Hello Freedom Seekers!
A few folks at Flippa caught wind of ‘My Favorite Online Brokerage Sites’ list and really liked the writeup. As such, they wanted to support this community with a few resources & 3 months free on Flippa Premium. To be clear, I am making absolutely no money on you taking advantage of this trial and Flippa will in no way affect editorial independence (now or going forward).
If you do two things from this newsletter, please:
Redeem your free 3 months of Premium
Read the Flippa 2025 M&A report
Flippa Premium Perks:
1/ First Access: Flippa Premium members enjoy a 21-day early access window to new listings for instant viewing.
2/ Traffic Insights: Premium subscribers receive unlimited in-depth traffic analysis through our partnership with Semrush, offering insights on traffic patterns, backlinks, competition, and keywords.
3/ Comparison & Benchmarking: Make informed decisions by comparing businesses against industry standards using key metrics like average order value, refund rates, lifetime value, churn, and visitor numbers.
4/ Comprehensive Performance Data: Access data from up to 15 financial, Ecommerce, and SaaS integrations, including Stripe, Shopify, Amazon, and Google Admob.
If you are focusing on acquiring an online business, Flippa will quickly become your go-to. IMO it is the most comprehensive platform out there in terms of active listing coverage. See below for the free 3-month link.
Make sure to redeem by Feb 28
Additionally, the team over there pointed me to some other cool resources:
My eyes typically glaze over these reports every time I see them on LinkedIn / in my inbox. Like how many more small carveout shops do we need with a mountain range as their website background saying “We don’t acquire, we partner” publishing yet another 2025 M&A report.
Flippa’s is actually really helpful by giving the “why” behind the numbers, I would recommend reading the whole thing (<5 min read), but I included some specific excerpts I paid attention to:
Buyers fled commoditized SEO content for assets with human-centric moats that large language models cannot easily replicate
Buyers now pay for operational efficiency and defensibility, not growth narratives. Premium multiples—up to 5.8x revenue for SaaS—flow exclusively to assets demonstrating verified competitive moats.
Multiples by Transaction Size (wake up!!!! 7.5x for home services when you can still pay <2.5x for online businesses!!!!)
$100K-$250K: 2.1x average profit multiple (4.2x top quartile) – attractive for operators seeking hands-on turnaround opportunities
$250K-$1M: 2.3x average (3.5x top quartile) – the ‘value creation zone’ for experienced acquirers
Premium Content: 2.6x average (5.5x top quartile) – strong SEO moats and diversified monetization drive valuations
Services: 1.2x average (2.1x top quartile) – lowest multiples reflect people-dependent operations
The pattern is unambiguous: Premium multiples flow to recurring revenue, software-led, and defensible assets. Ecommerce and service businesses face compression unless they demonstrate extraordinary margins, brand value, or competitive moats.
Avg. Transaction Sizes by Segment
$100K-$500K: $323,000 average – the market’s ‘sweet spot’ for meaningful returns with efficient execution
$500K-$1M: $740,000 average – professional buyers deploying systematic acquisition strategies
This feels like a great reminder that professionals are continuing to come down market; play to your competitive advantages. Playing >$500k might significantly increase the competition as a buyer.
2026 Market Outlook (recommend reading the whole thing)
AI will shift from assisting transactions to orchestrating them.
Professional Buyer Deepening: Private equity, family offices, and aggregators will push deeper into the $500K-$5M segment, pursuing roll-up strategies in SaaS, ecommerce, and creator assets. These buyers will expect enhanced governance, structured diligence, and standardized documentation—raising the bar for all participants.
Market Risks & Considerations (recommend reading the whole thing)
Algorithm Dependency: Content sites and YouTube channels remain vulnerable to platform algorithm changes—diversification matters
Concentration Risk: Single-channel revenue or customer concentration faces increasing valuation pressure
Top Profit & Revenue Multiples: really cool visual of how things are actually trading. See below for Content…killer reminder to stay disciplined with your valuations (avg. mult for 2H25 being just over 2x). Obviously there will be caveats to this data, but nonetheless really interesting.
Truthfully, I haven’t vetted this program, but from what I have seen on Flippa I would assume its pretty legit and if you think about their incentive structure…it makes sense that they would do everything in their power to make it legit (to close more transactions). The library seems extremely comprehensive covering everything (in great detail) from formulating your investment thesis → structuring & financing → LOI → DD → purchase agreement & closing
I just demo’d this tool for Gold Playbook and it was surprisingly really accurate. I think this could actually be really helpful as a sanity check for Buyer’s on the deals that they are looking at. Especially those that are not well versed from a financial / accounting / M&A perspective, the tool is very intuitive and interactive.
Searchers Circle Denver: Breakfast Meetup
For those in Denver, Acquisition Labs is doing it’s first Searcher’s Circle Meetup in Denver tomorrow, February 11th. They’re being kind of ambiguous on the details / weird about me sharing, but nonetheless thought I would share for other locals!
Once again, making no money here on this sign up…Acquisition Labs is a pretty esteemed ETA program, so thought it would be cool to share for one of you to hopefully attend the first Denver breakfast. If any of you go let me know how it goes!
Think I missed something?
Think I mischaracterized anything?
Have any other thoughts or questions?
Want me to focus on something specific in an upcoming issue?
Let me know! Reply to this email, shoot me a direct note at [email protected] or connect & DM me on LinkedIn. I’d love to connect with each and every one of you to help in your journey.
~Mitch
