Buying Online Businesses Podcast

Beware AI Is Quietly Killing These Online Business Models - Don’t Buy These, Unless… with Jaryd Krause

What if the biggest risk right now isn’t a bad deal - but doing nothing? While most buyers wait for the AI dust to settle, the ones who understand what’s happening are quietly buying assets at discounts that won’t exist a year from now. The shift isn’t theoretical. Digital Trends lost 90% of its Google traffic - from 8.5M clicks to 65K. HubSpot lost nearly half its organic traffic in two months. Atlassian dropped 35% as enterprise usage declined. Salesforce fell 28%. And Monday.com replaced a 24-person sales team with AI in minutes. This has already happened. So the real question isn’t if AI is reshaping the market - it’s whether you know which businesses are still worth buying, how to price the risk, and when to walk away. In this episode, Jaryd breaks down how to spot hidden value in “declining” assets, why some SaaS models are collapsing, and how AI risk can be used as leverage - not fear. Because the buyers winning right now aren’t panicking or waiting. They’re moving with a strategy. 🎧 Hit play - this is your edge in an AI-disrupted market.   Episode Highlights 00:47 - A practical guide to which business models are winning vs. losing in the AI era. 04:06 - Can AI cheaply replace this business’s core value? 06:21 - Digital Trends (-90% traffic) and HubSpot (major drop) show the new reality for content sites. 09:19 - SaaS shake-up: Atlassian, Salesforce decline; Monday.com replaces sales with AI. 16:42 - Branded e-commerce with real equity is the most AI-resistant play. 21:31 - AI-hit businesses = best deals if you use risk to negotiate, not walk away. 26:52 - Klarna shows AI can replace support at scale -cutting costs post-acquisition.   Key Takeaways ➥ Always ask: Can AI replace this business cheaply? If yes, don’t walk - reprice and structure with earnouts. ➥ Single-source traffic (like Google) is now a dealbreaker. Value current performance and build growth outside SEO. ➥ Use AI risk as leverage - lower the price and tie payments to future performance. ➥ AI-resistant businesses have proprietary data, a strong brand, and real customer relationships. ➥ Distressed, AI-hit businesses are undervalued - but only if you have a clear turnaround plan.   Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause]➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/] ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/]➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/] ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/]   Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥 ➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE [https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE] ➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5 [https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5] ➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO [https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO]➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR [https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR]   *This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

He's Done 200+ Acquisitions - Here's What The Online Business Acquisition Market Looks Like with Ace Chapman

Most people think buying businesses is a numbers game. Ace Chapman has done 200+ acquisitions - and he'll tell you the numbers are almost never the point. Ace has been in this game since the dot-com bubble. He almost sold a stock market simulator to a little Nebraska company called Omaha Securities - before it became Ameritrade. He got out of a real estate business right before 2008 hit. He's not lucky. He's built a framework for thinking about business ownership that most acquisition guys never arrive at, no matter how many deals they close. But here's where it gets interesting. Right now, while everyone else is hunting online businesses in the U.S., Ace is doing something completely different - buying offline deals in Latin America, where business brokers don't exist and most owners don't even know selling is an option. Hotels. Spas. Mental health clinics. Panama. Colombia. Argentina. He walked into a hotel recently and heard the front desk pitch his own spa to a guest checking in. In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Ace to unpack why he thinks every business is just inventory - and why holding on too long is the real risk most buyers never talk about. How he structures equity deals so he never has to build anything from scratch. And what a real portfolio actually looks like when you stop confusing operating businesses with wealth. Most buyers are waiting for the market to calm down before they make a move. Ace just went and found a completely different market - one where nobody else is even looking. 🎧 Hit play - this is what 200 acquisitions of hard-won experience actually sounds like in practice.   Episode Highlights [03:33] - Ace explains why retirement is the riskiest first-timer move most people ever make - and why most people don't realize it until it's too late. [11:38] - The mindset shift that changed everything: why buying a business to grow it actually defeats the whole purpose of buying in the first place. [15:45] - Ace reveals why he's moved almost entirely into offline, international deals - and why Latin America is where the real opportunity gap exists right now. [26:00] - The tanning salon roll-up story: how Ace transferred managers between two businesses to fix operations and marketing - without hiring a single new person. [31:00] - The "Chairman Strategy" explained: why Ace treats every business need as an acquisition problem, not a hiring problem. [37:27] - Why every business is going to fail eventually - and why the most rational thing you can do is always be working toward the exit. [39:09] - Ace's reframe that changes how you hold a portfolio: businesses aren't assets to protect. They're inventory.   Key Takeaways ➥ Every business will eventually go out of business - even the best ones. 99% of the original S&P 500 companies are gone. The only question is whether you exit on your terms or theirs. ➥ The real portfolio isn't operating businesses - it's what you build outside them. Royalties, equity positions, brokerage accounts. Ace took a group of royalties public. That's the game after the game. ➥ Stop hiring. Start acquiring. Ace transferred one manager between two tanning salons instead of hiring twice. When he needed marketing, he bought social media accounts in the niche. You don't build what you can buy. ➥ Timing the exit matters as much as building the business. Ace nearly missed the Ameritrade deal in 2001 and almost held through the 2008 real estate crash. After 200+ acquisitions, his rule is simple - you're always working toward the exit. ➥ Go where the buyers aren't. In the U.S., acquisition culture is loud and crowded. In Panama, Colombia, and Argentina, business brokers don't exist. Sellers don't know "multiples" is even a word. That gap is the opportunity.   About Ace Chapman Ace Chapman has been in Micro Private Equity for decades! Buying his first business at 19 with just $3,000, leveraging it into a $70,000 acquisition. Over 25+ years he has personally completed 200+ acquisitions across online and offline businesses, and built a 6-figure monthly income from his portfolio. Founder of Partners Equity Fund and author of The Ace Formula, Ace now consults founders and investors on building wealth through strategic business acquisitions. He's based in South America and coaches clients globally.   Connect with Ace Chapman ➥https://www.linkedin.com/in/ace-chapman/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ace-chapman/] ➥http://www.acechapman.com/ [http://www.acechapman.com/]  Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause]➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/] ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/]➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/] ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/]   Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥 ➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE [https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE] ➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5 [https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5] ➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO [https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO]➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR [https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR]   *This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Buying A Digital Agencies Nobody Else Wants And How To Scale Them with Karl Hughes

What if the best acquisition you'll ever make is the one nobody else bothered to look at? That's not a rhetorical question. That's exactly how Karl Hughes bought his first agency. While every other buyer was refreshing broker listings and fighting over the same tired deals, Karl built a spreadsheet, started cold DM-ing podcast production founders on LinkedIn, and had fifty conversations most people would've deleted without a second thought. No broker. No bidding war. No competing offers. Just Karl, a thesis, and the patience to work a room that nobody else had walked into yet. One of those conversations turned into a sub-million-dollar acquisition at 2.7x SDE -a healthy, cash-flowing business with clients who'd been around for five-plus years. The seller had never seen a competitor's P&L in his life. Karl had seen twenty before he ever made the call. But here's where it gets interesting. That deal was just the beginning. Since then, Karl has been quietly building a portfolio of niche marketing agencies -the kind that are too small for private equity, too owner-dependent for most buyers, and too overlooked for anyone to notice the opportunity hiding inside them. Financing deals creatively. Targeting founders who are ready to move on. And figuring out in real time what it actually takes to merge two similar agencies without torching the clients that made them worth buying in the first place.  In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Karl to unpack why small agencies rarely get a real exit -and why that's the opportunity. How Karl showed a seller the actual debt math before making an offer and closed with trust instead of pressure. And what he'd do completely differently if he had to start the integration process over again from day one. Most buyers wait for a clean deal to fall into their lap. Karl just built his own pipeline and went to find it. 🎧 Hit play - this is what a quiet, deliberate acquisition strategy actually looks like in practice.   Episode Highlights 03:30 -Why Small Agencies Never Get a Real Exit -And Why That's Your Opportunity 09:29 -The LinkedIn Cold DM Strategy That Found a Deal Nobody Else Was Looking At 17:00 -The P&L Advantage: How Karl Saw 20 Competitor Financials Before Making a Single Offer 21:20 -Showing the Seller the Debt Math: The Transparency Move That Closed the Deal 33:28 -Karl Flips the Script and Asks Jaryd the Question Every First-Time Buyer Is Afraid To Ask 37:00 -Debt vs Equity: What Structure Actually Makes Sense for Small Agency Deals 39:00 -Never Buy a Distressed Agency First -Unless This One Condition Is Already Met Key Takeaways ➥ Being an operator is your unfair advantage. Karl didn't walk in as a finance guy with a briefcase. He walked in as someone already running a real agency. That credibility alone got doors open that cold outreach never could. ➥ Off-market deals aren't found -they're built. Karl spent months talking to founders who had no intention of selling. Some came back a year later. Patient relationship-building in one vertical is how you end up as the only offer on the table. ➥ See more P&Ls than anyone else in the room. Karl reviewed 20 competitor financials before making a single offer. The seller had seen zero. That knowledge gap isn't an edge you stumble into -it's one you build deliberately. ➥ Transparency closes deals faster than pressure ever will. Karl showed sellers the actual debt math behind his offer price. Not to impress them -to build enough trust to close without a broker, a bidding war, or months of back and forth. ➥ Shadow the team before you ever think about cutting it. The most valuable things a client-facing employee does are invisible until they're gone. Let both teams learn from each other first. The redundancies will surface on their own.   About Karl Hughes Karl Hughes is a former CTO turned serial agency acquirer. He founded Draft.dev in 2020 -a technical content marketing agency -and scaled it to $2.5M in revenue before stepping back from day-to-day operations. In 2023, he partnered with a co-buyer to acquire The Podcast Consultant without a broker, sourcing the deal directly via LinkedIn outreach after reviewing 200+ agencies. He now hosts the Retained Trust podcast and is actively building a portfolio of niche digital service businesses in the $1M–$5M revenue range.   Connect with Karl Hughes ➥ https://www.karllhughes.com/ [https://www.karllhughes.com/]   ➥https://www.linkedin.com/in/karllhughes/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/karllhughes/]    Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause]➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/] ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/]➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/] ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/]   Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥 ➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE [https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE] ➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5 [https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5] ➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO [https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO]➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR [https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR]   *This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Successful Content Website HoldCo From Acquiring 5+ Businesses with Qayyum Rajan

What if you could sell a business, get it handed back to you for $100, flip it again for a profit -and use that whole experience to build something even bigger? That's not luck. That's Qayyum Rajan. In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Qayyum -founder, developer, and holdco builder -who turned a single LinkedIn cold message into a PE exit, watched that same PE firm quietly forget his business existed, bought it back for $100, and relisted it on MicroAcquire while two buyers bid against each other in real time. But here's where it gets really interesting. After the exit, while everyone else was running away from content sites -Google had just torched their traffic with the helpful content update -Qayyum was running toward them. Buying burnt-out founders' blogs for $10K–$50K. Merging them. Building newsletters nobody had touched. Going faceless on YouTube. And quietly turning the whole thing into a cash-flowing media holdco that made back its entire investment in nine months. You'll learn how he evaluates and closes acquisitions in under 24 hours, why "domain authority and love" are his two non-negotiables, what it actually looks like to consolidate three sites under one domain without destroying the traffic -and why he thinks the biggest opportunity in content right now is hiding inside the businesses everyone else already walked away from. Most buyers wait for the perfect business. Qayyum just knows how to read the ones everyone else missed. 🎧 Hit play -this is what building a holdco from the wreckage actually looks like.   Episode Highlights 02:56 The LinkedIn Cold Message That Started a PE Exit Nobody Saw Coming 05:35 The $2,000 Credit Card Lien That Almost Blew Up a Million-Dollar Deal 12:02 Bought Back for $100: How Qayyum Got His Own Business Returned to Him 14:45 The MicroAcquire Bidding War -Two Buyers, Five Days, Real-Time Updates to His Wife 18:32 Why He Started Buying Content Sites Right When Google Was Destroying Them 28:52 Wealth Awesome -Buying a Finance Blog for 1x Revenue and Making It Back in Nine Months 38:22 The $20K Deal He Walked Away From -and Built Himself in a Week Instead   Key Takeaways ➥ You don't need a perfect business -you need an underutilized one. The real opportunity is in channels the previous owner never touched: newsletters, YouTube, social. That's where the upside is hiding. ➥ Domain authority and founder love are the two things worth paying a premium for. Everything else can be built. Backlinks and brand equity take years -you can't manufacture them overnight. ➥ When Google cuts your traffic, don't fight it -diversify around it. Bing, newsletters, YouTube Shorts, and faceless video are quietly outperforming SEO for content operators right now. ➥ Moving fast is a competitive advantage in small acquisitions. Most sellers aren't just looking for the best price -they want certainty. Close in 24 hours and you win deals slower buyers never even get to. ➥ A holdco only works if you're ruthless about focus. Shelve what isn't winning so you can double down on what is -spreading thin is how good acquisitions quietly die. ➥ Face-brand content sites are one of the most underpriced assets in the market right now. Use the dependency as a negotiation lever to lower the price, then go faceless and build something that can actually be sold. ➥ The exit multiple is everything -and it's timing. Qayyum sold at 20x earnings at the peak of the market. One year later, that same business lists for 4–5x. Getting out at the right moment matters as much as building the right thing.   About Qayyum Rajan Qayyum Rajan (known as 'Q') is a CFA Charterholder, former portfolio manager, and serial online business acquirer. He founded ESG Analytics in 2017 -sold it to PE, bought it back for next to nothing when the acquirer went under, and sold it again for six figures. He then built his own holdco, acquiring Wealth Awesome (a leading Canadian personal finance publication with 20,000+ readers) and Worqstrap, amalgamating two separate businesses into one. Based in British Columbia, he sits on the Fintech Advisory Committee for the BC Securities Commission.   Connect with Qayyum Rajan ➥ https://wealthawesome.com/ [https://wealthawesome.com/] ➥https://www.linkedin.com/in/qayyumrajan/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/qayyumrajan/]   Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause]➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/] ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/]➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/] ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/]   Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥 ➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE [https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE] ➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5 [https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5] ➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO [https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO]➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR [https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR] *This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

[Case Study] Red Vs Green Flags When Acquiring An Ecommerce Business with Jan

What if the business everyone else passed on was actually the one? Most first-time buyers obsess over finding the perfect business - but the ones who actually close deals? They obsess over reading the business correctly. In this case study episode, Jaryd Krause sits down with Jan, a Buying Online Businesses graduate who went from consuming YouTube content and podcasts to acquiring a six-figure health and beauty e-commerce brand - and lived to tell the full, unfiltered story. Jan brought something most buyers don't: seven-plus years of digital marketing and DTC experience. And she used every bit of it to spot the green flags hiding inside what most buyers would have walked away from. You'll learn how Jan evaluated over 100 listings, deep-dived on 30 businesses before finding the one, negotiated inventory she didn't want out of the purchase price, and immediately unlocked growth through paid ads and an underutilized email list the previous owners barely touched. You'll also hear why red flags aren't dealbreakers - they're filters - and how the right background can flip a liability into your biggest competitive edge. If you're a first-time buyer trying to figure out what "good" actually looks like before you sign anything, hit the 🎧 Play button.   Episode Highlights 09:33 The Magic Number: How Many Businesses You Actually Need to Look at Before You Buy 12:22 Why Red Flags Are Just Green Flags in Disguise 15:40 The Inventory Negotiation Move That Saved Jan Thousands at Closing 19:16 The Untapped Email List That Was Sitting There Printing Money 22:00 Tariffs, Trouble, and Why Customer Diversity Saved This Business 28:31 The One Thing Jan Would Do Completely Differently on Her Next Acquisition   Key Takeaways ➥ Red flags aren't automatic dealbreakers - the right background turns someone else's liability into your biggest competitive advantage. ➥ An underutilized email list is cash sitting on the table - if the previous owner wasn't sending weekly, you're inheriting free revenue from day one. ➥ Negotiating out slow-moving inventory before closing isn't optional - it's one of the easiest ways to reduce your purchase price on the spot. ➥ Keeping previous owners involved beyond the handover isn't a weakness - it's the move experienced acquirers wish they'd made sooner. ➥ Waiting for the "perfect" market conditions before buying is the riskiest strategy of all - the real cost is the time, growth, and learning you never get back.   About Jan Patel Jan is a BuyingOnlineBusinesses.com graduate who went from digital marketing for large scale ecom brands in her day job. To now acquiring, owning and scaling her own ecommerce business.    Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause]➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/] ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/]➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/] ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ [https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/]   Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use) 🔥 ➥ Empire Flippers - https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE [https://bit.ly/3RtyMkE] ➥ Flippa - https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5 [https://bit.ly/3wGa8r5] ➥ Motion Invest - https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO [https://bit.ly/3YmJAmO]➥ Investors Club - https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR [https://bit.ly/3ZpgioR]   *This post may contain affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site/posts at no additional cost to you. See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.