This week on the Digital Velocity Podcast, Sophie Howard of Aspiring Entrepreneurs joins Erik and Tim to discuss how financial freedom can be achieved through purchasing online businesses.
Two basic ways exist to satisfy an entrepreneurial spirit and become financially free. One way is to build a business from the ground up. Sophie explains,
“There’s something maybe more pure about DIYing it the whole way, that blood, sweat, and tears of the certainly isn’t weeks, it’s months or years to build a successful business. And that’s when everything goes right. And then the chances of success, you know, are probably sub 10% on average…but certainly, you’ve got to be thinking so hard and be willing to risk a lot of capital and time in what could be dead ends with building a business. So, being a sort of pure entrepreneur, doing everything from the very beginning has higher risk, higher effort, higher cost, and a real lag until there’s any income.”
Another way to gain entrepreneurial and economic success is by buying existing businesses. Sophie says,
“Whereas buying a business, the challenges are you’ve got to take this big leap of faith because you spend all that money on day one. Well, actually you don’t, but you look at the deal and you see its value on the day that you buy it. You usually have a payment plan and you’re not paying it all upfront, but it’s leaping into the deep end, but then you get the cash flow instantly. You don’t have to do the trial and error in the learning yourself. You have some more certainty basically.”
While either innovative approach comes with highs and lows, buying an online business comes with less risk, worry, work, and profitability. Sophie says,
“So, the build-it-yourself entrepreneur model is really fun and it’s a wild ride, but it’s definitely a rollercoaster with a few crashes along the way. And buying a business with some really good criteria feels to me a lot less stressful, a lot less hard work. It comes with a lot more just ease and speed buying a ready-built product or service that you own if your goal of building a business was to be financially free and have a new income stream. But I think buying a business might be a better way for most people because it’s fast and easy. A lot of it’s de-risked. It’s also a smart way to park up money if you’re an investor as well. It’s a really attractive asset class.”
Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about how buying online businesses can lead to financial independence.
About the Guest:
Since the 2020 lockdowns started, Sophie has been investing in online businesses and bought 28 digital assets in the past 18 months. As well as teaching Kindle publishing, Sophie is also taking on students who are interested in investing in online businesses as a fast way to build a portfolio of profitable income-generating online businesses (not Crypto or NFTS).
In 2014, while on maternity leave, Sophie realized she didn’t want to return to full-time work. The ardent desire to stay at home to care for her now-expanded family led Sophie to explore home-based business options.
With the popularity of internet businesses on the rise, Sophie enrolled in a costly Amazon Private Label Selling course. Whilst the course offered solid information to get her business off the ground, the advice was to start by procuring inexpensive, popular items from China.
Something about this didn’t feel right and so instead of following the trend, Sophie sourced and invested in a handmade product from Nepal. Her gamble paid off and through strategic branding efforts and leveraging the skills she gleaned from her time in the workforce, Sophie sold $1M in products during her first year in business.
After the success of her first product, Sophie went on to launch 400 items and sold her first account for a seven-figures. Over the next 2 years, she established and scaled multiple Amazon businesses. She founded and sold an organic tea business, Higher Tea for multiple six-figures USD.
In 2016, Sophie founded Sell Global, a company that aims to help exporters increase revenue and sell premium products online through their done-for-you service.
In the same year, Sophie became a finalist in the Wellington Gold Awards for Emerging Exporter of the Year.
With her success in building and scaling product-based businesses online, Sophie now leverages the experience she has gained in building multiple 7-figure Amazon businesses to deliver coaching to those wanting to launch their international business along with a membership-based Product University.
Sophie is also a frequent speaker traveling around Australia, UK, and USA and has delivered conference presentations at numerous events including the eCom Convert in Singapore, Pixel Mastery Live in Los Angeles and Global Sources Summit in Hong Kong.