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Comment by tjbiddle | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if I can even call it a side-project any more. I stopped working professionally 3 years ago.

Bought an e-commerce business that was making ~$2k/mo profit and ran it on the side while I had my DevOps job.

That project has now turned into ~$30k/mo profit, and I've bought two more e-com businesses that average ~$10k/mo between the two - these are early and I expect them to scale up once I smooth out a few bumps.

I go through phases of a lot of work, and next to no work. Depends if I'm busy on growing the businesses or just want to enjoy the income. I'm out of 95% of the day-to-day operations and I have a team of 3 that handle most things.

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If you don’t mind me asking, what are the e-commerce sites? Also, how does one get into such a business? Were you interested in this space beforehand or did you simply acquire a business that looked promising?

Seconding the interest in this. Some research showed that SoulCeramics and ZenConcessions are two of the commenter's businesses, but I would love to hear details on how he found them, decided to buy them, and then dealt with operating them. Selling popcorn machines and pottery kilns, such fascinating niches to become wealthy off of.

In my personal interactions with people in the e-commerce/drop shipping space, the odds of them telling you what they sell is extremely slim. The barrier to entry for anyone else is very low, so once someone has a winning product, they remain very tight lipped about what exactly it is.

not all e-commerce sites are dropshipping

Unfortunately, he won't tell you, because like someone else said, the barrier to entry is so low, that their only real competitive advantage is other people not knowing about the opportunity.

I'm looking at this course from ryan kulp:

https://www.microacquisitions.com/how-to-buy-small-companies

At which point can you just hire someone to manage it and then retire?

I know if I was making that much money via passive income I would never work another day in my life.

the days of consumer products on autopilot forever is over, requires constant work to continue marketing, website updates etc

Hiring people is not autopilot. You can hire a CEO for example.

I think this is one of those things that is easier said than done.

Have you used any broker for buying a business? How was your experience? If you care to recommend them please ping me.

I'm also interested in this.

interested as well

I recently sold a business using a broker for $xxx,xxx. DM if any of you are serious and need an introduction.

Hi,this sounds amazing. If you have to to post, do you have any advice how what level design f competence is required to analyse a business like these before buying? Also how did you find the businesses.

Where did you buy the site? I’ve looked at Flippa a few times and there’s never anything there that I trust enough to part with my money for

Can you outline what aspects did you set out to improve for each of the businesses?

what are you using for e-com software? woocommerce/home-grown or something else? also what is your review of the software side of it?

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