1. Home ›
2. Blog ›
3. This Week In M&A ›
4. This Week in M&A Issue #191

This Week in M&A Issue #191

Hi there,

Today’s trend of the week is “collectible trading cards”. 🃏

The toy industry is having a strong 2025, and it’s adults, not kids, leading the charge.

According to a new Circana report, adult toy sales surged 12% in the first quarter of the year, with nearly 1 in 5 adults snapping up Pokémon cards. But here’s the twist: most aren’t playing the game. They’re collecting for fun or flipping cards for profit.

This shift is powering a broader toy industry boom, with sales up 6% year over year despite looming tariff threats. Hasbro’s 46% growth in its Wizards of the Coast division, which houses brands like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, underscores how strong this trend is, with little tariff exposure to boot.

Whether you’re launching a collectibles-focused eCommerce store, developing SaaS tools for valuation and inventory tracking,  writing articles and reviews of popular trading cards, or creating YouTube content like pack openings and market analysis, this is a good game to be in.

Today we have for you:

• AI app development just got simpler with Claude
• Walmart is attracting sellers at record speed

And:

• Why buying digital businesses beats the stock market
• Why doubling your revenue won’t double your exit
• Apps in ‘boring’ niches are quietly earning millions

Alright, let’s dive in.

AI

Anthropic has upgraded its Claude AI assistant to let anyone build interactive, AI-powered apps, no coding needed. Digital entrepreneurs can now create tools like calculators, writing assistants, learning apps, or data analyzers simply by describing what they want in plain English.

This feature, called “artifacts,” turns your prompt into a live, shareable app. Instead of asking Claude to make a list of questions, for example, you can ask it to build an interview question generator. These artifacts are interactive, can respond to user input, and function independently of the chat window, no copy-pasting or extra software required.

This approach, known informally as “vibe coding,” allows you to brainstorm ideas and watch Claude build them in real time. Creating these apps is free for all users. Paid tiers (starting at $20/month) offer higher usage limits, but anyone can build and share artifacts directly through Claude.ai. When someone uses your artifact, their API usage counts against their subscription, not yours.

The only limitation is that these smart artifacts currently only run inside Claude.ai. To use your app outside that environment, you’ll need to connect manually to the Claude API. Still, you can copy the code into tools like Cursor or Claude Code to continue development elsewhere.

For entrepreneurs, artifacts offer a fast, easy way to prototype tools for marketing, education, or operations, without hiring a developer. While not a full replacement for custom-built software, it’s a powerful shortcut for building and testing ideas quickly.

The Opportunity Podcast

The golden age of affiliate sites may be behind us, but can these sites still make good money? And are websites in general still a good investment?

In this week’s episode, Greg chats with Nathan Hamilton, a former equity analyst who now buys and grows online businesses. Nathan shares why he’s moved away from traditional content sites, what kinds of sites still work today, and how he evaluates potential deals.

They also dig into how affiliate site owners are adjusting to big changes like AI and Google algorithm updates, plus which strategies still drive traffic and revenue.

Finally, Nathan flips the script and asks Greg the interview questions, getting his take on what successful site owners are doing differently in 2025.

Want to join Greg on The Opportunity podcast and ask your own questions, just like Nathan did? Apply to be a guest here.

ecommerce

Walmart Marketplace has hit a major milestone, surpassing 200,000 active sellers for the first time.

According to Marketplace Pulse, this surge is the result of Walmart’s fastest-ever seller acquisition rate, with 44,000 new sellers added in just the first five months of 2025. If the current pace continues, Walmart could welcome over 100,000 new sellers by year-end, nearly doubling the growth seen in 2024.

The platform now has a massive online catalog of 420 million products, 95% of which come from third-party sellers. That’s a huge shift for a company once known only for big-box stores.

International sellers are fueling much of this growth. Since opening its marketplace to global merchants in 2021, Walmart has seen a dramatic increase in sellers from China. As of 2025, they make up 60% of new additions and over one-third of total active sellers. Unlike Amazon’s gradual transition over a decade, Walmart’s seller mix has transformed in just four years.

Walmart’s nationwide footprint of 4,600 stores enables fast, local fulfillment, an advantage Amazon can’t easily match. Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), in-store pickup, and same-day delivery options can help sellers reach more customers quickly.

However, this growth comes with challenges. Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon has long emphasized the company’s American-made roots, noting that two-thirds of what it sells in U.S. stores is made or grown domestically. But the online marketplace now reflects a more globalized model, raising questions about product quality, brand identity, and seller oversight.

For sellers looking to diversify beyond Amazon, Walmart offers a fast-growing, high-traffic platform with unique advantages. Yet as the company races toward Amazon-like scale, its ability to maintain consistency and control across a rapidly growing seller base will be a defining test.

Read All About It!

💼 How acquiring & exiting online businesses has changed: EF CEO interview

🧩 Best ChatGPT Chrome extensions for digital marketing: unlock real productivity

⏱️ How to build an AI startup in three hours: using less than $500

🔎 Top 100 Google searches: top US and global keywords

YouTube

Most entrepreneurs think growing their revenue is the key to increasing business value, but they’re missing a much faster path.

In this video, Greg reveals why increasing your valuation multiple is the real game-changer when it comes to building a more valuable business. You’ll learn the 4 strategic factors that influence your multiple and how to take control of them.

Whether you’re planning to sell or just want to build a more investable business, this 24-month roadmap will show you how to maximize your exit value and unlock serious gains without chasing endless revenue growth.

Watch now to learn how smart founders engineer higher exits.

Apps

It turns out that remote control apps, yes, the ones that let you change TV channels, are a surprisingly lucrative business.

While app developers often chase flashy ideas, there’s serious money in what might seem like “boring” niches. According to recent data from Appfigures, apps that function as TV remotes collectively pulled in $11 million and 22 million downloads in just the past month. Since the start of 2024, that adds up to a staggering $117 million in consumer spending across 276 million downloads.

There are about 1,705 remote control apps across the App Store and Google Play, with the majority on Android. Interestingly, though, the big money is on iOS. 21 apps have grossed over $1 million in the last 12 months, and only two of those are on Google Play.

Success in this niche doesn’t come from standout branding. Most apps look nearly identical, using the same keywords, colors (typically black and purple), and naming conventions. What matters most is visibility. App Store Optimization and Apple Search Ads play a huge role in getting discovered, and most of the top earners are running aggressive Apple Ads campaigns, some targeting up to 6,000 keywords.

Despite the competition, there are still opportunities. Many apps use duplicate keywords and generic branding, which means there’s room to stand out with smarter ASO and a more polished presentation.

If building a remote app feels too crowded, the takeaway is this: explore other “boring” niches where multiple apps are quietly making hundreds of thousands a month.