Happy Easter Monday folks…

This week’s email is going to be a little different than normal. Last week’s issue only went out on Thursday so there’s not much to update you on the portfolio front.

So, I will break down my experience selling on Empire Flippers vs Flippa. I have sold sites on both platforms over the past year.

I sold a small content site on Flippa for $4,000 and sold my main content site on Empire Flippers for 6 figures.

Both were very different experiences and both have their upsides. Let’s get into it.

Who Can List

Empire Flippers - Empire Flippers is a much more exclusive platform for higher revenue sites. Your site will need to be making a minimum of $2,000 per month to be listed on their marketplace.

You will also need to have well-structured financials for the past 12 months, ready for the due diligence process.

Flippa - Essentially anyone can list on Flippa without any real due diligence. You can provide as much or as little information on your site listing as you want. It is up to the buyer to verify the information you provide.

Due Diligence

Empire Flippers - Empire Flippers have a thorough due diligence process to go through before they decide to list your site.

You will need to provide them with a 12-month P&L with evidence of your revenue sources. For me, this was providing them screenshots of my Mediavine and Amazon Associates revenue.

You will work with a point of contact at EF who puts together a P&L in the Empire Flippers format.

For my content site, I was able to add back 80% of my content costs. This meant I was able to get a much higher multiple of profit. As content is seen as an investment and not an ongoing cost Empire Flippers allow this add-back. I have seen some other brokerages that do not allow this.

Flippa - On Flippa there is no real due diligence from the platform itself. If you are dealing with experienced buyers they will want to do their own due diligence for the site.

They will likely ask you for the following:

Buyer Pool

Empire Flippers - I was very shocked at the type of buyers who were interested in my business. Most of them were very experienced in the niche site market.

I had offers from VC funds, Companies that operated in my niche, Large Portfolio owners and more.

I ended up selling to an individual operator who was buying up 5-10 sites.

I would much rather sell to this type of buyer as they know what they are buying. I don’t want someone buying 6 figure asset from me not understanding the risks, which is what happened to me on Flippa.

Flippa - The site I sold on Flippa was only $4k but the buyers are usually beginners who have no experience operating a site.

About 3 months after selling my site on Flippa I got a review from the buyer stating the site hadn’t made him any money.

He assumed he was purchasing some “Passive income Website” which isn’t the case with sites.

Personally, I’ll be avoiding selling to people who don’t understand the business and operations side in the future.

After Sale Process (Migration)

Empire Flippers - Once I had agreed on a price with the buyer and the funds were deposited in escrow, the migration process got underway.

As I had transferred to the Flippa site previously I thought this wouldn’t take that long. However, it took almost 45 days to complete the transfer.

There was a lot of back and forth via email, whereas I feel if we just got on a call we could have got everything cleared up in a matter of hours.

Empire Flippers create a complete checklist of assets that need to be transferred/created etc. You execute through this spreadsheet as much as you can.

Whenever it comes to some accounts there is usually a need for 2-factor codes to be shared etc which can cause issues if you’re not online with the buyer at the same time. Especially as there was a 7-hour time difference between me and the buyer.

Personally, I think Empire Flippers could make this process smoother by having a mandatory call between the buyer and seller early in this transfer process.

My buyer was buying multiple sites at the same time so he probably had his plate full of tasks. You have to remember that this sale is likely everything to you but maybe just “another task” on the buyers’ list. Especially when dealing with larger buyers.

Flippa - Once the deal was finalized and funds were in escrow on Flippa we migrated the site really fast. It probably took around 4 days in total to transfer all of the assets and site to the new owner.

It was just me going back and forth with the buyer with no 3rd party intervention by Flippa.

Communication

Empire Flippers - Communication with Empire Flippers was top-class. I had two main points of contact during the sale process. I had a point of contact during the due diligence & listing process.

They always responded to any queries I had within 24 hours.

Flippa - I didn’t ever speak to anyone from Flippa themselves. The only communication was between me and the buyer. Ultimately you will have to navigate the buyer through the transfer process if they have never done it before.

Fees

Empire Flippers - Empire Flippers charge a 15% fee on their sales. This is significant, but when selling a large asset at 6 figures I was thankful to have an experienced team alongside me.

If I was selling directly to a buyer with no middleman I would have been a lot more on edge about completing the deal. Especially as it was my first time selling something of that size.

I have heard some people say negotiating the fees is possible but I only heard this after selling. You can also get a discount on fees if your deal is a larger size.

Flippa - On Flippa I paid 10% to sell my site. Again they have a tiered structure. The larger the deal the smaller % the fee is.

For getting exposure to your site and buyers I don’t think this is unreasonable especially on these smaller deals.

Who Should You Use?

Overall I would recommend using Empire Flippers if you are selling a site that meets their $2k/pm profit minimum. The process might take a little longer, but that’s what you want when you're dealing with a bigger deal. You want people in your corner who do the proper due diligence.

If you have a small site that you’re selling for sub $20k, Flippa is probably a good place to sell it. However, I would recommend selling to someone who knows what they are buying rather than a complete beginner who thinks they’re buying a passive income machine.

I haven’t personally used any other brokers but have heard good things about FE International.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the buying and selling process feel free to reply to this email and I will try and help you out if I can.

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