Startup Sphere Weekly #25

Weekly Rundown

Digital marketing agency for financial advisors

Asking Price: $200,000
TTM Revenue: $111,000
TTM Profit: $66,000

I was a fan of this listing because it offers a common service, but implements it in a niche that I haven’t seen often.

The business is a digital marketing agency for financial advisors. They offer a variety of solutions ranging from improving online presence to email and web design services.

In my opinion, one of the strongest offers this agency has is appointment setting. This is usually a no-brainer for the business to sign up since they know they’ll just pay for qualified meetings that the agency books for them.

The listing also mentions that the agency uses a custom CRM and automation system to help book these appointments. This is something worth asking about since an agency with custom tech attached to it is a strong competitive advantage.

Interview prep and job search platform

Asking Price: $200,00
TTM Revenue: $365,000
TTM Profit: $47,000

People are always looking to land a better job, so this listing caught my eye.

The business is an interview and job search platform. The company has a B2B product, as well as a B2C product.

The B2B product is an automated mock interview tool. This tool helps people with their interview readiness by giving them feedback during the mock interview process.

The B2C product is a tool that allows job seekers to earn cash back during their job search. The company cuts the job seeker into the money that the employer would spend on recruiting them. They spend less than 2$ to acquire a customer for this side of the business.

I like this business because it is in a lucrative niche (people are always looking for jobs). They also have 2 separate products (high ticket and low ticket). This helps the business grow and allows for the opportunity to cross-promote the products between each other.

Competitors include companies like BigInterview and Quinncia.

Excel plugin for finance professionals

Asking Price: $1 million
TTM Revenue: $265,000
TTM Profit: $72,000

This business is a plugin for Excel, specifically tailored towards financial professionals.

The tool allows analysts, investors, and finance managers to implement real-time data updates to build more accurate financial models in Excel. Users are able to access a range of data, from stocks to ETFs, to crypto.

This is a great business in a multitude of ways.

Firstly, it is built on top of a very commonly used tool. This means that the audience for the business exists, and you know how to target them.

Secondly, the target demographic for this business is financial professionals, who are high-income earners. This means they will be willing and able to pay for your solution if it saves them time or makes them money.

In my opinion, the price for this business is a bit high, so that would be something to negotiate.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter, I hope you learned something new.

Again, there is no newsletter next Wednesday. But I’ll be right back to it the following week.

Talk soon,
— Vlad Verba
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