Founder's Story
He Turned Niche Websites Into a Multi-Million Dollar Empire—From Farm Roots to Digital Mastery | Ep214 with Matt Raad Co-founder of eBusiness Institute
Wed, 7 May 2025
Matt Raad (CEO & Co‑Founder of eBusiness Institute) shares how he and his wife, Liz Raad, went from farming and zoology students to buying, scaling, and exiting online businesses. Learn why “page‑five” passion sites can be goldmines, how AI accelerates growth, and the blueprint for low‑risk, high‑cash‑flow digital entrepreneurship.Key Discussion PointsFrom Kangaroos to Cashflow: How Matt & Liz leveraged rural roots and early manufacturing M&A mistakes to discover online’s superior risk‑return profile.Valuing Digital Assets: Why net profit × 1–5× multiples, recurring revenue, traffic quality, and audience/community strength are your core due diligence metrics.Finding Diamonds in the Rough: Hunting bargains via Flippa classifieds and private outreach to page‑5+ Google sites—plus the art of negotiating with cash and escrow.com.Build, Automate, Flip: Renovate niche blogs with SEO, monetization (ads, affiliates, sponsorships), and AI‑assisted content editing to boost profits.Scaling with AI: How ChatGPT, Claude & Gemini are slashing team sizes, turbocharging site builds (ten‑minute bootcamp wins!,) and cutting content costs.Exit‑Ready Growth: Why hitting 7‑figure ARR unlocks private‑equity interest, and how leadership + repeatable processes maximize your sale multiple.Key TakeawaysStart Small, Win Big: Learn website building, buy a sub‑$5K site, and experiment with AI—no big capital required.Audience Is Asset: Communities trump page‑one rankings; loyal followings drive recurring, scalable revenue.Due Diligence Matters: Practice on low‑risk deals, use escrow for safe transfers, and know threshold profit multiples.Niche Is King: Passionate micro‑niches host undervalued sites ripe for 10× upside with the right know‑how.Exit Strategy: Buyers buy growth potential and proven teams—build with scalability and clear leadership in mind.Closing ThoughtsReady to quit the nine‑to‑five grind? Tune in to discover a battle‑tested playbook for buying, scaling, and exiting online businesses with Matt & Liz—plus actionable steps to launch your own digital side hustle.Our Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com
Chapter 1: How did Matt Raad transition from farming to digital entrepreneurship?
Yeah, really, really good question. I guess it's very appropriate, Daniel. I'm on your podcast and our founder's story. I think in this instance, our actual founder's story is probably most important because people look at what Liz and I do. Liz is my wife. Like Daniel said, we buy and sell online businesses and it's obviously the place to be. But backing up to our actual story, I met Liz at uni.
We were studying zoology, so red kangaroos here in Australia, which sounds totally bizarre. And ever since then, our life has just been very unique compared to most people. Neither of us ever wanted a nine to five job. We both come from rural, like from farms in rural Australia.
And we decided somewhat stupidly at the time to buy a small manufacturing business as soon as we got finished university with the help of friends and family. And We absolutely loved it, but we made a lot of mistakes. It was going bankrupt. We got the wrong advice when we bought it. So to this day, we're really passionate about teaching people to do good due diligence.
And looking at our founder's story, I guess... It was very challenging. People see what we do today, but this was 30 years ago. This bit sounds like I'm making it too simple, but we were very successful with that business eventually. It took 10 years to get that one right. In that meantime, we bought and sold other businesses. We were exporting to America.
We were making parts in outdoor power equipment, and we were We bought and sold other wholesale or wholesale import businesses, distribution businesses. And we're always buying and selling these businesses that revolve around physical inventory. And so what happened was we felt trapped.
It was really difficult because we were hugely in debt for the whole, you know, that 10 years or 15 years, actually. We were massively in debt to the banks. And maybe if you're listening to this, you can identify. I know a lot of people invest heavily in real estate. It's the same kind of thing. We're investing heavily into stock heavy businesses.
And in that time, what we started doing was we were hanging around mentors. We had private mentors who are also buying and selling businesses. And I think it was... By doing that, and we got into mergers and acquisitions, we started helping them buy and sell multimillion dollar businesses. And that just opened up our eyes.
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Chapter 2: What are the benefits of high cash flow online businesses?
We literally were working with people that were, in our opinion, living the dream, basically using businesses as assets. And what they taught us was go for high cash flow businesses. And that's the trick to all of this. And they were literally making millions of dollars a year working two or three days a week. And I think that became our goal, obviously.
And that's what set us on the path, meeting those guys, working with them, and seeing that it could actually be done. That was absolutely eye-opening. So we learned a lot through that. And I think to this day, the power of high cash flow businesses, once we saw the online space, it was an absolute no-brainer. Online businesses are very high cash flow, the kinds that we buy.
And for that reason, we see them as much lower risk compared to what we used to do in the good old days with bricks and mortar businesses.
Yeah, I'm glad you bring that up because I think everyone wants to create the next beverage or they want to create this product, but not realizing that they're going to not make any money for a very long period of time, no matter how much revenue they're bringing in. Because it's all in this inventory and manufacturing and all these things that your capital stuck.
So when you're looking at an online business, are there parameters like EBITDA or margins? Or what do you look at in terms of like, okay, I think this is at least viable in the due diligence?
The main thing we're looking at is the EBIT or the net profit for websites to keep it simple. They're basically valued exactly the same way as a traditional bricks and mortar business, typically anywhere from one to three times multiple. three to five times multiple of the profit if they're a much higher quality business and are much more automated and or are recurring revenues.
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Chapter 3: How does Matt Raad evaluate online business opportunities?
But thumbnail quick valuation of most online businesses, if you're listening to this and you're used to how you value any business, it's always a three times multiple. So if it's netting around 100 grand a year, it's probably worth around $300,000 and that's what we're looking for. But what, what we're, what we're also doing, Daniel, really important.
People hear us, you know, Liz and I buy and sell online businesses, the sorts of, they, they think we're buying and selling e-commerce businesses and it Because of my founder's story there, that's definitely what we don't do. We avoided that. We made a pact with each other. When we got online, we are never going back to physical inventory businesses if we can help it. And we never have.
So we never bought e-commerce style businesses. We buy businesses that make money off selling information products or advertising or sponsorship packages, which is a really big thing these days. Yeah. And or traditional affiliate style businesses, which are still very, very popular these days. They can still make great money.
And in particular, what we like, I guess, is niched online businesses that have unique
communities or audiences behind them it's all about the audience now in this day and age of ai and the way that the search engines are working so are you finding that are you buying businesses that have like a complementary community to another business that you've already bought like over time or do you just is it kind of like you know this this industry over here i like this one this or are you putting them together as a as an ecosystem
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Chapter 4: What makes passion niches lucrative in digital business?
Ideally, yes. I mean, when you're starting out, you just buy anything that's got a good profit and good recurring revenues and good traffic. So that's the other thing we look for when you're asking before in due diligence. It's all about the traffic and the profit. That's probably our main metrics.
But we love doing exactly what you just mentioned because that's what we used to do and our mentors used to do with bricks and mortar businesses is go into a niche. So, for instance, we would help these guys buy –
every as many wholesale import businesses in the electrical components niche you know electronics or whatever um and so we do the same online we go into one vertical niche and we try and buy your right businesses have complementary audiences so the um But there is also merit in having websites in different niches as well. And we own a broad range of sites across a broad range of niches.
But for us these days, particularly this last year or two, the way the online space is working... It's all about community or audiences now. And all things being equal, I guess that's one of the other main things we're doing our due diligence on now. It's about the audiences. Because with AI and the way our AI search is working, people are following...
The audience or the community is hugely valuable and it means you can have recurring revenues, particularly if it's got an email list or like even a social media following. And we can create multiple followings as well. That becomes assets in and of itself as well now.
So when you look at the company, and thank you for explaining that, are you looking at these digital assets? I guess I'm just making that up. But these digital assets that they have, are you seeing, okay, they may not know that they can monetize it this way, but we know we can monetize it this way.
So when you're going through the due diligence or going through the phase of trying to figure out if it's even worth buying, how do you look at those things?
Yeah, that's a key point. And that also explains why what you're saying is spot on. It's also why we find or we love buying, do I say bargains? I don't know, diamonds in the rough in what we call passion niches. So niches where...
People that don't typically know how to make money online love to blog about, for instance, food blogs, travel blogs, gardening blogs, photography blogs, how to play guitar, all the classic evergreen niches. We've been around for many years. Believe it or not, these sites are quietly the big ones now are worth millions of dollars. Go and speak to any website broker.
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Chapter 5: How can beginners start their online business journey?
They were traveling around the world, doing the young person thing where the visa would run out and they'd have to move to the next country. So they're three months at a time in a country on a laptop. They're definitely not gardeners. So they'd hire experts to write the articles. But they noticed that there was this neglected site here in Australia.
It had been around for 14 years and they could see the guy had stopped blogging on it. So they reached out to him and said, Hey, do you want to notice you're not working on the site? You're interested in selling. And he said, sure. I was just going to close it down about $400. So they bought it for $400 and that site now, because they've,
assimilated it in with their team and their other gardening site they've got a much bigger gardening site that site is making four thousand dollars a month net in peak gardening season so they renovated it add more content and now they get sponsorship they've gone to local trade shows big gardening companies are paying to advertise on there or to do you know sponsored posts and things like that and i think that's a great example it's just in this humble gardening niche
And exactly like you said, Daniel, the gentleman, he just was bored with it, never made that much money. And it's just a great example. These guys knew exactly what to do. They knew all the keyword research. They knew how to grow it. Now, that wasn't a get-rich-quick thing. Please don't think they just immediately started making that. They had to work at that.
That took about a year or so to build that up. But in the meantime, they're in multiple sites that are doing – So for them, it's just they've got the team already in place and that's what they do.
This reminds me of in 2020, I wanted to travel for free. I'm like, you know what? I just want to travel for free. So I'm such a huge proponent of what you're talking about. I bought into a Facebook group for $300. It was like $250, a travel group. It had 90,000 people. I then went, while I was on vacation, I reached out to a hotel and said, hey, I have this group. I want to review your hotel.
Will you let us stay for a few nights? They let us stay. We got upgraded to a four seasons presidential suite. I mean, this is because nobody was traveling. Nobody was traveling at that time. But we took like about a year to build that up and then we built other sites. And then, like you said, I'm a huge proponent of what you're talking about.
And I love the fact you're bringing up this is people like you're saying they're looking for the they want to they want to get into something that's making a million dollars today. which we knew highly unlike this.
You have so much cash to spend, but finding these diamond in the roughs where, you know, these websites that people have been blogging on that they're not really using these assets that, you know, they don't even know how to make money on. It's just a waste of their time. I think that is huge. This is the website. I mean, the internet probably has millions of these sites. Yeah.
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