Featured Listing: 4+ Year-Old Content Business in Home Sports & Entertainment with Bespoke Partnerships

About the business

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

We are Louis, Tom, and Jonny. We are from the UK and we all work at tech startups. Tom and Louis work on the commercial side, and Jonny on the tech side. Four years ago we came together to create Mancaves HQ to help our readers kit out their man caves with the best products on the market across categories such as pool tables, table tennis tables, table football, and darts.

As an eCommerce business, where are your products made?

We are an affiliate site so we do not sell products directly. We link out to partners’ sites and make commissions on sales.

What can you tell us about your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

We do not track CLV as this is not a repeat purchase business model. CAC is effectively zero as all traffic is organic, coming primarily through organic Google searches. Our only significant cost is the upfront cost of paying freelance writers to produce content.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

The vast majority of our traffic is organic SEO. We don’t do any paid marketing, hence why our margins are so high. Customers typically land directly on a blog post based on their Google search. We reach customers across a number of English-speaking countries, predominantly in the UK and US.

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

Yes, it is owned and operated by the 3 owners. Tom and Louis run business operations, and Jonny built and manages the website. The business can and does run passively, so the time commitment is based on how much time we choose to invest in growing it. We spend an average of 1-2 hours a week each on the asset on tasks such as:
Writing briefs for new articles and sending them to selected online writers.
Updating the content and the affiliate links of existing articles.
Researching new content and category opportunities.
Analyzing performance and data.
Liaising with partners.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

See the previous answer:
Writing briefs for new articles and sending them to selected online writers.
Updating the content and the affiliate links of existing articles.
Researching new content and category opportunities.
Analyzing performance and data.
Liaising with partners.

Additionally, maintaining the website.

Growing the business

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

Add more content on the website in existing and new categories – in particular informational content.
Monetize the sites with ads e.g. Ezoic.
Negotiate higher commissions with existing partners.
Build out backlinks and guest posts.
Leverage the US traffic.
Launch new affiliate sites in other niches on the tech stack.
Optimize existing content in light of recent Google updates regarding product review sites.
Build an email list.
Dropshipping / FBA.

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

When we initially launched 4 years ago, we wrote a number of pieces of content to test the waters and give them time to rank on Google. During lockdown in 2020, we received a boost in traffic as people were looking for home entertainment products, and we took advantage of this boost by redesigning our site, building relationships with partners, and writing a lot of quality content in new categories. This led to significant growth in traffic and revenue over the following year, and we have continued to maintain the site since then.

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

100% of our revenue is from affiliate commissions via AWIN, Amazon Associates (UK & US), ShareASale & Impact.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Organic SEO – Google.

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

See the previous answer. All traffic is organic, the vast majority from organic SEO. There are no direct marketing costs except the upfront cost of writing the content.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

The team comprises the 3 owners. As mentioned, our time input averages 1-2 hours per week each, but this is flexible and the business can operate passively for extended periods of time.

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

We have other side businesses and we all work full time in demanding jobs, so we are looking to pass the website on to someone who can give it the care and attention it deserves in order to fulfil its potential. We’ll be sorry to see Mancaves HQ go but it feels like the right time!