RMRB 1378 – Building a SaaS Business Making $38K per Year in the Business Niche

In this episode, Lauren talks to the seller of a SaaS business created in August 2018 in the business, advertising, and digital media niches. Listen in to find out how the business makes an average of $38,753.00 per year in net profit, why the seller has decided to sell, the lessons learned from running the business, and much more.

Visit https://empireflippers.com/listing/96756 to learn more about this business.

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Transcript

Forget gurus. Forget anyone claiming to be an online business expert without going through the challenges of entrepreneurship themselves. The Real Money, Real Business podcast is here to prove the best insights in online business come from your fellow online business builders.

We dig into stories of entrepreneurs selling their businesses on the Empire Flippers Marketplace so that you can learn how they made their businesses profitable, how they overcame obstacles, and what lessons they learned in their online journey. If you want to take your business and your knowledge to the next level, you've come to the right podcast. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Real Money, Real Business podcast. We record these interviews so that potential buyers can learn more about the business and the seller to help them make an informed buying decision.

If you would like to learn more about this business, including details like what type of business it is, how much revenue and profit it makes, and all of the assets included with the business, simply visit empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and in the description. Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can click the link in the description to go straight to the listing.

So, without further ado, let's get into this interview.

First up, let's learn a little bit about you. Can you tell us about your background in building and running online businesses?

Yeah, just a little background. I'm an Amazon entrepreneur. I built an Amazon business selling consumer electronics, sold that business, and afterward, I started Amazon ad software. When I was doing the ad software, I came across LandingCube. I knew about LandingCube before, basically, as a software play and as a synergy with my Amazon ad software tools.

Eventually, I started doing more services, and the service side of my business grew a lot more than the software side. So eventually, we kind of pivoted away from the software side of things, and that is why I am selling LandingCube.

Why are you selling the business now instead of keeping it and growing it further?

As mentioned, software is now not the main priority of the business. The main priority of the business is the e-commerce agency, or Amazon agency, side. On top of that, we haven't really had the chance to grow the software side.

Whoever takes it on will be able to spend additional time building out new features. If it's a strategic buyer, they can really use the email list and also the existing assets as a synergy with my agency side. So that is basically why I'm selling it. I also just really need to concentrate on my next phase of building the agency business.

Can you describe the amount and the type of work that you do on this business to maintain it?

Mostly, we have a freelance developer who basically figures out and fixes any bugs. We have a part-time customer service staff member who deals with any customer requests. He's very senior and knows the software inside and out. A lot of customer questions can be answered 100% by him, pretty much, and he coordinates with the developer.

As an owner, you don't really spend too much time on the business itself, at least to keep it going. Growing it is a different matter. In terms of keeping it going, a lot of the new users are acquired via SEO. You could also use different formats to acquire customers, but right now, the way it's gaining users is through SEO.

It ranks for the top main SEO keywords, and basically, your job is to maintain it by producing more blogs and maybe doing more backlinking. You could trade backlinks with a lot of inbound leads. I think that's how you can maintain it.

In total, I would think I spend maybe two hours a week on the actual business itself. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I guess it averages around two hours a week.

So, if you were to keep this business, what are some of the ways you would try to grow it?

I would definitely use some AI in the software. I would probably expand the breadth of the audience beyond just the Amazon niche to Shopify and, overall, anyone who needs some type of landing page.

I would infuse AI into it. People could, in theory, build a landing page with AI, but it does take quite a bit of work and a lot of prompting, and a lot of people just don't want to deal with the headache. Although there is a subset of users who will look to AI, there is also a lot of demand from people who just want a very simple solution for a landing page.

So, outside of Amazon in the e-commerce niche, I think building a Shopify app connected to LandingCube is also a potential opportunity.

Right, and what would you say are the biggest risks with this business that buyers should be aware of?

I think changes to the Amazon Ads API might be the biggest headache. It's also connected to other APIs, such as the Google Ads API, and if there's a change in structure or API calls, that's something the customer would need to know about first of all. Second, they would need to employ our developer to make the updates.

It has happened to me quite a few times before, but it's nothing that our software developer cannot handle.

How much support are you willing to offer the buyer who acquires this business?

Again, I do have my own business to run, but I understand the importance of the handover and making sure the buyer is on the right track. So, I'm willing to do 30 days of aftercare, or basically after-sale service. Maybe three to four hours' worth of calls, and I would definitely reply to emails for 30 days afterward, or even beyond.

Are you open to negotiating something like an earn-out agreement?

No, probably not. I'm looking for at least 90% to be a complete sellout. As I mentioned, I do have another business to operate, so I'd like to be able to sell this without interest.

Okay, final question. If you had to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer, why is your business worth buying?

Okay, so if I were to go back in time, especially now with all the AI out there that can really ship software and build software very quickly, there would be a lot of opportunity. Nowadays, developing the software is probably the easy part, but distributing the software and having an established audience is the hard part.

This software already gives you the hard part, which is the distribution. It's quite light on SEO. Your CPA right off the bat, if you have a good product, will be very low. There's already brand recognition with LandingCube. It's been around for a long time.

So, if you actually send an email to some of the well-known Amazon influencers about LandingCube, they'll probably reply because it's a known brand. For example, I'm not sure if anyone listening to this knows about the Amazon space, but specifically, John Durkit recommends LandingCube.

So, if you are able to build relationships using LandingCube as an in, it's a good way to really get into the Amazon business as a software company, so you'll be known right away. I think that is why I would want to buy the software.

From the point of view of a product person, this is a great matchup if you could build a really compelling product on top of the existing asset.

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening. To learn more and see if this business is still for sale, head over to empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and description.

Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, click the link in the description to go straight to the listing. Once you've unlocked this listing, you'll find everything you need to know about this business.

So, thanks for joining us. See you next time, Sam.