Inside the Marketplace: How Empire Flippers Screens Listings, Matches Buyers, and Closes Online Business Deals

Inside the Marketplace: How Empire Flippers Screens Listings, Matches Buyers, and Closes Online Business Deals

From Before You Buy or Sell a Business by Jared W. Johnson

December 16, 2025 · 42 min · Episode 59

About this episode

Jared Johnson interviews Andy Allaway about how Empire Flippers operates as a marketplace for buying and selling online businesses.

Jared Johnson sits down with Andy Allaway, CEO of Empire Flippers, one of the largest marketplaces for buying and selling online businesses. Andy shares how the company built a global platform that lists only 5 percent of submitted businesses, vets every seller, verifies every buyer, and has facilitated thousands of acquisitions ranging from high five figure deals to eight figure exits. Andy explains why the online business market has matured significantly in the last decade, how valuation expectations shifted after the zero interest rate era, and why today’s buyers are far more sophisticated in due diligence. He breaks down Empire Flippers' internal valuation methodology, their strict criteria for accepting a listing, and how their engineering and sales teams use technology and human oversight to efficiently match buyers to opportunities. Jared and Andy walk through what is actually happening behind the scenes of a digital marketplace. They discuss creative deal structures, the rise of SBA financing for online businesses, the normalization of quality of earnings reports, buyer behavior trends, the impact of AI on different business models, and why co brokering high quality…

People in this episode

Host: Jared Johnson

Guest: Andy Allaway

Topics covered

  • online business marketplace
  • business acquisition
  • due diligence
  • valuation methodology
  • SBA financing
  • AI impact on business

Keywords

  • Empire Flippers
  • business listings
  • buyer behavior
  • creative deal structures
  • quality of earnings reports
  • e-commerce acquisitions
  • AI in business

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Empire Flippers

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