Welcome back vloggers and online Business owners today i have a special Video for you i had the opportunity to Sit down and chat with the ceo of flip Out blake and talk about all things Blogging and what makes a great blogging Asset if you're not familiar with it Flippa is the number one global Marketplace for selling and buying Online businesses and i had such an Insightful conversation with blake Talking about what makes a great blog or Online business that is worth buying so Even if you're not necessarily thinking About selling your blog be sure to keep Watching if you want to find out what Was the largest transaction that a blog Was bought for in the last year because Blake revealed that to us how to get Your blog to a state where other people Would want to buy it and what makes it a Desirable online asset and also when do You know it's ready for sale without any Further ado i'll let you dive right into The interview that i did with blake and You can also read the transcript of the Interview on the approach vlog as always Thanks for watching and if you learned Something new be sure to like subscribe And of course check out flippa over to The interview I'm like so honored to sit down with you Today and kind of chat about your Experience as dc of flippa it's my
Understanding that you actually used Flipped four to sell one of your online Businesses how did you go from that to Becoming its ceo yeah great question That's right i uh i mean firstly thank You for chatting with me today it's Great to be here Uh yeah i had the unique experience Um of being a flipper customer before I became i guess the flipper custodian So um yeah the business i ran was a Marketplace to buy and sell specialty Food it was equivalent to etsy which Many of your listeners probably know Of course etsy was it's more arts crafts And furniture that type of thing in our Case it was the similar thing but Uh providers promoters and producers Could set up shop fronts representing Their their food their wine any of the Specialty food product that they might Produce We had 150 producers on the marketplace Um shipping products all around Australia And it was pretty good it worked for the End user it worked for the supplier but It wasn't A real good money spinner for us um the Logistics piece was a real challenge And i ended up Making that that tough decision to to Exit or to I suppose
Step away from the business and of Course there's very few options For business owners entrepreneurs uh In in selling there's there's actually Very few The world's changed a little bit but Back when i tried to do that back in 2015 Um it was really difficult and and Flipper popped up on my radar as an Obvious place And i set about um looking to sell at The time there were probably fewer Australian buyers on flipper where a Global marketplace Representing with with representative Buyers from all over the world but Australia is a smaller market for us And so it was difficult to find someone Who wanted to acquire a marketplace A bit different story across in the u.s Uk and canada which are our three Biggest markets So having done that um i went and Changed tact a little bit i needed to go And work for someone else for a while And sort of recover um the the period i Call rehab um coming out of Entrepreneurship and so i went to work For a cloud accounting software company Called xero i then ran a business called Luxury escapes which was australia's Fastest growing online travel agency at The time and so um i guess you know like
Is a fortune and I was asked to to come and talk to the Board about my opinion Of flipper and its growth opportunities And You know flippers never Had a robust and big sales and marketing Function we've been bootstrapped and Profitable for a long time so You know a lot of people haven't heard Of the business i certainly had and i Was able to articulate to the board what I thought uh the opportunity looked like For business owners all over the world And uh inevitably i was offered the role Of ceo and i haven't looked back i've Now been doing that job for almost four Years and helping small business owners All over the world find their pathway to Exit it's such an interesting story and Seems like you have such a rich Background in a lot of different Industries how has that helped you kind Of on the day-to-day basis running Flipper now yeah so much so much and i Would encourage Uh people to to look at diverse Opportunities because you never quite Know where you might end up and what Skills you'll need to draw upon at any Given time and one of the really great And exciting things about flipper is we Meet business owners operating across so Many different business models so we can
Have you know content websites which are Making money through either affiliate or Advertising income we can meet E-commerce business owners who are Operating on shopify or Amazon And we can You know app developers and publishers Operating on ios or android and so There's just such a variability And so in my case it's helped me out a Lot because I've worked in The content businesses i've worked in Sas businesses i've worked in e-commerce Businesses i obviously now run a Marketplace so the the uniqueness of That experience has enabled me to help Our staff and our our great people Working for flipper all over the world To help our business owners and Um it's it's a diverse skill set which Works in a very diverse business Universe it must work because i've heard Through the grapevine that you're um Said to have a record-breaking quarter So that's amazing congratulations And not that flippa needs any more kind Of marketing but what is your the most Beneficial thing about using it as a Seller as a customer that you can kind Of share with my audience yeah so i Think the first thing is most online Business owners don't know that there
Are opportunities to exit because the Exit is usually reserved for big Startups unicorns the marks or the birds Of the world and All of us Regardless of the size of our business Have an opportunity To Sell to somebody else and realize value In that time and effort And so on flipper we enable business Owners bloggers e-commerce etc to sell Their assets between five thousand Dollars and 50 million so it's a Marketplace it's very broad we're price Agnostic so the benefit then is that we Have this Huge universe of buyers And we don't just spray and pray and Hope that you meet the right buyer Everything's done programmatically so When you list your business with flipper You can choose to sell yourself or to Use a third-party broker that we tap Into And then we will programmatically match You up to relevant buyers Those buyers will then negotiate with You and so it's a really really seamless End-to-end Way of Quickly finding out your value And then being able to negotiate and Finally transact good job and out of
Curiosity do you happen to know how many Transactions happen on flip on a monthly Basis uh yes because i happen to have it In front of me Only because i was running some analysis Before so um Where am i here where am i here okay so We have Uh in the month of april i haven't done Maybe yet but let's say just over a Thousand over a thousand transactions Each month one of the main assets i get Listed on flippa are um blogs and Content rich websites or the one that is More relevant to my audience a little Bit and i noticed that flippa's own Marketing strategy includes working with These kind of content creators and even Youtubers a lot To kind of spread out the news about Some of flippa's features for example i Worked on promoting your website Valuation tool which is such an Interesting tool what is the most Beneficial thing that you get out of These collaborations that kind of get You back to doing more and more of them Yeah it's a really great question so you Know you can spend lots of money on paid Marketing going to facebook and google And they have these really really cool Targeting tools Um they're actually not that cool It takes a lot of time and effort to
Optimize and of course it's such a Competitive environment that you're Continually bidding up For the best quality customer and you've Got to optimize and optimize and Optimize and experiment experiment Experiment Whereas partnering with a blogger or a Content producer a youtube channel or an Instagram account um enables you to kind Of eyeball the audience for one of a bit Of scripture it's almost like attending A meet-up And Saying oh wow i look around the room and I can see that they are A good uh strong Demographic that matches my to my target Audience And so for us it's About Access to the right group of people if Someone is helping bloggers grow and We're helping bloggers exit there's Inevitably a point in time in their life Cycle where they go from growing to Thinking about exiting and so it's Beneficial for us because it's easier Targeting in my opinion And it's beneficial for us because you Can actually get the conversation going More so than you can for a display ad or A keyword ad Yeah
Interesting okay so i know from Experience and from talking to other Bloggers that a lot of them don't really Realize the potential that their blog Has from like a monetizing value and how Much they can sell it for uh can you Share with us what was the highest Transaction or a ballpark of it Specifically for like content websites That you sold or somebody sold on flippa Yeah there's big transactions up to like 30 and 35 million but let's just go with Last month so the biggest blog that sold Last month was a 5.2 million dollar blog And that was uh that was a blog that was All about It's a bit of a boring topic but it was About compliance and gdpr compliance and Website governance And so they had uh you know multiple Articles obviously and tens of millions Of page views uh organically generated To this content lots of backlinks from Really reputable websites which is a Really good strategy buyers love um good Quality users who are engaging with the Content as measured by time on site and So as a result they can do some analysis Around revenue per page view And so yeah there's lots of value good Quality blogs out there right now that's Great news and definitely something to Shoot for uh aren't there a lot of People who go down the traditional kind
Of flipping Um Route in terms of kind of growing blogs For the sole purpose of then kind of Selling them for profit uh not Really it does happen it does happen the Vast majority of people who sell blogs i Would say for in excess of 50 000 all The way way up to you know the 5.2 Million dollar asset that sold last Month that i alluded to Most of them are um are bloggers For passionate reasons And so i mean you know your your Listenership would would know that They're no doubt really passionate about The subject matter that they've chosen To to talk about or write about or Communicate about and that's that's very Similar to the best blog solar on Flipper when someone aims to create Something just to flip It tends to be short-lived and Short-lived content experiments tend to Have lower value yeah i actually see That a lot in bloggers usually who start Off for that reason so that's really Interesting that it reflects in that um As i said my main audience is mostly um Educators bloggers content creators from That perspective is there anything you Can share with them from um The most desirable traits that A website can have in order to be a
Really good asset for your marketplace Yeah it's it's going to sound a little Bit like a broken record but it's all About good quality unique content And so good not good quality unique Content will be reflected in The keywords that you traffic for And so a good trick is to jump onto sem Rush type in your own blog url there and Look at how acm rush perceives your site From a domain authority standpoint as Well as the keywords that it ranks for And so for argument's sake if you've got A really really Um great collection of recipes about Making pizza And then sem rush recognizes that and See can see that google Is favoring your website as a result of Customers already liking your content Then that's a really strong attribute That buyers look for when they consider Purchasing something In addition to that Of course having a a strong Um revenue per page view and that will Often come from having long pieces of Content with multiple ad placements on The article And so you can drive those multiple ad Placements through something like an Adsense or an ezoic or even a media vine But most importantly people should Understand that what buyers look for is
Of course good quality content and Organic user base and then good quality Content organic user base matched with The revenue profile which makes sense so Um as we always say buyers pay for Performance But they look for opportunities so what A buyer is going to do is they're going To look at your trailing 12-month Revenue performance And that's how they'll derive the Valuation and then they might pay you a Little bit of you might get some brownie Points If uh they can recognize that they can Optimize it even further through their Capability wow that's really interesting Okay so a lot of the the same kind of Need to have to grow A blog and monetize it on your own but Then you decide to go ahead and sell it Which is of course makes sense if Somebody's going down that route what Would they need to do to prepare their Blog and everything else for sale yeah Good question um first and foremost you Need to understand your financials and So Yes there's revenue that's typically Really easy to understand because you Might be plugging into an adsense or Something like that Um secondly the traffic base will help You out with that when you come to
Flipper you can connect your google Analytics and we'll assess that for you We'll also drop the sem rush module so We help out there with the merchandising Of the asset But the Key thing is understanding your expense Line What are you paying for hosting it's Often very Small amount but if you're a high Traffic blog it might be more and more And then buyers will want to know Maybe you're paying some content Contributors The buyer will want to know who those Content contributors are Who are the best in the mix and how much They're costing you so what that means Is you have to understand the operations Of your business and be able to Articulate that to a prospective buyer Um and then finally You know a lot of people will try to Sell When they've kind of got a little bit Bored of their blog And then it might be on a slight Decrease or even a very very steep Decline That's a terrible time to sell Buyers aren't interested so you want Your blog to be performing um at least To a level both traffic and revenue wise
Which is call it flat um a slight Incline is obviously even better But what that means is you have to have Freshness of content right so in the Eyes of the buyer and in the eyes of Google they need to agree Yeah i saw that and it was really Interesting because somebody who shares Um kind of income reports online um i Sometimes only share expenses reports Separately or they're not necessarily Part of it just because it's kind of you Know different expenses for different Months or i paid annually but when you Input it in the valuation tool it takes Into account like over average you know The last 12 months and that's how they Calculate what the blog is earning uh Which i think is so helpful to see Overall you actually put a lot of work Into actually helping sellers prepare For the sale and then guide them through The process and that's one of the Benefits of kind of choosing flippa if Somebody was to come to you what kind of Assistance would you be able to offer Them if they were like a first-time Seller yeah it's a great question the First thing is that if you go through The valuation tool we'll match you up With one of our business model experts And they'll have a discussion with you About the valuation how that was derived They might um tweak that up or down and
Give you some guidance as to how you can Price your asset when you ultimately List That's kind of piece one when you Finally decide to sell depending on the Size of your asset you can choose to Either work with one of flippers Representatives or even work with a Third-party broker so some people want The benefit of our platform and our Exposure and To buyers but have a third party who Does all the work for them and we have a Network of 35 broker partners so that Makes up about 200 individual brokers Who can work with you to prepare your Asset and manage all the buyer interest If it's a smaller blog the great news is That we'll you can sell it directly Which means you end up triaging the Buyers but we'll do a bunch of work for You so you can protect your blog with The non-disclosure agreement and we will Therefore force everyone to go through And actually sign that non-disclosure Agreement you can even if you're priced In excess of 250 000 You can even nominate to have your asset Protected for verified Funds buyers only in which case we'll Check their bank balances for you um so It's quite unique in that regard Um it's an end-to-end service in the Sense that we'll connect you with our
Sales completion team and the sales Completion team will help you out with The escrow and ensuring that the payment Goes through Really well and smoothly before you end Up transferring the core assets so There's a bunch of services in there That are designed to make it As painless as possible what i would say Though is that Don't let anyone ever tell you that it's A simple process Because buying something in excess of Ten thousand two million five million Ten million you know there's a lot at Stake for the buyer so buyers aren't Going to be quite interrogative in their Approach to doing the deal so you do Need to get prepared around um you know The number of questions you might get Whether it's the broker managing it and Picking up the phone and calling you or Whether it's you managing yourself There's still a lot of back and forth Sounds like you have a really good Process and um make sure that things Don't fall through the cracks but is There any other due diligence that Tellers can go ahead and do or things That usually slip the cracks that they Need to you know make sure they tie Their loose ends and things like that Before selling or getting onto the Platform yeah so you know one of the um
Big things is that you know if you think That there's Little optimizations you can make before Selling you should do those so if There's design tweaks if there's new Content produced now If you've got any major expenses tied to The blog that aren't necessary for Carryforward purposes you should think About removing those before you start Selling in addition to that on the buy Side we provide profiles and mandates For every buyer so what you can do there Is you can make sure that you read the Buyer profiles before you choose to Engage with any buyer So there are a couple of tips One before selling and then one during Selling As it relates to the final piece before You receive your monies uh for your hard Hard earned effort um you know the key Thing is to to use flippers integrated Payments so we either have a partnership With escrow.com Which is fully or alternatively we can Use a Trust account whichever the sellers and Buyers prefer we will administer for Them and a seller should never ever Transfer any assets whatsoever until Flipper confirms that the monies are Sitting in the bank account in which Case really transfer the assets and we
Can protect that flow of money so Hopefully that gives you a few tips to To take take to the um to the community Absolutely yeah and you already Mentioned so many great flippa features But are there any others that um are out There and ready to use for either Sellers or buyers that are kind of not Obvious that you can kind of share with Us well probably the only big one is the Integration so you can connect your Google analytics your adsense um if You're using if you've connected to E-commerce in any way I understand most of your listeners Might not be but we do connect to Shopify and stripe and woocommerce as Well so there's multiple ways in which We you can pull down the data and expose That but one of the biggest tips and It's funny because it's not necessarily A feature that sellers use is pretend Buyer so go and look for a blog that is Of a similar size to yours from a Traffic standpoint So go to flip a search and start to use The filters on the left hand side Filtered by the traffic that you get and You'll see all the assets come up that Are similar to yours and their price Points and that gives you a great guide When i looked and things like that is Very attractive the initial evaluation Or offer
But obviously the more you can grow it The more you can grow the asking price i Assume yeah that's right that's right The bigger you get the bigger the price No doubt about it Awesome and finally what can we expect From flippa in the following year yeah Great question so we're about to launch Um a revised negotiation hub basically You'll be able to shortlist buyers at The moment you see all the buyers come In it's a bit hard to organize them so You'll be able to shortlist them Favorite them rank them um and make it a Lot easier to decide who you want to Talk to so that's really cool and then The second thing is less so for sellers Out there but for buyers will be On every every asset moving forward You'll see buyer insight so we'll be Basically benchmarking using machine Learning and some data school data Science to give buyers a perspective of How that asset compares to its peer set While they're looking at the specific Listing so we think that that's going to Help buyers do deals quicker and the Best blogs will then stand out um the Best of any asset will stand out but for Your listeners the blogs will stand out And make it easy for buyers i'm so Looking forward to to seeing that in Action thank you so much for your time Blake
The tips you shared are invaluable and i Know my audience will think the same Thank you so much anna thank you so much For taking the time to watch that Interview i hope you had as much fun as I did having that conversation with Blake and if interviews are something That you would like to watch and you Will want to see more of it on my Channel let me know in the comment Section because i have a couple blogging Friends that are killing it in the space Right now that i would love to interview For you guys and kind of figure out Together what they're doing right with Their blogging businesses as always if You found this helpful be sure to hit The like button and subscribe for more Videos like this and do not leave until You check out my flip out valuation Video to find out how much my blog was Worth it and of course find out how much Your own blog is worth see you around You