My $30k Exit Story (from an digital course)

Sharing one of my proudest business moments to kick off my very first IH post!

About this time last Spring, I sold my majority ownership of one of my digital assets (a digital course + membership community) to my smart, funny cool partner (Hey, G!!) for $30,000.00 ($25k for the asset itself and $5k to coach her through the first 90 days of the transition).

It was a 2.5 yo asset that has been averaging about $65k/yr TTM with solid profitability for as small as it is. I think over time I've collect about $15k-ish from it as owner draws on profit. There were originally 3 partners, but one asked to be bought out last year and I snapped up her ownership shares (about $12k at the time) so I could get a bigger payout when I was ready to walk away.

I'd built another asset (digital course) back in 2018 but didn't do much of the work to validate, sell or iterate on it (sold that one too! albeit for much less).

This time around my co-founders and I worked through SOOO much and learned so much about building an asset with the intent to scale it to multi-six figures. Finding a fit in the market was ROUGH. And took us at least 2 intensive iterations. We also struggled with building such a small asset with so many cooks in the kitchen with different visions for what this could be.

That said, we actually accomplished a great deal ($100k in the first 12 months, over 200 students served) in a really short amount of time. There is so much we (I) know now about pricing, preparing and positioning a business for both scaling and sale (that we learned by both winning and eff'ing some things up big time).

Before I sold my ownership, we had already begun shopping the asset around on a popular business buy/sell marketplace (Flippa ftw!) and had several conversations but none o1f them we were excited about. (This part could be a whole post in and of itself!)

I got a lot out of prepping it for sale and having these conversations. It's fascinating puling together info and sharing things like:

• Historical sales breakdown
• Detailing the assets for sale (not just the course but the email list, the website, domains and loads of content)
• Operational history
• The product suite, tech stack and vendors we chose
• The patterns of our buyers
• And near and long term opportunities we see.

All in a succinct way. It was also a learning experience fielding questions for our decisions and learning what buyers are looking for in an asset.

##Some numbers I've reflected on:

Over about 24 months this asset paid me $45k for about 15 hrs a month (max) alongside my income from my main coaching business. It was a solid stream of supplemental income for me. 🎉🎉🎉🎉

I'm sharing this to A, celebrate and B, normalized not just ending projects but being able to sell them when it's time to move on.

I really believe that "Business" is an asset class and this was one of the first times I rode this investment vehicle to a single payout this large. Even small exits (I'm considering anything under $100,000 sale "small") are valuable for the learning (and let's be real honest) and the income. People want to buy them. And I plan on prioritizing my building accordingly.

Part of my vision for my work and life entails keeping a small portfolio of businesses (2-3) that I maintain and sell when I want to/need to. The very first asset I sold around 2018/19 was 5k, this one is for 30k. Can't wait to see what the next asset I sell will result in!