Episode 7 – Coran Woodmass – Starting a business based on your calling
In this week’s episode, I sit down for a chat with Coran Woodmass. Like me, Coran grew up in Australia before leaving it all behind for the location independent life. He’s recently relocated to Austin, Texas in order to grow his boutique mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, The FBA Broker.
During the interview, we discuss a number of topics including how Coran found his passion for acquisitions and his goal to “get a piece of a billion dollar transaction” that he’s been working towards over the last few years.
Sites and Resources Mentioned:
The FBA Broker
Truth About Exits Podcast
Kevin’s Episode on Truth About Exits
The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth by James Altucher
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
I Love Capitalism! by Ken Langone
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
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Transcript
Kevin Graham: Hey guys, Kevin Graham here. Today on the podcast I have my good friend, Coran Woodmass. Coran and I have known each other since 2014, when we first met in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We've hung out in the number of cities around the world, including most recently in Austin, Texas.
Kevin Graham: Please welcome to the podcast, Coran Woodmass.
Coran Woodmass: Hey, Kev. Thanks for having me.
Kevin Graham: Great to have you on the show, and it's kind of nice to be in the host seat this time instead of the guest seat. For the listeners who might not know about you and your current business, can you give us a brief rundown on who you are and what your company does today?
Coran Woodmass: Sure. So my name's Coran Woodmass, Founder and Managing Partner of The FBA Broker. We are a eCommerce MNA firm, a business brokerage that focuses exclusively on eCommerce and Amazon-based businesses. So, I'm Australian as well, as you may or may not be able to tell. We've been doing this business since mid 2016.
Kevin Graham: Right. Before that there were some other ventures. I remember when I first met you, you're working on similar stuff to us with a portfolio of websites that were earning advertising income. Then there was an interim period there where you are actually a FBA seller yourself. So, can you tell me a bit more about how you got started in your entrepreneurial journey?
Coran Woodmass: Yeah, sure. So, about six years ago now, I was working in a cubicle in Brisbane, Australia, and I was working in digital marketing at the time. I was listening to podcasts while pretending to work, and one of our mutual friends, Dan Andrews, had a podcast back then called Lifestyle Business Podcast. I really loved the show, and all I was thinking about all day while I was doing my incredibly boring, sometimes interesting, job, was how to actually travel the world and build a business to support that.
Coran Woodmass: So, my wife and I had saved up, had a decent chunk of cash, to set us up. Now our initial plan was to go travel the world for a year and see if we liked it, and we definitely did. So, it took me all of two weeks to go from being on holiday for a month minimum, to actually starting my next venture. I started looking at starting building eCommerce businesses through some training courses that were online, while we were midway through our trip through Vietnam.
Coran Woodmass: So that's where I kind of started. A guy I met, at the same hotel I was learning about eComm, was running an eCommerce business in the UK. That just happened to be our next stop. So I went and met with him, started consulting on his larger eCommerce business. Also at the same time, I started looking at ways to, first off, to stay in the UK longer, because I was too old for a work visa. So I started looking at business acquisitions and buying and selling businesses, specifically.
Coran Woodmass: At the time, I was looking at brick and mortar businesses in the UK. Through some research, a ton of research, because that's all I was doing, I stumbled across buying online businesses. So, like I mentioned, affiliate advertising-based websites, and I also built an eCommerce business from scratch, which we ended up later selling. So, we had a buy and build strategy, it was supposed to be buy, build and sell. It was a buy and build strategy, and then a build from scratch strategy.
Coran Woodmass: So, that's pretty much when I first met you, we had that portfolio going, we got hit by Google update on a lot of those deals that we'd acquired, so that stung a little bit. But fortunately, we'd built the eCommerce business to a point where we could sell it. All through this time, I just wanted to see more and more deals. I started getting addicted to doing deals and looking at businesses for sale, and finding deals, and understanding how it deals with valued.
Coran Woodmass: So essentially, I started as a broker almost for free, where people would ask me to take a look at a deal they were looking at and buy me lunch or something like that. In the beginning, I was doing it for fun, and then I saw a real need in the market for experience in the space, and a lot of people were looking to buy online assets. So that's basically where I started the brokerage side. I started working for another brokerage for a short time, and then saw the buyer demand in Amazon-based businesses, because eCommerce, with real physical products, appeals to a wider audience than just a affiliate site.
Coran Woodmass: So, one of the first deals I worked on actually was acquired by a grandmother in Florida. So she was actually first time seller on Amazon, but she was a really sharp business person and she just got it. She loved the product, she also could see how she could sell that direct to her friends, and that's what really opened my eyes to this space being a thing.
Coran Woodmass: Then fast forward three years of being in the FBA space specifically, the market has grown exponentially. So, we got in at a really good time. I saw the trend, got in front of it. I always expected to be in more verticals by now, but we've been too busy with this one, so it's worked out pretty well.
Kevin Graham: Yeah, there's a couple of points in your story there that very much tie up with mine as well. Firstly, where you mentioned only being a couple of weeks into this big holiday before you just had this desire to start working on your next business. This is the same thing I've done so many times, as well as that keen interest in that MNA space. Which as we spoke about on your podcast, I did a bunch of acquisitions over the previous 12 months in the web hosting industry, and I really enjoyed nerding out about all those deals that were coming through at that point.
Kevin Graham: So yeah, definitely a lot of parallels there for sure. So you mentioned that it was 2016 that you started your current company, The FBA Broker. What led you to decide to start the company?
Coran Woodmass: I guess I never really worked well as a employee. I've always kind of done that to get from A to B, not been a career employee. So I think you either are or you aren't, an employee. So always wanted to do my own thing, just didn't know what I wa