The Opportunity 

A industry defining opportunity to acquire a 75% share (7.5M of 10M valuation) in a proven media business with substantial assets that is poised to grow significantly post purchase. Owner retains equity and plans to stay on board in product development - he recently exited a app he founded with 60M downloads (in a similar niche) so he has the track record to back up the opportunity.

General Highlights

• Growing media empire with over 7.5M users in 2022 (with over 135M pageviews at a eye watering .39% bounce rate) 

• 7 year old business just redeveloped into simple model (Now doing 100k+ sales/month with just part time team members and owner)

• Proprietary algorithm that is “patent pending” (developed in partnership with Amazon AWS - they are writing a white paper about it)

• 6M brand domain and potentially millions more were invested into software to make it very automated (it’s poised to become a 100M+ company in a short period).

• True short term path to exceed valuation (with owner staying board to ensure it happens - he made a similar app with 60M downloads and he plans to make this bigger)

Niche

This business is a future media behemoth which operates multiple angles within its respected niche of .’nature’. The niche of the business is in the nature identification sphere as well as the social media sphere as it relates to being ‘earth-positive’ and being environmentally conscious. In this, it operates with a website (that is a traffic funnel through SEO and Google) as well as with Google and IOS apps with a different name (but are connected via the central brand.

All the software is targeted to helping consumers learn more about the world around them (the website through general encyclopedia-like information while the app is more interactive in its SaaS identification product) but there is a large social component in both platforms that allows for community identification and commenting to create a way for people to find and connect with like minded individuals who care or are curious about the environment. 

The App business model operates as a SaaS while the website operates as a digital media platform although there are affiliate components as well -together the business has a diverisiefed approach to allow for many expansion opportunities long term as the website acts as a encyclopedia, nature guide, news paper, store, social media platform, and more! 

Customer Base

As of 1/4/23, there have been over 35,820,201 people who have visited the website. Most of them are from the US (or another English speaking place) and they usually come to the website to view its environmental database as well as see current news articles and other content produced or distributed by the website. Once they come onto the website, they subsequently become paying customers by viewing or clicking advertisements, either display or affiliate through product sale referrals.

The clients of the App business download the mobile app and can get help in identifying things and species. By paying $14,99/year, they can upgrade their app to get better features. 

Website Traffic Breakdown

In 2022, the business had:

1. Had 7,380,998 users who produced 137,473,246 pageviews

2. Visitors averaged 15.39 pageviews/session and unheard of 0.39% bounce rate, showing these visitors are very high quality.

3. 71% of visitors are from USA and over 84% of the visitors viewed the site in English.

4. 55.68% of visitors used Android to view the website while 26.60% used IOS. Only about 18% of visitors used their computer to view the website, showing that the website performs very well in the mobile world.

5. Of the visitors in 2022, 1,474,995 came from organic search, 1,091,650 came from social media, 433,369 from referrals, 678,291 came direct, only 52,116 came from paid search, while 3,325,769 came from Facebook.

Revenue Sources

The business makes money via:

Web platform

1. Display Advertisements (Using 14 SSPs, 2 DSPs, and 4 ad networks)

2. Product Sales via Affiliating (Amazon Affiliates, etc.)

Freemium App Business

1. Display Advertisements (Using 14 SSPs, 2 DSPs, and 4 ad networks)

2. $14.99/year Subscription to:

   1. Access unlimited snaps,

   2. Identify 100,000 plants and animals

   3. View all other photos from around the world.

   4. Access better features of social media platform

   5. Get a tree planted in your name.

   6. Remove Ads

Financials

The owner put this business on the backburner while their old startup exploded from 2016-2020. During this time, revenue fluctuated and grew and declined. Then in 2021, the website was completely rebuilt and massively upgraded. Then in 2022, the site was launched and later in the year, the native app was launched. These both are in their infancy but still have significant revenue. In the future, they are expected to increase significantly. 

Sales (USD)

2016 - $28,626

2017 - $273,096

2018 - $333,109

2019 - $673,272

2020 - $617,660

2021 - $480,278

2022 - $990,215

Profit in SDE format (USD)

2016 - $17,824

2017 - $84,623

2018 - ($359,072)

2019 - $7,134

2020 - $455,449

2021 - ($1,119,918)

2022 -  $21,781

Operations

The business operates through content creation and distribution through the software. This system has been in place for about 7 years. During these years the website was on cruise control while the owner spent their team scaling their main business to 60M app downloads - during this time, this website had to cut way back on the content creation. During the past year since the owner moved full-time to this business, they’e rebuilt the entire website in ReactJS and boosted content creation. We also published a new Plant and Animal Encyclopedia with roughly 6 million pages…one page for every plant and animal on earth with a description and image. These pages have not yet been fully indexed by Google because they just went live on the website in October. The scientific name of a few species doesn’t get a ton of google searches. However, when you add up the monthly searches for 6 million species of animals, the Google searches is in the tens of millions/month. Thanks to the high domain authority of the high value domain name (which was bought for 6M), the business will have no competition for those species-name searches, and should rank at the top of the results page for 95% of those searches when the Encyclopedias are all properly indexed and SEO-optimized.

Recent Software Overhaul Redevelopment 

The business was launched in 2016 but only really got a ton of attention from owner in 2022 after he exited his startup and he started spending time redeveloping the business. Rebuilding of the website entailed building roughly 6 million pages of content from php/html into ReactJS to make the website faster for the introduction of Google’s Core Web Vitals, which is imperative for SEO. 

The rebuilt site was launched in February 2022 WITHOUT the encyclopedia, then the Encyclopedia was fully launched in late September 2022. The app was launched in August 2022, but we only began ASO optimization in December 2022. We used Q4 for debugging and building new features into the app.

 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9205520?hl=en

 As you can see by the attached screenshot, the average ranking position has increased from 31.5 to 12.1 in the past 12 months. Our SEO performance and organic search traffic improves weekly and will continue to do so over time as the 6 million new pages of Earth Species content are indexed (the Encyclopedia was launched in late September, and it normally takes 4-6 months for Google to index and display results for new pages, particularly a massive set of new content like our Encyclopedia). 

Searching for the scientific name of one species doesn’t have high traffic search volume during any month. However, there are tens of millions of searches/month when you include all 6 million species of life on earth. With the domain authority of of the domain is currently at 72 so it will beat out any other website with this type of content when the new encyclopedia part of the website is fully indexed.

The app part of the business was only built in the last 18 months (as of 1/4/23), along with the chatting/sharing feature, the new social media platform. Both the app and the website share the 6 million pages of “Species Encyclopedia” content and the social platform.

So in the past 18 months, the web platform has transformed from a basic website into a massive 7-million-page media website, a ground-breaking mobile app in both Android and iOS, and a social media platform that lives inside both the app and the website. It has evolved from a cool website into a multi-platform Digital Media ecosystem. 

Team

The owner operates the business primarily himself but he has a team of part time people to manage development, content production, and a few other things.  Among these people is a chief editor and 3 writers who are on 1099 directly with the business. Chrissy, our editor, also uses writers from Upwork. We publish about 8-12 current event articles every day. We also have two more 1099 writers who create 3-5 long-form, evergreen content per month for the encyclopedia section of the website.

Marketing

Marketing is broken down into 4 parts: Paid marketing for web, paid marketing for app, SEO for web, and ASO for the app. 

For the recent launch of the app, the owner spent about $125,000 on marketing in the App and Google store in September and October and the business received around 210,000 installs, so the combination of direct UA-marketing and word-of-mouth branding that accompanies that marketing gave us an overall eCPI of under $1 per install. More ad spend went to iOS than Android as Android installs are cheaper than iOS installs and also easier to get due to the iOS 14 tracking prohibition rule change. The most important part of the app is the social platform because it turns what would be a basic utility app that a person uses maybe 1-2 times per month into a Lifestyle app that a person will use 1-3 times per WEEK. 

For the relaunch of the website this last year, the owner utilized Facebook Ads and Google Ads for arbitrage marketing for the business's image gallery pages. The galleries have about 30-50 images in each gallery, so the user clicks through to see most of the images in each gallery, which results in a LOT of pageviews. The owner doesn’t have the funds to spend on this right now but it earns a 25%/day profit spending up to $2500/day. This is built into the financial model.
For SEO, the page rank data is publicly available and summaries are highlighted in this listing and can be provided via Google Analytics (for accredited buyers). For ASO on the app, this has been a key focus (as the owner is a expert) = screenshots attached show huge increase in keyword rankings.

Partners

The App is built on technology from AWS called SageMaker. AWS engineers helped the owner build it. The customized tech behind the machine learning model is revolutionary and the business has a 92-page patent pending. Other partners of the business include the app that the founder started (which has 60M downloads) = the owner used to advertise the old app on this website in exchange for a fix fee (now the business advertises its own app). The other partner the business has is the company that manages the software of the website and who was a key partner in developing the AI behind the business. The owner also has direct relationships with 14 SSPs, 2 DSPs, and 4 ad networks. They use Google Ad Manager for ad serving in the app and on the website, and do have accounts with Google AdX and Google AdSense.

Main Expenses

The main expense categories for the business include:

1. Contract Labor for Content - the company uses a team of 4 contractors to produce content and they also buy content from other sources periodically.

2. Web/App Development - the company outsources development to a company that does it.

3. Web Hosting and AWS - the structure behind the website has hosting expenses.

4. Marketing/Advertising - the owner has spent a lot of money on advertisements on Google and Apple to boost website traffic and app downloads.

Work and Skills Required

The owner currently works 80 hours a week and expects to continue to keep working those 80 hours to help the new owner achieve additional growth. They do basically everything besides writing content and coding as the team is very efficient. Here is a non-exclusive list of things they do

1. Coordinate web/IOS development

2. Manage software and billing accounts

3. Respond to some customer inquiries

4. Owner chooses what articles for the writers to publish on website

5. Website and app development meetings every week.

6. Business development meetings every day

7. Managing all advertising relationships

8. Managing the ad campaigns and all marketing efforts

9. Handle all vendor/client relationships

10. Handle customer support issues

11. Overall, he does the work of a CEO/COO/CMO/CRO

Who is the ideal buyer for this business?

Many potential types of buyers that want a business acquisition without the normal transfer risk - as the current owner is staying on with the new buyer (with equity and commitment), there is a more turn-key opportunity to scale this business. 

Given large amounts of cash at play, the likely target would be a targeted boutique PE fund run by a small but effective team but an entrepreneur who just exited their company and is looking for their next big opportunity would also make a great acquirer for this business.

A strategic buyer who is already in the nature/AI space would make a key partner to help increase distribution of the software/community.

What  post sale support is included with the sale?

The owner is staying full time post sale to grow the company with the acquirer. The plan to work the same amount of hours they’ve been working on the business post-sale = 80 hours. The only thing to note is that they would expect some sort of salary to keep working the same amount of hours.

App Analysis

Of the 210,000 current App downloads, Google is about 60% and iOS is about 40% right now. With no marketing, we do about 750 new installs per day. The owner just started doing ASO (App Store Optimization), which is like SEO but for apps. For healthy app growth, it’s imperative to use ASO in combination with User Acquisition campaigns. After one full month of ASO work, The owner will begin UA campaigns again later in January.

Large investment has went into App Store Optimization (ASO) and from 12/22/22 to 1/5/23, the store rank on top keywords improved dramatically leaving the app up 2,500+ spots! Now the website ranks in the top 10 for 9 of its top keywords and so by the time the spring comes, the app is poised to get a lot of App searches.

Valuation

The business made over $1M in revenue for 2022 and is projected to grow to $2M+ in 2023. A 4.5X multiple of the 2M cash flows combined with 6M asset of the domain in question would equate to the conservative valuation of 15M USD, not even accounting for value of having the very successful entrepreneur stay on board incentivized. The business still owes 5M in payments on the domain so the net valuation would be about 10M. Since the money you pay for this business goes into paying off the business debt, the true effective price of the business is 5M plus assuming 5M in debt (maybe even a smaller effective price considering that another 1.1M in funds is going to pay off past investors).

Use of Funds

5M of the funds will be used to pay off the domain while another 1.2M will be used to pay off the business’s previous investors so that the owner will only net about 1.3M and will have a clear balance sheet and the only owners will be the current owner and the new acquirer.  This backs up the owner’s reason for sale is to get funds to really scale the business in the media empire it could become - this is not the exit for them but the start of the business really growing.

Social Media Breakdown

Facebook: 19,900 followers

Twitter: 5,352 Followers

Instagram: 7,927 Followers

Pinterest: 4,900 followers

SEO Analysis

The website got 192M impressions via Google in 2022, resulting in over 1.19M clicks (and a average search position of 20.1)..

The following data has come about from Ahrefs.com and SEMRush:

Authority Score: 71

Backlinks: 76,000

Referring Domains: 13,000

Global Rank: 123,676

Reason for Sale

Owner is a builder but not someone to really scale a company to be massive - needs outside help to make this happen. They’re staying on board so their reason for sale is less important. They have a proven track record and have this business setup turn key - with the right buyer and funds, this business has immense growth potential.

Again, the 75% purchase funds would go to pay off the other owners and the money owed for the domain name. The owner would only like to take a small amount of cash and focus on the equity, as he will be the only remaining owner of stock in the company other than the buyer. They want to play the long game and not cash out.

Expansion Opportunities for New Owner

The new owner will work with the current owner to work through many potential opportunities. Some of these will automatically start to scale in the near future whilst others will take some additional work:

1. Expanding community chat and focusing on social media part.

2. Investing more in partnerships. Old startup had partnership with SnapChat.

3. 4M+ pages of the website haven’t been indexed yet so when they do, traffic is going to significantly increase (less than 1M have been indexed so far and traffic is at 7.4M/year!)

Modeling out the changes and projected increases in visitors, the website is projected to get up to 90M pageviews/month in mid-2023 which will transfer into a estimated 540M ad impressions at 6 ads/page. At the current rate price of $1.25 per 1000 impressions, this would correspond with $675k in monthly revenue. With projected $246.5k in expenses, the website alone would be poised to profit $428.5k a month, coming into over $5M in profit in a pro forma year.

The app is poised to grow to 50,000-1,000,000 paying users a month (paying around 19.99/year) by the end of 2023, resulting in a potential profit of $350k-5M a month 

 At these numbers the valuation is just a mere fraction of the projected profit for 2023/2024. See the attached projections document for more specific details. These numbers are modeled from the owner's experience and are designed to be accurate although optimistic.

Miscellaneous Details

1. The domain was purchased for 6M USD in payment plan form in 2016 and as of 1/1/2023, 5M is owed on it although it’s current worth as an asset could be upwards of 10M+ now. 

2. The owner currently owns 89.22% of the business with 3 other investors who own 10.78%

3. The founder’s old business and this business are not conflicts of interest, legally or morally. In this, the founder’s previous startup’s main competitor is PictureThis, not this app business. PictureThis is the biggest copycat, a Chinese company, and they earned $65 million in revenue last year solely as a plant identification app. There’s no competition between the owner’s old app business and the new app business, as they are different niches = gardeners vs. nature lovers/environmentalists. This app business only has about 50,000 species of plants while their old app business has 400,000. 

___________________________

All Assets Included with Sale 

In vivid detail, describe all the things included with the sale. 

1. Domain Contract (to be fully owned after acquisition)

2. 5,2M+ website pages (and all corresponding data)

3. Proprietary Software (with all pending patents and copyrights)

4. All customer bases (from website and app)

5. Hosting Accounts (on AWS)

6. Monetization Accounts (4 Ad Networks and misc revenue streams)

7. Social Media Accounts (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

8. Work contracts (All 1099 labor contracts for current contractors)

9. Future Sales (What money in bank but not delivered to customer? If any.)

10. All IOS/Google App Accounts (including all revenue, customer info, etc. resulting from it)

11. Partner contracts (all advertising, development, etc. contracts)

12. Misc Accounts (CloudFlare, Google Analytics, and any other account the business has that is needed for it to run)