Serial Side-Hustler Sells Ecommerce Store on Flippa

Michael Hach is an experienced Ecommerce specialist, living and working in Cleveland, Ohio. As a day job, Michael spends his time growing the D2C side of a prominent cleaning equipment company, but on the side he runs a number of side-hustle businesses.

Michael didn’t sell his first business on Flippa, which proved to be very tricky. So when it came to selling his second business, he learnt from his mistakes and chose Flippa to successfully sell Laugh Hero, an Ecommerce business that sold joke products.

Learning from Past Mistakes

Two years ago, Michael sold his first business privately and it was incredibly difficult. When it came to selling his second business, he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. This time he would sell the business on Flippa.

His first Ecommerce business was a BBQ spice company which had garnered a large social media following of over 110K followers. It was a good business, at its peak generating over $100K per month, so when a buyer reached out to him directly Michael decided to sell. The buyer assured him that they had the skills to manage the sale privately. And while Michael did eventually sell the business, and for a good price, it was a painful experience.

When it came to selling his second side-hustle, he was determined to learn from the pain of selling his first business.

He looked at a number of marketplaces, but when it came down to it, the decision to sell on Flippa was an easy one. 

Building His Next Side Hustle

After the sale of his first business, Michael set to work on his next side-hustle, Laugh Hero. Described by Michael as a funny product company, Laugh Hero, sells merchandise and apparel with funny and inspirational designs. The products are out-of-the-box, intriguing, and (hopefully) humorous. Starting with stickers, Michael worked with a designer to bring his ideas to life, while he managed the supply chain and logistics. Stickers were an easy product to start with as they have a simple supply chain with inexpensive material costs and fast turnaround times. 

Over two years, as the company grew, the product range also expanded. Before long the company sold stickers, t-shirts, and jumpers, eventually moving into more unique products. At the time of sale, one of the biggest sellers was specially-designed beer cans containing peanuts.

“I love thinking of abstract marketing ideas that can potentially create the “Next Big Hit”. Finding a niche is important but I’ve found through prior success that taking risks on new ideas that don’t follow the typical standards of boring private label companies are just as important.” 

After two years of growth, Michael decided it was time to sell. With a full time job, as well as looking after two kids, Michael didn’t think he could dedicate the time required to grow the business and take it to the next level. The growth of the business was reliant on coming up with new product ideas, which requires time to be creative and then produce new products.

Selling on Flippa

Michael looked around at a few other marketplaces where he could list his business for sale, but the trust and integrity Flippa offers couldn’t be matched. 

“If you’re interested in selling businesses, you’ve heard about Flippa. The biggest thing is being able to establish trust, and that’s what Flippa is able to do the best.”

Michael Hach, Flippa Seller.

Having previously sold a business, Michael knew how important it was to provide as much detail as possible. A lot of the questions and concerns he had from the first exit experience led him to include particular details about the business that he knew buyers would be interested in. 

Michael also did some research, looking at other similar businesses up for sale on Flippa. He used Flippa’s filters to find the most active listings based on watches and discussions, then looked at their listing description and the data they included. An obvious trend was the integrations active businesses had set up through their listing.

“Setting up my listing was extremely easy, the integration side of things was as easy as clicking through a series of steps.”

“The trust badges that you’re able to integrate on your page say a lot, there’s nothing hidden, any kind of analytical data is vetted and verified.”

Valuing his business was a bit more of a challenge. Some of the inventory he had was not in a fulfillment center and he also had some raw materials in storage, both of which he wasn’t sure about including in the valuation. It turned out that once he started negotiations with buyers, it was easy enough to explain the extra materials he had and come to an agreement with buyers. 

Michael had 12 discussions with different buyers, and 48 bids during the auction. 

Once the deal was done, Michael, based in Cleveland, and the buyer, based in Chicago, became good friends, texting every other day with a Zoom call every now and then. Developing a relationship with the buyer also gave Michael confidence in the deal, and they were able to support each other through the handover of assets.

“Anyone selling a business needs to use Escrow.com because it helps take the risk away from a legal standpoint, and gives both the buyer and seller confidence. It makes it a lot less stressful.”

Michael already has another business in the works, but for now that’s top secret. He’s been working on it for a few months and he plans on building that up in the future, possibly selling it on Flippa!