This is an interview with Alex Champagne of Empire Flippers.

Hey, Alex. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

Hi Lidiya thanks for having me. My name is Alex Champagne and I am the Director of Sales at Empire Flippers, the largest curated marketplace for buying and selling online businesses.

I first started my digital journey founding a web design & marketing company, as well as offering consultations for companies ranging from startups to billion dollar oil and gas companies on how they can grow their revenue online.

Since then I have also founded multiple other ventures. At Empire Flippers, I have been able to use my experience to help buyers find and acquire online assets that best fit their goals. As the Director of Sales, I am responsible for overseeing all deals between both buyers and sellers on our marketplace.

How did the early days of Empire Flippers look like?

Yea, great story actually. So the founders Justin and Joe both started out with managing an outsourcing company in the Philippines.

Having a crew of VAs helping with an outsourcing firm in the states, the firm had taken a turn for the worse. Once the firm told Justin and Joe they no longer needed help from this team of VAs they built, they were at a loss for how to keep these amazing employees on the payroll.

At that time niche websites were just starting to come into the online space. So Justin and Joe decided instead of firing this team of VAs they have worked so hard in building for the outsourcing firm, they thought it would be a great idea to have them start building adsense (or advertising) sites.

After their team had built a few of these sites, people who noticed us selling these sites started asking if we could sell their site for them as well. This is when things started to click, and where we got our foot in the door for brokering these types of deals.

Read also: How Jeff Earns $9,000/Month from His Real Estate Niche Site

How popular was buying and selling websites back then?

Flipping websites was just beginning, it really is still an emerging market that people are very excited to become a part of.

How does the market look like now?

Great! We are selling hundreds of businesses a year.

In Q1 2020 we passed over 100 million in businesses sold and just last quarter we had our best month since we’ve started.

We are also starting to see much larger investments entering the space now as well. 

How does Empire Flippers generate revenue?

For every acquisition on our marketplace we take a percentage of the sales price. This is Agreed to by seller beforehand and it’s our job to help make sure both the buyer and seller get the best deal possible. 

How did you find buyers and sellers in the first years to become known as the #1 marketplace now?

We’ve always been big believers in producing great content. We rely primarily on inbound leads.

As the years have gone on, we’ve also begun using paid advertising, partnerships, and more recently we have been increasing our presence at various conferences around the world.

What kind of websites are most lucrative to buyers and why?

It all depends on the buyer’s background and their goals.

Based on the fact that we have a dedicated vetting team, you can be assured that the business you are performing your due diligence on has been reviewed for accuracy in numbers.

From here, it really depends on what your business goals are, and we also have a dedicated team of business advisors who can match you up with the perfect business to match your goals.

What’s the Empire Flippers vetting process like?

Vetting is the investigative process every business undergoes before being listed on our marketplace.

We evaluate the following criteria to get a full picture of the business:

• Revenue
• Expenses
• Traffic sources
• Customer base demographics
• The legitimacy of both the seller and the business

What aspects of growing and monetizing a website should a blogger focus on before trying to sell for the best price?

• Solid track record ideally that has growth  
• Automate / hire when it makes sense. 
• Have a content team that will continue on with the business 
• Have a clear SOP around how you gain and generate traffic. 

People are often reaching out to me and asking if I’m selling the blog. How can other bloggers know who to trust if they want to sell?

That’s one of the biggest advantages of working with Empire Flippers. We help protect both sides during the process.

We also allow buyers to compete for your business having such a large pool of investors looking at your asset once it hits our marketplace making sure that you are getting the best exit possible. 

What kind of people buy blogs these days, and what do they usually plan to do with them?

This varies so widely depending on the buyers and their goals. I guess you could say there are 6 types of people that buy online businesses that our audience knows we mention in our content often.

What’s next for you and Empire Flippers?

Well at the moment we have seen some of our biggest quarters since we started. I guess you could say things are still looking great for digital asset acquisitions as a market in whole, despite some of the impacts felt across so many other investment opportunities due to the current state of the world.

One thing that still seems to be growing even while some consider the current status of online business acquisitions to be a buyers market, multiples and quality digital properties will continue to go up in value.