Host: Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs. And on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. My conversation today is with Paul lemle. Paul acquired 15 websites in 2020. He partnered with a family office for the capital to do those acquisitions. So if you're interested in acquiring websites or other digital assets, this is going to be a really educational interview for you to listen to. Paul not only tells a story, but in the second half of the interview he distills his biggest takeaways from this experience into tips for other would be digital asset website acquirers out. I know I learned a ton. I think you will too. Here he is, Paul Laemmle. Paul Lemle, thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Thank you Will. I'm glad to be here.

Host: You recently acquired last year 2020, 15 digital assets, 15 websites. You partnered with some investors, among them a family office, to go out and find these acquisitions. I think our audience is going to be really interested in this story because acquiring websites is something that's very hot right now, as I'm sure you know, and we're competing against a lot of that market. So basically for the first half of the interview, I just want to hear the story of this. And then for the second half, you and I had talked offline a little bit about some of what you've learned from being so in the trenches so recently. And for those in our audience who are looking to acquire a website, I'm sure they would love to hear some of these tips. So we'll spend the second half on some of your lessons learned from these big acquisitions. So by way of introduction, why don't you give us a quick history, professional history, on yourself and what led you to start the process of these acquisitions.

Guest: Absolutely, yeah. I'm a digital media consultant by trade. I've been in digital media since, you know, during college I launched e commerce stores and had a aviation student. So I flew planes and I launched classic flightbag.com and I drop shipped classic flightbag.com I drop shipped a leather pilot's flight bag as a way to learn the ropes because obviously no one's hiring. This was back in 2000, 2009. So just getting out of the. Financial crisis back in 2008 and obviously the pilot shortage made my future aspirations of being an airline pilot or commercial pilot very risky. And so I've sort of pivoted my attention more towards digital marketing, digital media and running businesses because it was all fascinating to me. That was my first go at it. I then experienced the agency life after

[3:27] Host: those were early days for dropshipping. 2009.

Guest: Yeah, there was very little information and I ended up cold calling three Chinese manufacturers and the first one that could speak some broken English. I chose handshake. Yeah, it was a ridiculous time and I learned a lot. But that was my first kind of foray into entrepreneurship.

Host: Very cool.

Guest: And digital marketing. And so stayed at the University of Dubuque for my master's degree where I was the graduate assistant to the president there doing some digital marketing stuff for him. Left to work at an agency in the Milwaukee area where I'm from and located now. Left the agency after a few years to go out on my own. And I've been consulting ever since and working with a lot of digital publishers, which is where my kind of SEO hat and digital media hats really kind of grew into a little more mature skill.

Host: And by publishers do you mean sort of affiliate style content sites or news publishing sites? Media sites, be more specific.

Guest: Yeah, good question. I've worked with some affiliate sites doing affiliate marketing on my own, but on the professional side it's been a lot of news as well as health and wellness and celebrity gossip. Publishers did a fair amount of consulting with American media now, A360 I think they're called now, which publishes. They used to own National Enquirer, Men's Journal, Muscle and Fitness. So did a lot of consulting in the health and wellness realm, specifically some celebrity and gossip, some other news sites and really cut my teeth when it comes to SEO and content publishing and editorial and lots of different things in those realm. Email copywriting is all day every day. So yeah, that's pretty much my background in media. But so my goal, or at least when I turned 30, I'm 32 now, was to get out of just consulting for these other publishers and do it on my own own my own properties. And. And so when I hit 30, I didn't have much savings or prospects of getting business loans or stuff like that. And so I thought to myself, why not work with other people and partner with other organizations that might see these assets, these publisher, these content based sites or media sites as an asset worth investing in. And so I had been chatting with a friend that I met through Spikeball. We would play Spikeball every week together for years where all the best business

[6:28] Host: relationships are formed, right?

Guest: Yeah. On the basketball courts, tennis court, golf course. I didn't really know what he did much, but I knew he was part Investments, parts, business acquisitions. We didn't really dive much deeper than that until Covid hit, really. And the depth of our conversations around digital businesses being an asset class for his organization and worth investing in and exploring was definitely his motivation or their motivation was definitely there because acquiring in person businesses, they just didn't see the growth opportunity there. And so they had dabbled with an acquisition of a manufacturer that had an e commerce element to it. So they were learning a little bit there. But I brought them this idea of acquiring content based sites as a avenue to grow an audience and then launch or acquire additional e commerce sites or FBA businesses as strategic opportunities on the back end. So.

Host: So once you've acquired these sites with audiences, you could then tuck in e commerce stuff and direct immediately be able to direct your own traffic to those other subsequent acquisitions.

Guest: Exactly. My philosophy and everyone's most people's philosophy is that you start with the audience, then you super serve them with products or community or I mean you can run ads as well. There's lots of different monetization opportunities. When you have the audience, it's just get building that audience is the hard part. Why not skip the building of the audience and acquire that audience? And so our intention was, our intention wasn't to go full bore of like finding the perfect site or the perfect portfolio of sites. It was just to explore some opportunities and see what happens after that. And it just, it kind of snowballed into this relationship where I was consulting on the acquisition side and you know, diving deep into these sites, are they worth the value or the price point that the seller wants? What are some possibilities for growth if we do decide to acquire?

Host: Well, I want to get into the search before we dive into that. So it was kind of a happy accident that you had in mind the idea of kind of raising money from an investor or investors to acquire digital assets and develop your own properties. And then this now friend of yours that you met at Spikeball, worked for an investment like a family office that had already acquired businesses. And just as Covid hit, because Covid hit, they were looking to put money in. Exactly the thing that you were looking to do. So it was just this great coincidence. That's awesome. I mean that must have made you happy and them as well. I mean the stars align like that. Okay. And so you, you have meetings with them, you guys decide to work together. How did you decide on basically how much capital to deploy, how much money you had to spend on acquisitions? Tell us about that.

[10:00] Guest: We didn't really target a specific Dollar amount. The amount of capital needed was more borne out of what the opportunity attractive opportunities we could source. There were a handful of smaller acquisitions that we could have pulled the trigger on very quick, but they weren't a great fit or they didn't fit with our why, which I'll talk about on my tips. But when we came across the primary portfolio that we acquired, which was a total of 12 sites, it sort of was the perfect amalgamation of niches and industries that each site talked about. Opportunities to expand into other revenue opportunities, a clear growth model with their existing content strategy. There was just so many great factors about this business and it was dwindling too. So we could get it at a decent price. Or the traffic had been dying because the seller diverted his attention and capital to another business.

Host: So you saw the obvious ways to grow it. It was already profitable and generating revenue. But you saw all these other.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: Opportunities.

Guest: And these are affiliate sites. So the primary really only revenue generating opportunity with the revenue generating opportunity with the sites was affiliate commissions. And so obviously deploying ads and launching community and direct brand relationships for advertising and for product sales, that sort of thing. There were so many opportunities that we wanted to explore and thought this was a perfect jumping off point with this portfolio. But back to the point is it was larger than we anticipated.

[12:11] Host: Okay, so

Guest: the immediate discussion was, okay, who else can we pull into this strategy, at least in this local market and with our own contacts, relationships. But it also, it sort of just fell into place. I still have sort of. I still think back to fall of last year, like the cadence of things, the how things turned out. And it's weird to me to think that everything just fell into place so easily.

Host: So it was easy. So it was bigger than you all anticipated acquiring and so you had to raise some more money. And then it turned out finding that money locally in the existing network that you all have turned out to be quick.

Guest: Yeah, I think it took maybe two months to finalize the full capital

Host: group. And how many additional entities or individuals did you have to bring in?

Guest: I think about 11 total, not including

Host: the office.

Guest: My office. The family office. Yeah, the family office.

Host: And you. And did they. Did you have to put skin in the game? Did you have to put any of your own capital in?

Guest: And see, this is where I think I lucked out. I'm an operator and I sold them on the idea of I will help you acquire these assets and run them for you. And so I earned a commission off of the acquisition and then I'm also a part owner of the assets and I also run them.

Host: So is this model, is this something that you'd learned about or is this something that you all came up with, just you originated yourselves?

Guest: I don't want to say I invented this because I'm sure other people have done something like this. I think the closest thing I knew about was individuals that had relationships with VC firms that introduced or made connections and they would earn a percentage of the deal. And I just thought why do it just for startups, which is a 10 year horizon, a 10 year wait for your liquidity event and go with the cash flowing, existing cash flowing business, acquire it and build and grow it.

Host: Well, certainly the finder's fee is pretty standard, but the idea that you stay on as the operator and kind of earn your equity piece over time as the operator is kind of the more interesting. But maybe that's totally common as well. It's first I've seen of it, but it seems like a great way for somebody like you to participate in the upside.

[15:07] Guest: Exactly. And I wish it was like I wish other people that have done it had come out and said this is what I did and this is how I've benefited from it. I think it's going to be a lot more common as this type of investment opportunity becomes more recognized as a real valuable strategy. And they're going to be looking for operators and so bringing in real operators to manage and grow an existing business but giving them skin in the game is a huge strategy that I think people should look into.

Host: I stumbled upon a site sometime this week where somebody is trying to pair operators with with acquired assets. Do you know about this? I can't remember.

Guest: I stumbled on the same site and I'm trying to think. I probably have it. I emailed it to myself.

Host: I wonder if that was in the thread where you and I met. Actually.

Guest: Yeah, it probably was the same.

Host: Cool. So give us a sense of dollar terms if you can. These 12 sites. So you acquire the 12 and then you subsequently acquired two more and then one more. Okay, so the 15 sites that you acquired were across three different acquisitions, with the bulk being that first 12. Can you tell us what you acquired each of these three portfolios for or assets?

Guest: I believe we raised the total of in between 2 and 2.8 million. I wish I knew the exact numbers, but 2 and 2.8 million was the full capital raised. The largest portfolio, the 12 sites, was over 2 million in total for total acquisition. The smaller two were I think 100k and the single site was 80. So the three follow ons were very tiny. This would round out a full portfolio and give us a little more increased diversity of niches and things to test. Like the, the third acquisition, the smaller. No, the two side acquisition, it was a different, entirely different model. It's an ad arbitrage model rather than affiliate. So we were interested in exploring different revenue opportunities. Revenue models.

Host: Oh, interesting. Okay, so you wanted to diversify the way the sites made money or at least experiment, have some visibility into another model. And so by ad arbitrage, explain that for folks who don't know.

Guest: Yeah. This one specifically uses Taboola to run ads on other sites to drive traffic. Based on the optimization of those ads on our site or those visitors on our site, we can increase our own ad revenue, ad earnings on our site. The model was proven already by the previous owner and we've actually retained them to continue running it for us, running both the sites and the ad campaigns. And so we'll likely look. We have other higher priorities, but we'll likely look to scale that or increase our investment in those over the next six to 12 months. So they're a little on the back burner, but definitely still making money.

[18:43] Host: And just so I understand. So the Taboola ads that run on other sites, that's what drives traffic to your two sites.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: And then how are you monetizing the two sites? With display ads yourselves or what?

Guest: Yep. So the. Those two sites earn AdSense ad revenue, which will probably flip into a different ad provider that offers more RPM and then. Yeah, so the ad revenue, very little affiliate revenue comes from those two sites though. But it's definitely an opportunity we want to explore.

Host: Okay. Okay, great. And so across all of these sites. But if you want, we can focus on the 12. Are these affiliate sites that have like a brand following or are they sites that people just find through a quick search on SEO and may or may not revisit or do they have. Have they built a brand around themselves?

Guest: There is very little brand recognition with any of these sites. The largest is runnerclick.com I want to say 80% of the traffic is search driven. So the top traffic driving page is our best, our best running shoe of 2021. So we definitely focus on organic traffic. That's the bread and butter of our content team and editorial team. And we want to continue to build that moat. It's extremely valuable. But part of our growth plan is to establish much more recogn brands around or establish these into much more recognizable brands. And so runnerclick.com will be actually launching a community that will do just that for us in the next couple months.

Host: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So that. So the fact that they're not branded, that's kind of part of the opportunity for you.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: So you just touched on the fact that these have a team. The 12 sites had a team. So. So talk me through that. There were people that came along. How big is the team? They stick around all of that stuff because. Yeah, I mean, that's obviously when you acquire a site and you're the only one, there's nobody else there. It's just you and the site. It's very different than when there's a team in place. So talk us through that.

[21:04] Guest: Yeah, and that was super lucky too. The 12 site portfolio came with two editors and an SEO individual. So these are contractors, foreign and English speaking. And so they're fantastic.

Host: Are they full time contractors or just like when you need them?

Guest: They are full time. I don't think we would have acquired the full portfolio if they did not come along with us along with it. And so they've been with the properties for five, six years with one of them. Five, six years. The other two, like three or four years. And so it was definitely a value add for us and we were willing to pay extra for that help. I don't think we would be struggling. We would be. Yeah, I think we'd be struggling immensely if we did not have their help. And I thank them every day for just. For staying on during the due diligence.

Host: Did you get any sort of commitment from them? Given that they're both contractors and overseas, it probably would be hard to get anything binding. But to what extent did you kind of try to get there, get their assurance that they'd stick around?

Guest: Yeah. So in due diligence, we did speak with the editor in chief. His name's Brian. He's fantastic. We made it clear to him that then he could communicate to the other two and some of the writers that they are still connected with or were still connected with that our intention was to retain them as key staff members and writers. And so that was really important to us. And we wouldn't have discovered that had we not pose questions about like who's. Who's actually running them and, you know, diving deeper with the seller. And the seller was very open to allowing us to speak with Brian and communicate that to the team.

Host: Cool. Cool. Great. Yeah, that's, that's a huge. That strikes me as makes the acquisition much more, Much more appealing if you have people running it for you.

Guest: Absolutely.

Host: So what's the aggregate traffic that you acquired from all these sites?

Guest: The sites do

Host: ballpark.

Guest: Ballpark. Couple million a year. I think 5 to 6 million. Visits or sessions a year. Visits a year Per month. We're doing about a million.

Host: Great.

Guest: No. So, yeah, my maths off. My math's off. Yeah.

Host: About half a million per month. If it's 6 million a year.

Guest: Yeah, about half a million a month. They historically did much more. I mentioned earlier that they were depreciating assets, and so we were confident that we'd be able to bring them back up to what they were.

[24:03] Host: Cool. Now let's talk through the search real quick because we're going a little bit over and I want to get to your lessons. So where were you looking? Were you looking on the listing sites? Tell us quickly about the search itself.

Guest: Yeah, I love the guys at Quiet Light. They do the due diligence ahead of time. They don't work with anyone that isn't reputable. And so they were a mainstay in our search and having conversations with Brad and their team about other opportunities that might be coming down the pipe. We did explore some FE International opportunities, and we still obviously received some inquiries there too. But those were the two primary. I don't think we even talked to anybody from Empire Flippers.

Host: How did you choose those two companies? Was it just kind of like what you knew or was there something you liked more about them than others? Because those are the three names you hear kicked around a lot. And I just wonder why somebody chooses to go with firm A versus Firm B. Or does it all just like if you see a company you like, you'll just use the broker that listed the company?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, like we're broker agnostic. It's not like we're going to not explore an opportunity based on the broker. But Quiet Lights, I had known about them for over a year and a half, two years prior. So they were just a known entity, FE International. They seem to. Their process is clear and easy. Yeah. I don't think anything else stands out as why we went with them or monitored them more. But there were also some other opportunities that we did, some direct outreach. There was a news site that we wanted to actually. We were close to an offer, but the potential seller decided not to sell. But those were direct outreach. Outreach and actually relationships I had had prior that could have been beneficial, but they ended up not working.

Host: And these acquisitions that you did do, were they competitive?

Guest: So the large acquisition did have some competition, but because of the size and because of, I think he wanted to sell all 12 in one package, which I think scared off a fair amount of people that were single operators and they didn't, you know, they didn't necessarily want all 12. I think we were one of two or three. But the tipping point, I think for us why the seller worked with us more closely was because we were so adamant about keeping the team on. That happens very early in our conversation that we wanted to talk to the team, ensure that they knew that we had intentions of keeping in the on and it sort of was the tipping point to maintain a relationship with us.

[27:07] Host: Cool. Well, that sounds like a perfect segue to your lessons because I know that's kind of in the direction of one of the lessons. So let's get into this. As I said, we talked about a little offline, but you've come here with a few of your key takeaways from this whole process. So why don't you take us through them?

Guest: Sounds good. So the first one I would say, and I mentioned before is be clear on your why on why you're acquiring digital properties or any business really. It can be anything. It could be cash flow, flipping, it could be a complimentary business from what you already own. It could be a growth opportunity, an acquihire, that sort of thing. But if you don't have that in the back of your mind the entire time, you're going to be thrown off by really cool opportunities that come your way. There were a few SaaS businesses that we felt were attractive, but we didn't have the dev talent to support it. There were some local news sites that we felt would be really fun to run, but the news, the hamster wheel of news just didn't excite us as well. So what was your why? Early on our discussion with Mike and the investment team was around acquiring holding, but using whatever we acquire as launching pad for our own startup businesses that we want to launch or additional acquisitions that are complementary that can feed off the audience that we've established. And so this is a long term hold strategy for us. Our why is to grow, not just maintain and cash flow and accept some profits year over year. And we don't really have a desire to sell or flip.

Host: So for example, that's with the SaaS companies. The reason those didn't meet your why is because acquiring a SaaS company is more about acquiring revenue, whereas you were looking to acquire audience. I mean obviously revenue too. But SaaS companies aren't. Their audience is just their existing users, which can be not that Significant a number. Whereas you acquired 6 million eyeballs a year.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: Okay, okay, cool. And, and so when you say the why, it's kind of like the strategic point of the acquisition. It's not kind of like a philosophical, what your purpose in life? Why is it more like you're kind of in your investment thesis and strategy?

Guest: Exactly.

Host: Okay, great, Cool. What's the next one?

Guest: Next one would be see competition as a feature and a way to sharpen your pitch to a potential seller. The way we viewed competition since it was our first acquisition, we took it as a learning opportunity to see what worked and what doesn't. Price is always going to be the top factor that seller wants to focus on. But there are always additional factors that will contribute to putting you at the top of a acquisition market. So some of them can be fast due diligence, fast closing, attractive seller financing. You could cover the seller's legal fees for closing. You can retain a seller as a consultant, which is just added revenue for them. You can offer additional upside on growth, profits, even offer next whatever next liquidity event that might occur with the businesses, you can offer an upside on that. The key is to just be creative and open to different selling points or acquisition points.

[31:00] Host: At what point in the process do you learn that it's competitive? Does the broker immediately like Quiet Light immediately tells you you express interest? Quiet Light says, hey, cool, here's the prospectus. Just know that there's a lot of interest in this. Is that what happens?

Guest: You sometimes learn at the beginning? Quiet Light is good at telling you, hey, there's a handful of other buyers, so don't waste their time or get creative on your offer. Sometimes you learn just from the conversations with the seller or subtle hints that they have here and there, like, hey, this point is a sticking point, we're getting it off? I don't know. There's lots of ways ways you can learn that there's competition. They're not going to outright tell the number or the other competing prices. But once you learn that there's some competition, what they're competing on or what the seller's incentive or what the seller's desire is outside of price, you're off to the races on making a competitive offer.

Host: And so when you said that it was really appealing to the seller, that you were going to keep on the team and keep the team on, did you say that? I mean, as we now know, you really wanted that anyway. But expressing that to the seller to differentiate your offer, did quiet, like give you that hint or did you Was it another happy accident?

Guest: And that's actually tip number three. So it was a happy accident. We had a long conversation with the seller that went much deeper than your typical, why are you selling it? What are your sticking points? Or why haven't you sold it? Why have you waited so long to sell it? Because it's a depreciating asset. We went deep and one of the primary questions that worked for us was if you could write the script for this deal, what would you like to have happen? And it's an open end question. It allowed for the seller to ramble for a bit, and we just shut up and listen.

[33:11] Host: That's a great question.

Guest: And he just told us outright that or he got into talking about, like, he's been working on them for years. He's been working with the team for years. And as soon as we heard team, and because our assumption was that because they're dying sites, no one had been working on them for a while. As soon as he said that, a light bulb in our head turned on and we were off to the races, making sure that that was part of the acquisition.

Host: That's really cool. So the question is to the seller, if you could write the script of this acquisition, what would it look like? Do I have that right?

Guest: You got it.

Host: Cool. Sorry, that was a live conversation or a written conversation?

Guest: That was a live conversation.

Host: Okay. Okay. Really cool. All right, great. What else you got?

Guest: Number four is prepare as if an acquisition is inevitable. You've already decided you're going to acquire something, so it's inevitable. So why not prepare as though it's going to happen in two months, three months down the road? Even though it could be six to 12, that preparation takes a couple different forms, but the three I would focus on is human capital. Do you have the team involved? Even if there's going to be a team coming with the business acquisition, you will likely need additional team members. If you know what the business model or the type of site you're looking for, it's likely you'll need writers, you'll need SEO talent, you'll need marketers, you need developers. Get those relationships going early, and so you have them at your disposal and you can call on them whenever you need them.

Host: And is that what happened with you guys? That once you took over the sites, you had some people in place and you turned on the spigot of productivity?

Guest: I wish we had something you did wrong. It was something we did wrong. It's not like we struggled. It's just. I think we could have been off to the races much faster had we anticipated some of the elements that came along with it. And I think with any type of acquisition, you're going to have some forgotten about or missed opportunities. But I think we could have had our ducks in a row a lot faster, especially on the content side. The writers, the two editors and the SEO talent SEO manager had already relationships with dozens of writers globally. And so we were going to count on them to scale up the content as quick as possible. But it's taken about four months, five months to get to 23, 26 writers. And I think we could have done it in half the time had I been more prepared and started three months earlier.

[36:11] Host: With your own team, with your own hires.

Guest: Correct.

Host: Okay, well, I imagine it's tricky because it's kind of like a balls in the air thing. You got this deal going, the deal could fall, fall apart at any time. At the same time, if you're trying to build it, kind of build a team in advance of acquiring, closing on this business, you can't tell them exactly when it's going to happen. You can't pay them yet. So I can imagine that lining up the timing just so is really difficult. In your defense, maybe you didn't screw up too bad because it sounds like a really hard thing to time perfectly.

Guest: Well, the way to get around that though is for content specifically is we typically want to work direct, work directly with the contractor. We don't want to work with agencies, we don't work with consultants that are that, you know, charge an arm and a leg for, you know, thousand word blog post. I think we could have, we could have prepped an agency or prepped a few copywriters, like good copywriters to be like, hey, for the first three months of our acquisition, we're going to Pay, you know, 3x4x5x for your talent just to float us to the point where we have the contractors available, you know, internally. So.

Host: So offer them a premium.

Guest: Yeah, I think we could have offered top copywriter talent a premium to float us for three months while we ramped up to, you know, where we are now with writers.

Host: And in exchange, you're saying to them, like, look, I need you to be kind of on call when this thing closes. I need you to be ready to really work, do a lot for me for three months, and in return, I'll pay you a premium on your current prices.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: Interesting. Cool. Okay. Did you have another one?

Guest: The last one is, I think, a lot of acquisition podcasts. I've Heard talk about this. But building and maintaining a relationship with the seller and the sellers representatives I think is, it can't be understated or overstated. Understated deals fall apart all the time and they're going to come back to you. And maintaining a good working relationship, a friendly and competent and positioning yourself as a reputable buyer is really important, especially if you're going to play the long game with this. If you're going to acquire one business and that's going to be cash flowing, you, you may not be as concerned about your reputation as a buyer, but it's really important because now the buyer's representatives, the brokers are coming to us every week with new opportunities. It's really cool to see what new businesses are available, you know, pre market or pre before they get shown to the public. And a seller wants to stay in touch with you and it's cool to see, it's cool to keep in contact with them and show them what you're doing with their baby, what you're doing with something that they grew from nothing. So yeah, maintain that good working relationship with the seller and the reps of the seller and you're going to be golden for years to come.

[39:31] Host: Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. So how does that work with the brokerages? Because I'm on those lists as well and so I guess there's probably tiers like they get a new deal and they, they reach out to people individually to high likelihood buyers like you, and then there's probably like a, there's concentric circles, then they widen it out a little bit and then the rest of us get the deal by an email blast. Is that how it works?

Guest: I have a feeling, and I don't want to say we're on some premium list and they're going to come to us with every new deal, but I have a feeling that they segment them out based on the type of deal. So we're seen as the affiliate guys or the publishing website business. And so I think we've seen a lot more of those types of deals come our way than we have with the SaaS or FBA businesses. But I mean we still get those too. So I don't think there's very much of a tier or segmentation that they're doing and we're probably seeing the same deal flow as you.

Host: Okay, okay. So they're just segmenting by interest. They know what the investors have bought before what they're interested in and they just show them those deals.

Guest: Right.

Host: Okay.

Guest: The other thing is we have no problem reaching out to Brad at Quietlight now and saying, hey, in six to 12 months we're going to be looking at this type of business or we're going to have enough cash flow to buy another one. Can you keep an eye out and send us stuff you think is going to hit the market early

Host: in closing, is that what you anticipate in another 12 months or so, once you get your feet under you a little bit with these sites, that you'll continue on this path?

Guest: We've talked about launching our own sites. We've talked about acquiring additional ones. Right now we're in growth mode with what we have. So I think over the next at least 6 to 12 months we're going to be focused on these 15. I think I mentioned earlier we're launching a community with RunnerClick called RunnerClick Pro.

Host: Lots to do before you start buying other stuff.

Guest: 15 websites that only monetize via one avenue. I think there's plenty of opportunity with all that. Different avenues there.

Host: Cool, cool. Well, really cool story, Paul. Thanks for coming on and sharing. How can people reach you if they have questions or want to learn more?

[42:07] Guest: I think the best would be Twitter. That's P A Lemley L E M L E Y. That's P A L E M L E Y on Twitter or just search. Paul Lemle I'm probably one of the few Paul Lemley's that's using Twitter. Otherwise Digital Authority Group is the company and we don't really have a website. Runnerclick.com, that's our best property. And so if you're a runner, we'd love to have you, you know, use the site, peruse the site and join our Run or Click Pro community when we launch in a couple months.

Host: Awesome. Cool. Great Paul. Well, thank you very much for doing this and maybe in a year we'll have you back on and talk about how things have gone.

Guest: Happy to. Thanks so much, Will.

Host: Cool. Thank. You.