not sure if that particular business is ran by a single person (that would be pretty impressive) or if it's actually a team effort and the owner is trying to get rid of it based on the COVID Ecommerce hype-train. Either way, beware of people who tell you that something can simply be "replicated" in a blog post with a few paragraphs worth of content. It's usually either too good to be true, or is just another case of survivorship bias.

rootsudo 5y ago
Can be single, look at cosmetics.

soared 5y ago

Rofl. The author wants you to build a site, social accounts, and a supplier then spend $15k and it’s rebuilt? Anyone can do that. Running profitable digital advertising is a highly skilled job and not something anyone can do. It takes a lot of learning and a lot of money to burn. There is a reason media buying agencies exist. Taking over just the paid search account is worth more than $15k.

coreyturner 5y ago
I threw out a rough number. And I agree digital advertising takes time to learn. But with a rough number of $15k and spending less than $75k total you absolutely can get help to run some proper ads. You may not be profitable immediately, but you can get the ball rolling growing your social accounts, growing your email list, and generating some sales. Then you can snowball off that. My point was you can spend much less than half of the asking price to build a similar company. In this case it’s probably better to build vs buy. That’s the only point
- soared 5y ago
  Okay yeah I see what you’re saying that if you spent the same amount building v buying you’d end up better for sure.

ianhawes 5y ago

Posting a business publicly on Flippa is the fastest way to have low-effort competitors pop up that simultaneously bid up your ad costs and create clones of your business. Source: This has happened to me.

didntknowya 5y ago

it's actually very easy to replicate an ecommerce/dropshipping site. the hard part is getting customers. In this case they've probably set up their SEO, backlinks, fb ads, etc. so that's what you're actually paying for. If you already have the cashflow and experience then adding another store might be worth this price tag for saving your time, though if you are new to the industry it's probably easier to start from scratch.

cirrus3 5y ago
> I don’t think their traction and social accounts are worth $350K.