How I Started and Sold an Ecommerce Business for $250,000

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On January 21, 2011, I was accepted to guest post on one of the most popular blogs on entrepreneurship.  I wrote for Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey, a blog that has been online for a few years now, and has well over 100k subscribers and 15,000+ Twitter followers (for those that are interested in stats).

Yaro asked me to start off with an initial introduction for his readers, and write about what I know, why I know what I know and why should one read what I have to say.  In an attempt to cover my personal entrepreneur’s journey, I wrote an article just under 5,000 words that discussed the variety of ventures I have been involved with.

I start this article with a brief background, and then discuss the various ventures I have been involved with such as stock market investing, real estate, running small brick and mortar businesses, ecommerce business (selling on the internet), niche content websites and corporate consulting.

The article also discusses the genesis of this blog, why I pursued entrepreneurship despite being in a comfortable corporate career that came with a high six figure salary and excellent benefits.  You can read my article here.

My ECommerce Business

The article was very well received by the blog’s readership, and multiple requests came in to discuss my ecommerce business.  So in an effort to dig into the details of this particular venture, I wrote another article on how I came about my idea and how I transformed that idea into a profitable business online.

The article started getting extremely lengthy and I decided to split it in a two part series.  The 2 combined go into the precise details that talk about how the idea of the business came about, how the preliminary research was conducted, how I found my product, how the ecommerce business platform (website, shopping cart, etc) was built, all the hard lessons learned, successes and failures, and finally the exit strategy, which was the quarter million dollar sale of the business to the second largest Power Seller on Ebay back then.

In my experience, the best way to learn has been to learn directly from those that have “been there and done that”.  By sharing my experience in granular detail, I hope you find the information valuable and useful.  And although the discussion is specific to the e-commerce business model, a lot of the underlying principles and lessons learned from my venture can be applied to any business.

You can read part 1 of 2 of my story about how I started, established and sold  a successful ecommerce business (internet retail) for $250,000 here.

UPDATE: Part 2 of the story has been published and can be accessed here.

10 Responses to “How I Started and Sold an Ecommerce Business for $250,000”

1. Gardiennage says:

   February 17, 2011 at 2:11 pm

   I’ve read your post in EJ, very great post!
   Can’t wait more to read the read the next post with the sequel 🙂

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     February 17, 2011 at 3:37 pm

     I am flying in my parents and siblings to visit us for 5 days ! But it’s coming within a week or so. Welcome to the blog and hope to see more of you . . .

     Reply
2. Financial Samurai says:

   February 21, 2011 at 8:52 am

   Hey mate, that’s great stuff about the sale. What tax rate did you end up paying, and what was the net take home of the $250,000 sale if I might ask?

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     February 21, 2011 at 12:13 pm

     By the time it was done the cut was nearly 50%, leaving just over 130k

     Reply
3. Franck @Dressage Canin says:

   July 25, 2011 at 11:24 am

   Yes I’ve read this serie of articles. I really like them.
   They are really inspiring. The only problem today is to find that kind of idea that works. It seems the opportunities are becoming more and more difficult to find.
   What I think is the best idea of STARTING makin money onlive is creating a list of Niche sites (YES, I’ve ready and love all your articles about niche content sites – dubai info site is my prefered one :)). As you said from time to time, a niche site provides passive, but recuring revenue, which is very important there. And if you can create one niche site, you can continue creating more and more, with no limit.
   Thanks again for all the information you share here. It is really fine to see someone talking about his/her experiences.

   Franck

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     July 25, 2011 at 5:10 pm

     Franck – the internet is definitely more saturated today, and while it seems many “ideas” are taken, there are many more that are still available, and newer ones will continue to emerge as we (humanity and the world) evolves. That said, you can still do well in a saturated market, but it definitely takes a lot more to break through as opposed to the easier hay days.

     Reply
4. kamesh says:

   October 7, 2012 at 6:34 am

   Hey I have just visited your website,its cool quite useful to me, hope I find new information or content every day. Keep up the good work and ,maintain the alexa rank

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     October 7, 2012 at 10:33 am

     welcome Kamesh

     Reply
5. ciaran says:

   April 12, 2014 at 5:23 am

   Just discovered your site recently, very cool. Keeps me inspired, looking forward to rocking it!

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     April 21, 2014 at 10:20 am

     welcome to the blog Ciaran

     Reply