Startup Sphere Weekly #14

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

This week we’ll explore an app that helps you identify the value of coins, a portal to bid on government contracts, and a new (safer?) e-cigarette.

Plus, this week is the first time I’m featuring a business currently on sale by one of our readers. Speaking of which, if you’re selling a business, fill out the form here, and I’ll feature it in next week’s edition 👍

Let’s get right into it 👇

App for numismatists to identify and value coins

Asking Price: $116,000
Monthly Revenue: $16,000
Monthly Profit: $14,000

I am completely unfamiliar with this space, but that’s exactly why this listing caught my eye.

The business is an iPhone app that helps numismatists identify their coins, track their collection, and identify the value of individual coins. The app has a feature to scan coins and automatically get information on the coin, such as value.

The listing mentions that the main marketing channel for this app has been Facebook ads. My mind goes to influencer marketing as another channel to try, although I’m not sure how many influencers exist in the numismatist space.

A competitor in this space is CoinSnap, which has over 105,000 positive reviews in the Apple App Store.

I believe that the riches are in the niches, and this is a great example of that. I hadn’t really heard of coin collecting before this, but based on this listing and competitors like CoinSnap, it seems to be a lucrative market.

👉 View the listing here

Portal to find government contracts to bid on

Asking Price: $600,000
Monthly Revenue: $12,000
Monthly Profit: $6,500

This is another business that has never even crossed my mind.

The company is a portal that helps you find and bid on government contracts. They also offer tender writing services, which help increase your chances of winning government contracts.

I can’t even pretend to know what I’m talking about when it comes to a business like this, but it does sound interesting. Government contracts can be extremely lucrative, so it sounds like a good idea to position yourself almost as a middleman.

The company was founded 14 years ago, and it still running, so it doesn’t seem like there is much platform risk or anything of that sort. Plus, governments are notoriously slow in changing any structure or processes, so I think the tech stack for this should be safe.

👉 View the listing here

Disposable e-cigarettes for smokers seeking a less harmful experience

Asking Price: $750,000
Monthly Revenue: $36,000
Monthly Profit: $12,500

Yes, we’ve heard the “healthy e-cigarette“ pitch a million times, but I thought it was still worth taking a look.

The company for sale is BeeSmoke, a European luxury e-cigarette manufacturer. They claim to provide a less harmful experience than smoking while delivering more unique flavors.

Personally, this isn’t an industry I’d even want to touch. I don’t believe in the mission of these companies, nor do I even want to begin thinking about all the regulations you have to deal with. However, I know that the e-cigarette market is very popular in Europe, and this business is just a small piece of that pie.

Some examples of competitors in the industry include Salt Switch, Elf Bar, and HQD Tech. And I’m sure the list goes on and on.

👉 View the listing here

Reader Submissions

This week I’m featuring a business currently on sale by one of our readers, Alex.

Alex owns Erase Me, a service that deletes your private data from the internet. This includes data like the 23andMe leak, arrest records, lawsuits, social media accounts, etc.

Users get their first 5 days for free and then pay $11/month for continued service. The tool is built with Python, Django, Supabase, and Vercel.

It is currently making $10,500 ARR and is on sale for $40,000.

You can reach Alex at [email protected] if you’re interested in purchasing this business.

Selling a business? Fill out this form and I’ll feature it in next week’s newsletter.

Best of Startup Twitter (X) and Reddit

Damon reached $1M in MRR with his testimonials tool (link)

Chrome extension idea to find furniture dupes (link)

Cast your vote

Last week’s results:

🥇 [83%]: 🗄 SaaS for database backups
🥈 [17%]: 📝 Google Doc add-on for label creation
🥉 [0%]: 🌐 Agency helping companies with their digital transformation

My Thoughts: 

I agree with the reader votes here, the SaaS for database backups is the clear business winner. It has a definitive market that is easy to go after. The Google Doc add-on is a good idea as well, but it can get wiped out quickly if Google introduces the same feature. The agency seems a bit outdated to me (personally) but it’s making more money than I ever have, so it obviously works!

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That’s all for this week, till next Wednesday!

— Vlad Verba

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