Startup Sphere Weekly #13

Hey, Vlad here. Welcome back to another edition of Startup Sphere, a 5-minute weekly digest about online businesses selling for life-changing amounts of money.

Now let’s jump into this week’s business listings 👇

Google Doc add-on for label creation

Asking Price: $312,000
Monthly Revenue: $5,000
Monthly Profit: $4,000

I love finding simple listings like this. These businesses solve a very specific pain point on an already existing platform, and they do it well. This specific company is a Google Doc integration that allows users to create and print labels from Google Docs (yes, labels). Think shipping labels, envelope stickers, etc.

Building a business on top of an existing platform is a great way to meet your customers where they already live. No need to create a new platform or convince someone to sign up. You are simply providing a solution that does not exist on a platform that people already use. This also makes it easy to target and market to your customer base.

There are of course some drawbacks to this business model. Platform risk is very real. You are at the whim of Google. Imagine if Google realized how many users need this feature, and just launched it themselves. At that point, you would need to find another way to differentiate yourself from the solution Google provides.

With that being said, competitors like Labelmaker have been around since 2020. And Avery Label Merge was registered in 2016. So I think Google Doc label maker add-ons are here to stay.

👉 View the listing here

Agency helping companies with their digital transformation

Asking Price: $3 million
Monthly Revenue: $132,000
Monthly Profit: $35,000

The business for sale is a consulting agency that helps clients with their “digital transformation“. From my understanding, the agency helps other businesses improve their IT Infrastructure and digital workflow.

It’s pretty surprising to me that companies like this exist, considering it seems like they just “teach“ other companies how to use Monday.com, Jira, AWS, etc. Full disclosure, I’ve never grown or started a company to the size of needing these services, so I don’t know what it actually takes to incorporate these tools into a company and teach employees how to use them.

With that said, clearly the numbers don’t lie. The business makes $132,000 per month and is currently selling for $3 million. I’d be interested in looking at where the $100,000 in business spend is allocated monthly. I assume it is for salaries.

Some competitors include Praecipio, Cprime, and Isos Technology.

Looking at the competitors, I noticed many of them do webinars, educational products, and training related to helping businesses go digital. I’m not sure if the business listed for sale includes that in their product, but it could be something worth considering.

👉 View the listing here

SaaS for database backups

Asking Price: $700,000
Monthly Revenue: $16,000
Monthly Profit: $13,000

With the rise of AI, data and security are becoming increasingly important. This B2B SaaS deals with exactly that: it automates your database backups. This protects your database from mishaps like accidental deletion, security threats, etc.

This is a great example of a business that does one thing, and they do it well. There is no need to get too fancy. They provide a service to other businesses that create peace of mind, saves them time, and eliminates unnecessary developer costs.

The listing mentions that the business was founded 9 years ago and makes anywhere from $14,000 to $30,000 per month.

A business like this is ideal for someone with a technical background, but you can always bring in a developer or partner to manage the tech side.

I can imagine marketing this business using a tool like BuiltWith. You can filter down to websites using database technologies like Postgres and target them with cold emails or paid ads.

👉 View the listing here

Best of Startup Twitter (X)

Pat Walls is looking for entrepreneurs in Miami to do a story on (link)

Olipop's $200M Marketing Playbook (link)

Oliver sold Rizz AI (link)

Weekly Poll

My Thoughts: I would be most interested in acquiring the SaaS for database backups. Data is often companies' most valuable asset, so it is in their best interest to look after it. I also like that the company does one thing, so there is no need to focus on endless product features.

Selling a business? Submit it here and we’ll feature it in the next edition of Startup Sphere (yes, it’s really free marketing).

Every time I come across a business for sale that I like, I put it in a business database with data points like industry, category, and revenue. If you’re enjoying Startup Sphere, refer three friends to the newsletter, and as a thank you I’ll share the database with you 😃

That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to vote in the weekly poll above. Leave some feedback and I’ll feature it in the next edition.

— Vlad Verba

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