71% of revenue from one advertiser knocked 8x off the multiple — fixable in a quarter. B2B niche site, $12K/mo, but a single direct sponsor was $8,500 of it. Buyers priced it at 22x: lose that contrac…
Holding for 'one more good year' turned a $420K exit into $160K. Site was offered $420K at 36x in a strong niche. Owner held, chasing a $500K dream number. Next March update cut traffic 47%. Twelve mo…
One seller added back $31K of 'owner expenses' and raised their price by $1M. Content business reported $190K net. The owner re-categorized a full-time writer's salary, two VAs, and a content agency a…
A 'private sale to save the 15% broker fee' netted the seller 22% less. Owner skipped the broker on a $250K Amazon affiliate site to dodge a $37K commission. Found one buyer through a Slack group. One…
Selling on trailing-12 instead of last-3-annualized cost one owner $140K. Newsletter business: $9K/mo trailing-12 average, but the last quarter was running $14K/mo after a sponsorship deal landed. Bro…
An earnout is a discount you pretend is a price. SaaS founder took $180K cash + $220K earnout tied to retaining 90% of MRR for 12 months. Headline: $400K, 4.2x. New owner raised prices, churn spiked, …
