Empire Flippers

Well, my guest today is a great guy called Mike Swidinski.

Now, he was an employee, was number four employee at Empire Flippers.

Now, they are the world's largest marketplace for buying and selling online businesses, ladies and gents.

And he's helped grow the company to 100-person remote team and brokered more than $120 million in acquisitions.

Excellent.

Fantastic.

So when you joined Empire Flippers as employee number four, I mean, you helped it grow to quite a substantial, you know, at least 100 people plus from around the world.

When...

Yeah.

Uh, and so, but, but if I was to sell, I'd 100% one of the first people I'd go to is, um, either Empire Flippers or to Craig's.

Yeah.

The, um, uh, FE International has got as well on the bigger, on the bigger kind of websites.

My guest today is Mike Swigunski, entrepreneur, investor, and number one, bestselling author on a mission to help millions of people earn from anywhere.

As employee number four at Empire Flippers, Mike helped scale the company from an early stage startup into a 100 person remote team and the world's largest curated marketplace for buying and selling online businesses.

playing a key role in facilitating more than 120 million in acquisitions.

He's since founded Global Career and Dividends, built multiple six-, seven-, and eight-figure remote companies, traveled to more than 100 countries, and delivered a TEDx talk.

interesting or not, but it's relevant, yeah.

Yeah, very good.

So coming in, so I suppose your number four employee in this Empire Flippers, I think it's called, yeah?

Yeah.

But before we dive into the elements of how we built out, they got acquired, one thing I know, and I'm sure you would agree to, Alexis, is Buying and acquiring businesses, like I mentioned in the intro, is quite a bit of a black box.

And the marketplaces we know today, like Empire Flippers, Flippa, do a fair bit of education and evangelism.

But there still remains a lot of enigma around how to accurately put a... you know, cap to it or put an estimate to a business when you decide to acquire it.

Right.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Opportunity Podcast.

I'm your host, Greg L. Frank, the head of marketing over here at Empire Flippers.

And today we are talking to Andy Hooper of G.Capital.

So Andy was a really fun guy to talk to.

Nowhere close to what they did.

But I was speaking at a conference in Barcelona a few years ago.

And for a booth, we brought in Empire Flippers water bottles, I think it was.

In the Spanish customs, they were like, What goes in these bottles? Like anything that they want to drink? Like, oh, so you're saying alcohol could go in these bottles? Like, I mean, I guess it's a water bottle.

And my first asset I think I bought was a...

It was from Empire Flippers.

It was a tool that was affiliate websites and earning through SEO, right? So I learned through the SEO route and understood that world of building websites.

And I think I spent like 50K on that first business.

Our wonderful, wonderful guest for today is Mike Swagonski, online entrepreneur, investor, best-selling author, TEDx speaker, and founder of Global Career.

As an employee at Empire Flippers, Mike helped scale the company into a major global marketplace for buying and selling online businesses and was involved in more than $120 million in digital acquisitions.

He has built multiple remote businesses, traveled to more than 100 countries, and now focuses on helping people earn from anywhere through online businesses, remote careers, and investing.

Mike, you're welcome to 9to5 Asset Plan.

wonderful answer, honestly.

Thank you so much for that.

Now, you know, You were employee number four at Empire Flippers and helped facilitate more than $120 million in online business acquisition.

Now, what did that experience teach you about what actually makes an online business valuable?

But I got my start...

in entrepreneurship back in, this is like almost 10 years ago, but started a small e-commerce business, had a small exit there, and I got to join Empire Flippers as one of the first seller advisors.

Back when that was revolutionary, that was great.

I probably talked to at least over a thousand online entrepreneurs in that role.

And they bought again from us and it went better the next time, right? So I think that's a very important thing that podcasts help produce.

And I can give you an example.

I mean, when I was seller advisor at Empire Flippers, all the time, guys would show up and be like, I've been listening to the podcast for X number of years.

We knew that would take a long time for people to be in a position ready to sell a business or buy a business.