Flippa – I’ve Spent $35,700 on Flippa, What did I learn? Avoid my mistakes. Learn from my experiences on Flippa by watching the video below or reading the article that outlines the lessons:

Pre-Flippa: My 9 to 5 Background

I’m going to start by giving you my background from the first business I started to feeling trapped in my first 9 to 5 job to spending $35K on sites from Flippa to where I am now. I’ll take you through my experience with Flippa and what I learned form each purchase so you can learn from my mistakes and successes and get a feel for what’s possible buying websites on the Flippa platform.

I remember when I was really young, in elementary school and high school, and I would see my dad and other adults go off to work each day and come home each night, and I always assumed they were all so happy and having so much fun each day at their work!

I never thought about my own work or future at that point or even looked forward to it and I never wanted it to come faster, I just assumed when I got there it would be great and that I would absolutely love each day. I never even considered the possibility they were only doing it for money or what each day really entailed. I think I assumed because they were adults and knew everything and had everything under control that they were choosing to go to a fun place each day to something they loved to do, it never even crossed my mind there was any other possibility. I never thought about salary or salary caps or freedom or anything, I didn’t even really realize people got different amounts of money for different types of work – it wasn’t something I ever thought about.

Even in college, I never connected my major to the job I would eventually have. I didn’t even think about choosing a major connected to my future job, it never really crossed my mind, which looking back doesn’t seem very bright, but I wouldn’t go back and change a thing.

I graduated from Boston College and found out later that my dad had wanted my sister and I to apply to the Carroll School of Management, aka the business school at BC so we would have better paying job prospects, but my mom told him we should be able to follow our hearts and choose the majors we were most interested in.

It’s funny because I love business and my first job was even in marketing, but it never crossed my mind to major in ‘business’ because I clearly was not thinking in any type of long-term way since at this point as I still assumed everyone got a job they loved and went away each day to a fun retreat type setting or something – honestly I never gave it much thought.

So I majored in psychology in the school of arts and sciences at BC because I loved psych classes, and I knew from the start I never wanted to be a psychologist or go to any more years of school – that never interested me. I was able to get a job running google ads for an ecommerce marketing agency, mostly because I’d already run google ads in an unpaid internship the past summer, not because of my psychology degree. However having a college degree definitely helped me get the job, and I don’t think that company or most companies will hire you without some type of college degree.

I was so excited to get my first job offer and to finally be a true adult and going to the special adult work club each day. I actually loved my first three months at my new job and thought it was such an exciting, fun and new experience.

Once I settled in I realized how constricting it was. My boss actually sat me down and said, “ I noticed you have been eating lunch away from your desk each day, for over half an hour?” I said,”yes, I like to go get lunch and eat it outside and stretch my legs, it’s nice to have that time to myself” he said “that’s not how we do things around here. You should try to start packing lunch and eat at your desk for no longer than 15 minutes each day.” I remember being flabbergasted that he would even say that.

In his mind, and most company’s mind, they are paying for you like some type of ‘workhorse’ and they want you to be seated at your desk for 8 to 9 or in some cases more hours each day, and that is how they measure your productivity and dedication to your job. They don’t care about your results as long as your results are mediocre or better. If you only worked 4 hours each day but had insanely good results they would definitely fire you which doesn’t make any sense at all but that’s how it is because of the way companies look at owning you and your time.

The funny part is sitting all day is unhealthy, and honestly even worse for productivity because you need to get up and move in the middle of each day for blood flow and to think more clearly.

I know now every time I take my midday run, it completely resets me mentally and physically and I’m able to start working again after it with an incredibly clear mind and start working as effectively as I was at the beginning of the day again as opposed to petering off mentally with tiredness and anxiety as I used to after the half way point each day at my 9 to 5 when I was stuck sitting in the same position the entire day.

Companies including my 9 to 5 roles also don’t pay you based on results, with the exception of commission in a handful of sales roles, so no matter how long you sit there each day and no matter what results and revenue you bring in to the company, your pay stays the same or goes up very slightly. Effort and results aren’t tied to pay in a normal company setting.

For me, even worse than the pay caps and no match between effort results and salary, was the lack of freedom, and the relentless sitting each day, and that started to wear on me mentally. The fact someone else owned me, and my time, and that even a simple vacation request had to be submitted and could be denied, which actually happened to me at my first job, and vacation limited to a small number of days each year, and that I needed to sit in a chair for 8 or 9 hours each day plus two hours of driving each day, meant I had only a handful of hours truly to myself each day, and only a handful of hours I could do anything but sit forced and trapped staring at a computer screen each day.

I remember my face would get really inflamed and red from anxiety of feeling forced to be sitting at my desk for the 8 hours each day. The company wasn’t paying for results, they were paying to have me chained to my desk each day. Every company does. I guess it’s an easy way for them to measure your perceived effort even if it doesn’t help them maximize their own results.

Anyway, I realized a few months in that I would really rather have control over my own time each day, and I would really rather see a correlation between my effort, results and salary as opposed to some type of artificial cap where I could never really make over a certain amount.

I kept working there and learned a ton about paid ads and SEO and ecommerce marketing so it was a great learning experience, and I was able to learn even more online marketing skills that have helped me tremendously to get a website investing ROI and still help me to this day.

Flippa Mistakes: My First Flippa Purchases

At my third 9 to 5, working in the marketing department at a financial technology type company, I started reading even more financial freedom and how to make money online blogs and for the first time I started seriously implementing what I was reading.

This is the time I read a Niche Pursuits blog guest post article where I learned about Flippa, a website buying and selling platform, and I had more disposable income than I’d ever had before at this time due to a multi five figure salary raise I’d gotten when I’d switched from my second to third job. This was when I took the leap to purchase a website on Flippa while I was still at my 9 to 5.

I remember scrolling through hundreds of pages of both live and expired listings, poring over each one and trying to figure out which to buy. I was really desperate at this time in my life in the sense I felt I needed to be making more so I could stop feeling anxious and trapped all the time. My desperation put me in a poor place to be making any type of buying decision, but I didn’t realize that at the time.

I ended up rushing into buying a small website that educated people on technology and iPad case coverings monetized with amazon affiliates. I paid $1,300 for the site which the owner claimed was making $350 profit a month, so I thought oh this is an incredible deal I’ll be able to make back what I paid for the site in less than 4 months, this is great! He even showed me revenue screenshots from his amazon account that showed over $300 each month in affiliate commission, and I had Google analytics access to the site before buying it.

I remember my gut telling me there was a red flag. When I looked at the amazon affiliate screenshots, the majority of the purchases were not technology related, they were bible or other related, and the thing about amazon is they pay affiliate commission on all purchases someone makes after clicking your link, not just the direct purchase of the item you inspired them to purchase.

This means logically there could have been a lot of other non-related commissions being received. But I had a feeling there was something off, but I ignored it out of desperation to buy a site that was making money. And I told myself, worst case scenario it has to be making something.

At this point I’d never evaluated a site to determine how much it is currently making and what its potential is via google analytics so I saw it had around thousand visits a month from only 30 or so visits a day and thought maybe it just had a very high conversion rate etc, I wasn’t diving deep to verify things and I was way too trusting.
Another red flag was he was selling it for a 4X monthly profit valuation and I knew that the going rate for sites at this point in time was 20X monthly profit valuation, another “too good to be true” signal.

I put in my offer and bought the site and transferred it into my hosting account. I remember getting the first affiliate commission from it for a few dollars and how excited I was. It really is a great feeling to make your first few dollars from something online, if you’ve done this already you’ll know what I’m talking about. And then there were crickets.

I realized pretty quickly he had lied about the site profit and revenue and that I’d fallen for a Flippa scam.

The site was only making around $20 a month, and the previous owner had said it was making $350. Turns out I had paid a 65X monthly profit valuation multiple when I thought I was paying a 4X multiple, and had been lied to about site revenue.

I reached out to the seller and he never responded of course, and to Flippa to report his account, and they were able to take action and deactivate his account, but I had been lied to and had fallen for one of the many Flippa scammers who try to lie about revenue to sell sites for a lot more than they’re worth.

Looking back it ended up being a great first lesson for me because I’d only lost a small amount of money, $1,300, to learn such an important lesson that has likely saved me from losing tens of thousands I could have lost if I’d made that mistake on a bigger site purchase.

Imagine if my first $1,300 site purchase had been an honest good purchase, and then I’d lost way more on my next bigger site purchase that was a scam. I definitely got lucky that I only fell for a scam on my first very small purchase because the main takeaway I got was a lesson to never fall for any similar scam again.

You have to remember that no platform has time to really dig through everything which is why you as an individual, always have to verify everything and dig through everything before you make a purchase, before we make any investment before you buy stock, you need to look at all the financial statements and dig through it to make sure it’s a solid company. Similarly, you have to do the same thing before you buy real estate before and before you buy any investment. For example, you have to go and inspect a house before buying it and make sure it checks out as well as look at historical rental rates in the area and other numbers to determine if it is a good investment.

Even though my first purchase didn’t end up having a positive ROI,=it also got me hooked on Flippa and buying websites in general, because it was making a little bit of money when I first bought it. I remember seeing that money go into my Amazon affiliate account.

It was just a few dollars and I thought so happy because I realized what was possible with owning a website and buying websites that you could actually make money online, it really opened my mind I never even realized websites could make money. The first site purchase ended up being a blessing overall because it encouraged me to keep going.

Lesson 1: Dive Deep into Verification

The lesson I took away from that experience is that if you’re buying any type of investment, including a website, you need to go deep to verify revenue and stats and make sure the seller is honest and telling the truth. You also need to use the common sense test to look at all the website traffic and industry average RPMs and do your own calculations in addition to getting revenue verification screenshots, looking at video earning reports, and diving into analytics to check not only traffic numbers but traffic sources, location, language and more.

Lesson 2: Don’t Ignore your Gut or Red Flags

You also need to listen to your gut if it’s telling you there’s a mismatch, like in my example where a technology site was getting its main revenue source from bible affiliate products and when a site is only getting 28 visitors a day but the owner tells you it’s making $350 a month Which doesn’t past any type of gut or common sense test or even logical test if you site down and work the numbers out and truly think about it.

What you need to realize is there will always be people trying to lie to get more money, yes on Flippa, and yes even when you’re buying a house or buying any type of business or even product. People lie if they can get away with it.

So you need to assume nothing is valid up front and go deep to verify everything on your own before making a purchase to avoid falling for any type of scam.

Lesson 3: Only make investments with a clear, calm mind

The other lesson I took away from this site purchase is to only buy a site when you are calm and have a clear, non-desperate mindset. It’s similar to making a decision when you’re angry, or texting someone when you’re drunk or angry. None of those actions will end well. You should only make a big decision or purchase when you’re in a good, clear state of mind.

It’s also important to listen to your gut even after verifying everything with logic. If something feels off, it probably is, and your gut is a lot smarter than you give it credit for, so if everything checks out on the verification end but you still feel something is off, then my advice would be to not buy the website.

In this specific example, even though I was a website buying newbie and had no idea even how to verify revenue or what a site getting 28 visitors a day in the tech affiliate niche should be making, if I had listened to my intuition that was screaming red flags I wouldn’t have made the purchase.

However, only listening to your gut can only get you so far, you need to have a handle on revenue verification if you’re buying a website, no matter how good your intuition is.

Lesson 4: Weed out sites early on using Flippa’s Verification Features

This website also wasn’t using any of Flippa’s verification features which include google analytics verification and google adsense revenue verification, and I now only even consider sites on the platform that have these two features enabled, so I can weed out fake sites sooner to only dive deep into ones that already have basic traffic and ad revenue verification enabled.

Lesson 5: Buy sites with long-term potential, not fad or trendy

The final lesson from my first site purchase is the content was based around the current iPhone and iPad models, which meant every time a new model came out you’d need to update the content. I now look for evergreen content when buying now so I can focus more on stable growth and long-term revenue producing content, so the cyclical content nature of the site would have been another red flag for me since I buy sites for long term revenue potential that don’t require constant content updates.

My Second Flippa Mistake – Site Purchase #2

I was still at my 9 to 5 at this point when I decided to buy another website, this time for a much larger investment, $10,000. I applied my revenue verification lesson and was 100% certain of the site’s amazing traffic and revenue before I bought it. I also knew I could switch ad networks right away and 2X or more the revenue, so I knew it was a great purchase.

Again, my desperation this time combined with over-confidence lead me to make the purchase.

I was right that the traffic was great and I was right about quickly doubling the revenue, so at first I thought I’d made an amazing purchase.

The issue was the website was based on a trendy app’s popularity, and a few months after I bought it the traffic tanked and so did its revenue.

I did make over $5K back from that purchase from first few months of great performance, but I ended up losing a bit on the total purchase price.

This time I lost money not because of a dishonest seller and definitely not because of Flippa itself, but because I had made a bet on something trendy and short term, not thinking about a long-term content play.

Main Lesson: Focus on sites that are long-term investments, not short term money plays

I was still at my 9 to 5 at this point, and had lost $4K or so my previous two website purchases combined, but I had also learned a lot from the mistakes I’d made.

I knew there was an opportunity to buy a website that could help me achieve my goal of financial independence and I knew I now had the knowledge and skillset to make a good purchase.

I took the lessons I’d learned from my previous two purchases and I was very careful to verify traffic and revenue and to buy a site that had evergreen content and long-term potential, and one that I knew I could quickly increase revenue on in several ways.

How to Have Success with a Flippa Purchase

I bought my third site while still at my 9 to 5 and it was my first success and is what gave me my foundation for financial independence.

On my third website purchase I was able to quickly double the revenue again like I had with my second Flippa site purchase. So in other words, I was able to see how a site could actually make money and how a successful purchase on Flippa works.

With this purchase, I made back all the money I bought from other sites plus more plus profit. This site ended up having aI really good return on investment, and I was able to see how successful website runs and works and how a good purchase on Flippa works.

You have to remember that there are tons of good listings on Flippa, you just have to know what you’re doing and understand the space to make a good purchase.

My fourth Flippa purchase is the one that really knocked it out of the park and enabled me to fully support myself on my own and move out of my rent free living at my grandma’s in the Chicago suburbs.

The site was in a great niche I was able to expand using SEO and consistent content publishing over time.

Flippa Success Lessons

• Lesson 1: Use what you’ve learned from previous sites, investments and purchases to improve your decision making
• Lesson 2: Implement quick wins such as quick SEO wins, ad network changes & placement changes to quickly increase revenue
• Lesson 3: Look for long-term value in sites
• Lesson 4: Use long-term SEO and content adding to grow sites over time

The takeaway is that Flippa is a great place to find undervalued assets is amazing if you look closely enough, and you put in the time to grow them consistently each day.

Flippa assets, and website assets in general, tend to be undervalued as compared to any other type of asset, real estate, you’re lucky if you make your investment back in five or six years in my two successful website investing cases.

My two successful Flippa site purchases I made back my purchase price within 10 months. I increased revenue off the bat and long term for these purchases.

One thing to keep in mind is that website multiples are continuing to go up so you have to make sure you are finding a good deal and a good timeframe that you can actually make it back end websites are a great area to invest in right now they’re a great asset. You can also plan on improving and then selling the site as the multiples keep going up.

Of course there are risks involved, and you can make mistakes. As I mentioned earlier, Flippa has a great selection of sites and is my favorite website broker because it doesn’t vet sites so you have to take on the vetting yourself, and that means you can actually find better deals.

When a broker vets sites they hike up the commission, and this includes broker sites like Empire Flippers that hike site prices so they can take a large cut, making the deal less good for the buyer. I like other website brokers too but Flippa is actually my favorite and I have bought most of my websites from Flippa and had a great overall experience with them.

You guys can let me know if you have you bought a website from Flippa in the comments.

Why buy websites? Websites are assets that can return income and profit over time and can be one of the strongest passive income investments you can make, even more so than real estate in many ways.

Websites earn their investment back faster than real estate due to the cost in relation to value, they also don’t have property taxes or as much in maintenance costs.

This makes websites a great way to diversify your investments, start building assets and start making passive income.

**Hint: Buy websites and other investments that build your assets so you can have views like the one above in the middle of any workday instead of being trapped inside a cubicle inside a dark building.

I was sitting at my 9-5, completely drained, exhausted from sitting all day, cortisol coursing through my blood, feeing stressed.

Unhappiness stemming from feeling chained to my desk with barely enough autonomy to get up and walk periodically to get coffee throughout the day.

I would talk to myself thinking, if only I were making $1,000/mo through another income channel and if I knew I could build on that then I wouldn’t have to be chained here.

I could build indefinitely on that wherever I wanted to.

I could get up and walk throughout the day without feeling guilty, I could even go on a run whenever I felt like it, something that would be completely unacceptable at my 9-5.

Now I can go on a run in the middle of the day whenever I feel like it

I could also begin to build a savings and asset portfolio that would have an astronomical ROI compared to any regular stock or uneducated investment.

At this point I understood the importance of assets, and building a passive to semi-passive income portfolio, and I was beginning to wrap my head around what was possible.

This is when I started learning everything I could about passive income and investments and when I started investing in buying websites for myself.

My Website Buying Investment Journey

Fast forward to today where my investments return themselves in 10-20 months, and even my first purchase “mistake” sites continue to bring in revenue.

The sites bring in monthly revenue right away which I increase with ad optimization and organic traffic.

Buying online businesses is one of the best investments you can ever make, since once the initial investment is made back each month is pure profit, not something you can say for many other investments other than real estate.

Real estate however, has a much longer period until you make back your original investment, and you’ll always be paying a huge percentage in taxes and upkeep fees, plus the risk of running an empty house and taking time to find tenants, that will always be hurting your profit margin.

I currently have one site returning $1,200 pure profit each month already having paid back the initial investment from 10 months ago, and my total portfolio is returning over $3,000 pure passive profit each month.

Here is my investment journey, including my mistake sites, that are still returning revenue, and my successful sites that are possible due to the lessons I learned from my initial investments, now returning their full investment in <10 months.

Date Purchased	Monthly Valuation Purchased For	Amount Started Making/Month	Amount Ended Making/Month	% Of Purchase Price Made (So Far)	Made Investment Back In X Months	Lesson Learned
Site #1 - 2016 - 2 Years Ago	65X in actuality, was told 4X	$20/month, was told $350	$20/month	25%	Est 65 months	🙁 Always verify revenue
Site #2 - 2017 - 1 Year Ago	20X	$500/month	$1,000/month decreased to $200/month	75%	Est 27 months	🙁 Don't invest in trends or short term fad sites
Site #3 - 10 Months Ago	20X	$370/month	$1,200/month	126%	10 months	This is the type of site to invest in! I'll take an extra $1,200/month 🙂
Site #4 - 1 Month Ago	10X	$1,800/month	$1,800/month, expected to increase	Purchased 1 month ago, will update in 10 months	Est 10 months	Great deal, looking to keep increasing traffic & revenue in coming months 🙂

I have learned a lot, and have some very successful sites, which I will keep investing in and improving.

Many people do not understand the value of wealth-building assets that keep returning a profit over time.

Websites that make back their investment in 1-2 years and then continue to return pure profit for months to years afterward are an investment that will continue to pay off for years to come and be an incredible asset in any investment portfolio.

Sound like something you’re interested in having? Cool. Keep reading.

I have my own portfolio of sites that I look to sell occasionally and I vet sites to sell and send out to my list.

NOTE:

This is for anyone with considerable savings who wants to add a cash-generating asset to their investment portfolio.

This is not a last ditch effort or for people who want to go into debt.

I take the time to find amazing rare gem websites, ie those with the potential to return your full investment in 25 or fewer months, then start to be pure profit.

These sites are not common. For example, I may have to sift through 200 or more potential sites to find a single profitable gem at a good ROI price.

A few good fit sites may come along in a week, or it can be months between sites.

Not only do I look for rare gem great deal, profitable, high ROI potential sites, I also use my online marketing experience to drive the ROI way up by increasing revenue per visitor and increasing visitors where applicable.

So a site you could buy and make back the revenue in 25 months all of a sudden becomes one you can make back in 10 or 15 months.

I have experiences with ad placements, conversion testing, affiliate networks, relationships with ad network providers and experience combining all of these things to optimize ad revenue and increase monthly profit once a site is acquired.

Optimizing the sites in this way allows me to not only find great deal sites, but to increase revenue, thereby decreasing the time it takes to earn an investment back.

My Website Buying & Investing Story In Detail

My story is not 100% smooth sailing, and it has been a huge learning and growing process for me.

My first website purchase I went in blind and did not even attempt to verify claimed revenue.

Obviously, this was a huge mistake and I always not only verify revenue, but run common sense checks based on Google Analytics pageviews and industry RPMs.

When I purchased my first site (for a very small amount of money, luckily), the website creator lied about how much the site was making.

Due to my lack of experience, I unfortunately took him at his word instead of doing my due diligence and double checking the traffic and checking traffic vs revenue reasonability.

Luckily this site was very low in cost and although I have only made back 25% of that investment with little to no hope of making back the rest, it was a great learning experience.

I now double check all revenue claims, only buy sites with verified revenue, and use my knowledge of RPM and affiliate earnings to double check all revenue claims, even verified revenue, against Google Analytics traffic and industry RPMs.

My second website purchase was based on a popular iPhone game. My game app answer website was making $500/month through passive ad income when I bought it.

I changed ad networks and created an app to run additional ads on.

The first few months monthly income more than doubled to over $1K passive ad income/month.

Even though the ad network change was extremely positive, I made a huge mistake purchasing the site because it was based on an application.

Applications have an average half life of 6 months, and in a few months as the application declined in popularity it began to drastically decline in traffic.

I made that purchase a year ago, and so far even though it ended up being a mistake, I have currently made back 75% of that investment and continue to earn money back.

It will take another few years to earn the full investment back at the current rate, which is much slower than I would like.

I have learned a lot from my investments and continue to learn and avoid making the same mistakes.

My third and fourth website purchases have built upon the experience and knowledge I gained through the first two purchases.

Even though neither of my first two purchases were ideal and included being lied to as well as not considering the full picture of a timetable of a trendy game application, I still ended up making most of my investment back.

Building on this knowledge, the third and fourth purchases have both been very profitable.

My third website is a two website combo set, which I purchased at a 20X monthly valuation.

That was 10 months ago and as of today I’ve made back 100% of the purchase price already plus an additional $1,600 and continue to earn $1,000 /month passive income pure profit.

I was able to earn back my investment so quickly, in only 10 months vs 20, by increasing monthly revenue over 4X for the sites.

The two sites were making combined $370/month, once purchased I have been able to slowly increase the monthly revenue by 4X to around $1,200 as of this current month.

These sites are in much more stable niches with user-generated content, making them much more passive and reliable.

I also thoroughly checked into site traffic, verified revenue and ad network options before purchasing this site, a lesson I learned the hard way from site #1.

I originally paid $6,400 for the website, and was able to increase the revenue to quickly outpace my initial investment within the first 10 months as illustrated below.

Not only has the site in the above example earned back 100% of the initial investment in 10 months, it also continues to make $1,200 in pure profit a month.

2019 UPDATE: Site #3 has now made a total of $24,288.54 over the course of less than 2 years, and cost $6,400, making a nice 379% return on investment.

Many sites are not hands-off but this site was 99% hands-off and I didn’t touch it, due to the user-generated content model.

Here is a profit update:

NOTE: You have to click ‘Next’ a few times at the bottom right corner of the table to see the more recent revenue dates.

Website Revenue and Profit over time:

Website Cost over time:

My fourth website I purchased 1 month ago. I was able to purchase this site at a steal, a 10X monthly valuation.

My focus now is on increasing organic traffic/seo and keeping ad revenue RPM constant. Even making back this investment in the expected 10 months then continuing to get $1,800+ pure profit is perfect. My goal is to double traffic in the next 2 months.

This is doable, and would increase revenue to earn back the site purchase in only 6 or so months, an incredible deal.

Interested in building your own website passive income portfolio or learning more?

If you are ready to invest in a site or would like to learn, sign up for the website investing waitlist where I occasionally send out vetted website deals using this form:

Sign up For the Her.CEO Website Investing Waitlist here:

You can also message me stacycaprio@gmail.com if you have any specific questions.

If the fit is right, we will pick your price point and you will be added to the waiting list.

As I come across these rare gem great deal ROI sites, I match them with names at the top of the waiting list and price point.

When you’re at the top of the waiting list and a match for a site at your price point or lower, I will reach out with the details and you can choose to take the deal or wait for another one.

At this point I will handle everything for you.

Finding the site, the negotiation, the site transfer process, optimizing ads and ad networks and tweaking SEO, then seamlessly handing off the site to you.

Why am I doing this?

Well, I don’t have unlimited capital to invest in hundreds of sites on my own, although as my own investments return cash I continue to reinvest that into new sites for myself, as this is the most profitable, passive, asset building income I know, understand and am comfortable with.

This is something I’m good at, and I’m able to make money for myself and others while giving people an incredible asset that has the potential to provide them with possibly their first taste of semi-passive income.

Anyone read rich Dad poor Dad?

A good book I recently finished. A website that makes revenue monthly is an example of the positive “asset” column that most Americans are missing in their financial lives and investments.

A website that returns monthly revenue is a huge asset and a great way to not only diversify your investments but to add pure monthly profit as opposed to percentages up and down in the stock market.

Important: This is for people who have saved money they want to invest. I am not looking for people who will go into debt. Only contact me if this is something you currently have the money saved to invest in.

Disclaimer: All investments are risky, and there is no guarantee.

I am fully transparent and give all available past revenue and traffic information and project that into the future as is and based on our ad network and SEO tweaks.

No one can control the future 100% or google etc. I want to make it clear that this is not a guarantee. It’s also not a lottery ticket.

I would never buy one of those.

It is a carefully selected, knowledge and experience backed investment, as the more the investor knows and understands before investing, the less of a risk it is.

Additionally, if you have a website you’re looking to sell, and you want to tap into my network of people looking to buy sites, feel free to email me at stacycaprio@gmail.com or go to the sell website page for more informatinon. I’ll personally respond to all inquiries.

Jeff Howell shares his journey from real estate broker to putting his 9 to 5 skills into an online side hustle.

Jeff’s story shows what is possible when you use take advantage of your own unique skillset and put in the time (along with a lot of patience) to create an online business that solves a problem around your area of expertise. His story is very inspiring and I’m sure you’ll all enjoy following along:

As a (recovering) commercial real estate broker, I was always envious of people that make money online.

The perception of living the laptop lifestyle, being location independent and putting in the 4 hour work week (shout out to Tim Ferriss) seemed so appealing.

And here I was, wearing a suit every day, sitting on a train for an hour and then making cold calls and touring office buildings.

And then one day it hit me.

The most important meeting I would have with clients is the one in which we let them know what’s in their lease.

It’s the meeting the CFO would fall out of their chair.

They were focused on the rental rate and did not realize what the other terms are that they agreed to.

I’m talking about some sophisticated tenants here too.  Central business district, A class office towers – some of these clients are billion dollar pharma companies.

I thought these CFOs would know a lot about commercial leasing.

They didn’t.

….so….

What about everyone else?

What about all the mom and pop operators?  All the 1,000 square foot mall and store front leases out there?

What if I could charge a one time fee to provide a score card on their lease so they can essentially have a virtual real estate advisor in their lease negotiation?

Someone needed to level the playing field for commercial tenants.

Commercial tenants needed a Lease Ref.

Commercial tenants now have a third choice in their quest to negotiate a lease:

The Old Ways:

Do it yourself: read the 40,000 words in the lease, see what you can figure out, and hope for the best (hint: this “free” option may be the most expensive in the long run).

Hire an attorney: the job will probably be done well.  It will also probably cost about $2,500 and will take at least a few weeks of back and forth (maybe up to 6 weeks).  You also have to find one you trust, and most tenants don’t already have a commercial real estate lawyer on speed dial.

The New Way:

Get on Google and Discover Lease Ref:  have your lease redlined with a score card as well within 24 hours for a one time fee (which is a fraction of the lawyer’s cost).

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Lesson # 1: the internet is still relatively new and is not yet saturated with great ideas – there are new ways being invented all the time on how to deliver goods and services that challenge the old delivery methods.  Offering commercial lease advice on the internet is an untapped market.

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And boom!  Lease Ref launches in early 2017!  Raking in….$4k*

*I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Ok, so $4k is not bad, it’s still over $300 per month – I’m just not sipping Tequila on a beach yet.

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Lesson # 2: There are not many overnight successes on the internet – it’s still business and I’m still a rookie.

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This is where the story takes a twist.

I left commercial leasing.

I was tired of the industry and it was time to get into something new.

I landed a great sales job in home health software.

So I essentially abandoned Lease Ref.

I wish this would be a story of me pushing through, having some amazing breakthrough and it was all worth it in the end.

But my results are probably equally interesting.

I almost quadrupled the results without doing anything, making $13,626.61 in the next year.

This with a marketing budget of $0.

I created no new content.

I built no new links.

No Facebook ads, no Google ads.

To be frank it was annoying when work would come in as it was infrequent enough to just be a distraction to my day job.

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Lesson # 3: Most people give up too early.  While I essentially gave up, I didn’t shut it down or sell it.

What I did do, is apparently I did some things right when I initially set it up, and Google came to trust me over time. 

My biggest takeaway from this initial stage is that I did lots of link building through Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which helped with Google’s perception of my authority, and I created the best content in my niche (through Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Method).

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This is where the story starts to get really interesting.

As you can tell, the year over year growth from Sept 2018 to Sept 2019 was over 2,400%.

So my traffic must have exploded, right?

Nope.

There was a nice increase in traffic.  I wish I could take more credit for my ninja SEO skills, but traffic merely doubled – it certainly did not increase by 2,400%.

Here is the year over year comparison:

2018 (up to Oct 3): 85,960

2019 (up to Oct 3): 162,904

During this time the 85k visitors, converted to $8,957.68:

(the year finished at $13k in revenue)

Here is a look at 2019 year to date (the same first 9 months of the year):

So traffic doubles, and revenue increases by 5x.

Any guesses as to why?

A ton of new content?  No.

Lots of link building?  No.

Here are more metrics for those 9 month periods:

3 reasons.

1 – More buyer intent content. 

In order to get people to buy they need to be near the end of their buyer journey.  In my case it’s the people that are googling very specific things that are indicative of them being worried about specific clauses they want to delete or modify. 

For example, this post lets you know how to get out of a personal guarantee on a lease, and this post is even more specific as it is specifically for the New York state market.

These people convert at a much higher rate as they are looking a personal guarantees for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so my flat fee is peanuts compared to the obligation they are about to sign.

2 – More top of the funnel content.  

You must get introduced to buyers earlier in their purchase so they have time to remember you.

In commercial leasing, a letter of intent is the first step, and it is followed by a lease 1-3 weeks later. So when people are searching for how to negotiate a letter of intent, that’s when they find out about Lease Ref, and therefore they know I can help well before the lease arrives.

Here is the post on helping out at this stage, which is one of the most visited posts on the site now.

3 – Video.

The explosion of video is undeniable. As we move more and more into a cyber world, consumers want to know who they are dealing with and need to know, like and trust you before purchasing.

In my case, I am asking for their commercial lease document as part of the transaction – some people can feel like that is a very private document.  People need to hear a human’s voice, and see a face.

This post is a good a example of seeing my face (with cash being thrown at it (hey, who said leasing can’t be entertaining?)), and there is a video of a Powerpoint explainer presentation as well as a screencast, showing how I would mark up a lease clause).

Those three above have not had a crazy impact on traffic (as you can see it’s actually been flat):

But during this flat period, the conversions have skyrocketed.

Note that during the year prices have increased twice. This is also a conversion rate factor.

There was very little science used in picking the original prices and they were deemed by the market to be too good to be true.

Since prices have been increased, conversions increased at the some time (woo hoo!).

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Lesson # 4:  Don’t get too hung up on traffic.  Try to figure out how you can convince and convert the traffic that does show up.

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Conclusion

Do you have skills and knowledge that you have gained in the offline world that can be converted into an online business?

Perhaps they can be delivered in a way that nobody has done.

If you do and are delivering real value to people, it still will not be an overnight success – you must stick it out as Google takes a while to trust new sites, but it is worth it in the long run as the internet provides such a large market and ability to live the lifestyle you want.