Here’s why 2025 is Creating Unprecedented Opportunities for Online Business Buyers…
Where are the biggest opportunities in buying and selling online businesses right now?
In this interview, Matt sits down with Greg Elfrink, head of marketing at Empire Flippers who’s helped create over 100 millionaires, to share what’s working, what’s changed, and how to buy profitable online businesses in 2025.
Greg reveals million dollar lessons, stories, and actionable strategies for both beginners and experienced website investors.
If you want to hear how to buy smart with Empire Flippers, click below to watch the interview.
The Online Business Gold Rush Isn’t Over – It’s Just Getting Smarter
The party might feel like it’s over, but the real opportunities online are just beginning.
After years of exponential growth that saw online businesses selling for record multiples and creating millionaires seemingly overnight, the digital landscape of 2025 presents a dramatically different picture.
Yet according to Greg Elfrink, Head of Marketing at Empire Flippers and architect of deals worth hundreds of millions, this market correction isn’t the end of an era—it’s the beginning of a more sophisticated and profitable phase for those who know how to navigate it.
“The industry, at least the affiliate site industry, is wounded, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. Easy times always lead to hard times, and hard times shake out the people who got too used to the easy times.”
Having helped create what he calls “89 millionaires at the moment of exit” and facilitated the sale of over 2,400 businesses ranging from micro-sites to a $13.5 million e-commerce empire, Greg offers a unique perspective on where the real opportunities lie in today’s transformed marketplace.
How the Current Market Reality is Presenting Online Investors with Hidden Opportunities
During the golden years of 2020 to early 2023, Empire Flippers was selling million-dollar businesses weekly in what Greg describes as an “absolute insane time to be a digital entrepreneur.”
The feeding frenzy was so intense that even private equity firms, traditionally focused on much larger acquisitions, were competing for businesses worth less than a million dollars—something virtually unheard of in previous market cycles.
But context is everything when evaluating today’s market conditions.
While multiples have declined from those peak years, Greg points out a crucial perspective that many sellers overlook: current valuations are still significantly higher than pre-2020 levels.
“If you look at multiples in 2025, we’re still selling affiliate sites at an average of between 25 to 29 times monthly earnings, and high-quality ones at 30 to 34 times. In 2019, we were selling a lot of them for less than 20 times, and before 2019, some were going for 16 to 18 times.”
This recalibration has created what Greg calls a “super buyer-friendly” environment.
The unrealistic expectations that characterised 2024, where sellers maintained inflated price expectations while buyers remained hesitant, have given way to more realistic negotiations. Sellers are increasingly flexible on creative financing options including seller finance, earnouts, and even full price reductions.
Perhaps most importantly, the market has shed much of what Greg terms “dumb competition”—buyers who were making decisions based on hype rather than fundamentals.
The transformation becomes clear in his recounting of a 2021 encounter with a Wharton Business School graduate who was preparing to make an offer on a significant acquisition without conducting any due diligence, simply because he’d heard another buyer was interested. “I knew that wouldn’t end well,” Greg reflects, highlighting how the current market rewards genuine expertise over speculative enthusiasm.
How Strategic Buyers can Negotiate Deals in Today’s Market
For sophisticated buyers, the current environment presents unprecedented opportunities for creative deal structures that were nearly impossible during the peak years.
Empire Flippers has always been open to complex financing arrangements, but the competitive dynamics of 2020-2023 made such structures rare. Now, with reduced competition and more realistic seller expectations, buyers can negotiate deals that were previously unimaginable.
The flexibility extends far beyond traditional seller financing. Greg recounts a recent transaction where a buyer acquired an e-commerce business using revenue-based financing that covered more than half the purchase price, combined with a two-year seller finance arrangement for the remainder.
“When people joke that zero money out of pocket deals don’t exist, they do exist. You just have to be a little bit more advanced.”
However, meeting this sophistication requirement is essential. While YouTube gurus might promote such strategies to inexperienced audiences, Greg emphasises that these tools require expertise to implement safely.
“Yes, you are using none of your own money, but all the risk is on you, and you’re making the business more fragile with the debt side. The key lies in understanding both the opportunities and the risks inherent in leveraged acquisitions.”
…And How Empire Flippers Can Help Facilitate Complex Offers
The creative financing landscape has expanded that can dramatically reduce the capital requirements for qualified buyers, including:
- Revenue-based financing
- Vendor financing, and
- Hybrid structures
However, Greg stresses that Empire Flippers’ approach differs from many brokers who simply want their commission upfront.
“We only get paid our full commission once that whole thing is done too, so our incentives are aligned,” he explains, highlighting why the company is willing to facilitate complex, multi-year payment structures.
How to Renovate & Improve Monetisation from Traditional Affiliate Sites
Perhaps the most significant opportunity in today’s market lies not in acquiring businesses as they are, but in transforming them into more robust, diversified enterprises. Greg’s philosophy centres on a fundamental principle:
“How do I diversify and hedge my bets where I’m not so reliant on any one tech giant?”
The need for diversification is growing as businesses encounter more volatility from algorithm shifts and AI disruptions.
Traditional affiliate sites, while still valuable, represent what Greg calls “brochure websites”—single-use assets that visitors either convert on immediately or abandon entirely. The transformation opportunity lies in converting these into “magazine” businesses that build ongoing relationships with their audiences.
Greg highlighted the power of this approach in his account of a recent listing worth slightly over $1 million. The business generated revenue almost entirely through display advertising, with just 2-4% coming from a small course hosted on Udemy—a platform Greg describes as “terrible” due to its lack of seller control and tendency to discount products without permission.
“That course was already done. He just needs to take it off Udemy, put it on his own course holder, direct all that traffic away from the display ads to his course, and increase the price from $9 to $97,” Greg explains.
The opportunity was so compelling that he promoted it specifically to Empire Flippers’ verified high-net-worth buyer network as a “hidden gem.”
This transformation strategy extends beyond course creation. Display advertisements, ironically, provide excellent product research opportunities.
“Go to your website and look at your own display ads—what are your ads selling? Is there a way you can replace that ad with a private affiliate link to that provider? Or can you source that product?”
The key lies in recognising that high-traffic affiliate sites already have proven product-market fit; they simply need more sophisticated monetisation strategies.
From Content Sites to eCommerce Empires
One of the most compelling transformation stories Greg shares involves Epic Gardening, which began as what he describes as “a very run-of-the-mill Amazon affiliate site in the gardening niche.”
The site’s founder, Kevin, transformed it into one of America’s largest online gardening retailers through a systematic approach that offers a blueprint for similar transformations.
The transformation began with community building—treating the website as entertainment and education rather than just a conversion funnel. This approach generated massive SEO traffic, but more importantly, it built a loyal audience across multiple platforms.
“Most of his traffic is still organic; it’s just he’s treating his website as a magazine. The diversification meant that when AI disruption began affecting SEO traffic, it represented less than 20% of the business’s total traffic.”
The transition to e-commerce wasn’t based on speculation but on direct market feedback. Kevin leveraged his email list to identify product opportunities, sending surveys asking what his audience wanted to buy. When responses indicated a strong demand for specific gardening products, he created pre-order pages before even sourcing inventory.
“Tons of money comes in, and he uses those pre-orders to go buy the inventory,” Greg explains. The strategy was so successful that Kevin remained sold out of his first product for 12-15 months, with each new batch selling immediately upon availability.
This approach addresses one of the primary challenges of e-commerce: the significant upfront capital requirements for inventory. By using audience validation and pre-orders, entrepreneurs can essentially eliminate inventory risk while building sustainable businesses with much higher margins than traditional affiliate marketing.
The transformation also demonstrates the power of owning customer relationships. While the original affiliate site was entirely dependent on Google’s algorithm, the evolved business controls its customer funnel through email lists, social media followings, and direct relationships. This control enables paid advertising strategies that would be impossible with traditional affiliate margins, creating a more resilient and scalable business model.
The Counterintuitive Economics of Business Acquisition
Perhaps the most surprising insight Greg shares is around the relationship between deal size and financial risk. Conventional thinking suggests that smaller deals are safer for inexperienced buyers, but the reality of online business acquisitions tells a different story. Larger businesses often present more financing options and greater stability than their smaller counterparts.
“M&A is a weird thing where you ironically will spend more of your money if you buy small and you will spend less of your money if you buy big.” Greg Elfrink, Empire Flippers
This stems from the financing options available for larger deals. Businesses generating substantial monthly revenue can support seller financing arrangements, earnout structures, and even asset-based lending that simply isn’t available for smaller operations.
He illustrates this with the example of a marketing agency acquisition where the buyer secured financing using the agency’s existing client contracts as collateral. With 18-month client contracts where less than half the clients were at the halfway point, banks viewed the future revenue stream as sufficiently predictable to justify lending against it. This enabled an acquisition that would have been impossible with traditional financing.
How to Invest Your Funds for an Online Business Purchase as a New Investor
For beginners, however, Greg advocates a different approach entirely. He recommends dividing available acquisition capital into three equal portions, limiting each individual purchase to one-third of the total budget. This strategy acknowledges that new buyers will likely make mistakes or encounter unforeseen challenges like algorithm updates or market shifts.
“Even if you have a good mentor, good trainer, you most likely are going to make a mistake or something bad outside of everyone’s control is going to happen. You want the ability to take at least a couple punches before you get knocked out of the game.”
By the third acquisition, buyers have typically accumulated enough experience to make more informed decisions whilst having budgeted for the learning curve.
The psychological benefits of this approach are as important as the financial ones. When buyers know they’ve budgeted for potential losses, they can approach deals with appropriate caution rather than the pressure of needing every purchase to succeed immediately. This reduced pressure often leads to better decision-making and more thorough due diligence.
Why it’s Important to Diversify Your Online Business Traffic
The recurring theme throughout Greg’s reflections is the critical importance of reducing dependence on any single technology platform. Whether it’s Google for SEO traffic, Facebook for social media marketing, or Amazon for e-commerce sales, successful online businesses increasingly require diversified traffic and revenue sources.
This principle applies not only to risk management but also to core aspects of business strategy. Greg describes the goal as controlling “as much of the funnel as possible” rather than remaining dependent on external platforms for customer acquisition and retention. Email lists represent one aspect of this control, but the principle applies equally to payment processing, customer service, and product delivery.
How to Assess an Online Business for Potential Future Growth
The practical implementation needed varies by business model, but the underlying logic remains the same:
- Affiliate sites can evolve towards creating their own courses or digital products rather than simply referring visitors to third-party offers.
- E-commerce operations can develop their own branded products rather than relying solely on reselling existing items.
- Service businesses can build their own software tools rather than depending entirely on third-party platforms.
For buyers evaluating potential acquisitions, this framework provides a useful lens for assessing long-term potential. Sites with substantial traffic but low margins often represent opportunities to implement higher-value monetisation strategies. The key is identifying businesses where the existing audience and content create natural pathways towards increased customer value and reduced platform dependence.
Greg shares the example of a business listed for just over seven figures that was monetised almost entirely through display advertising. A small percentage of revenue came from a course hosted on Udemy, where the platform controlled pricing and customer relationships. The opportunity was obvious to sophisticated buyers: take the existing traffic, move the course to a proprietary platform, increase pricing from Udemy’s discounted rates to market rates, and capture the full customer relationship.
The transformation potential was huge, but it required a buyer who understood both the technical aspects of course delivery and the marketing strategies needed to convert traffic into higher-value customers. This combination of traffic acquisition and monetisation optimisation represents the core opportunity in today’s market.
Where to Buy and Sell Smaller Online Businesses Safely
Empire Flippers has recently launched Money Nomad; a platform specifically designed for people who are selling smaller online businesses generating less than $2,000 monthly. This initiative addresses the gap between complete startups and the larger deals that comprise the main Empire Flippers marketplace.
For buyers seeking entry-level opportunities or sellers with profitable side projects, this platform provides access to vetted deals with simplified transaction processes.
“As long as your business is making money and making a profit and it’s less than $2,000 a month, you can list it on Money Nomad and have a DIY experience where we connect you with buyers.”
The platform addresses a significant gap in the market where profitable smaller businesses often lack proper sales channels, while new investors struggle to find appropriately sized opportunities for skill development.
Why is Now a Good Time to Purchase Smaller Online Businesses?
The timing proves particularly relevant given current market conditions. Smaller sites that might have commanded inflated prices during the peak years are now available at more reasonable valuations. This creates opportunities for both new investors to gain experience and experienced buyers to acquire assets for transformation projects.
Greg notes how quickly quality smaller sites sell, indicating continued strong demand despite overall market softness. However, he emphasises that the platform maintains Empire Flippers’ quality standards while providing more flexibility for pricing and deal structure.
The challenge lies in educating sellers about realistic valuations while allowing justified premium pricing for exceptional businesses. “If you’re going to charge an exceptional price, you better have an exceptional business,” he states, highlighting the ongoing need for proper market education even in the smaller deal segments.
Looking forward, the integration between Money Nomad and Empire Flippers’ main platform creates interesting arbitrage opportunities. Smaller businesses purchased and renovated using the strategies Greg outlines could eventually graduate to the main platform at significantly higher valuations. This creates a clear path for strategic investors to generate substantial returns through systematic improvement rather than speculation.
What Type of Investor Are You?
Greg identifies several immediate opportunities based on your level of investing experience:
Beginner Investors
For newcomers, the current market provides an ideal learning environment with reduced competition and more realistic pricing.
The key lies in approaching initial purchases as education investments rather than expecting immediate major returns, while systematically building expertise in due diligence, operational improvement, and market timing.
Intermediate Investors
Intermediate investors should focus on identifying transformation opportunities—sites with significant traffic but limited monetisation sophistication.
The display advertising research strategy Greg outlines provides a systematic approach to identifying product opportunities, while email list building creates the foundation for more advanced monetisation strategies including courses, coaching, and e-commerce ventures.
Advanced Investors
Advanced investors can leverage the current seller flexibility to structure creative deals that were impossible during peak market conditions.
The combination of earnouts, seller financing, and revenue-based financing creates opportunities to acquire larger businesses with reduced capital requirements while maintaining upside potential through operational improvements.
What are Your Next Steps for Investing in Today’s Market?
Success in this evolved market requires understanding both the technical aspects of online business operations and the strategic principles that create sustainable competitive advantages.
The businesses that are thriving in 2025 are those that have successfully reduced platform dependence whilst building genuine customer relationships and diversified revenue streams.
The gold rush mentality of the peak years has been replaced by a more sophisticated understanding of sustainable online business development.
For buyers who approach the market with appropriate knowledge and realistic expectations, the current environment offers some of the most compelling opportunities in the industry’s history. The key is recognising that whilst the easy money has disappeared, the fundamental potential for building valuable online businesses remains stronger than ever.
If you would like to learn more about how to develop the fundamental skills needed to buy, build, or grow an online business, check out our free masterclass here.
