The online business due diligence checklist

Verify revenue at its source: connect to the payment processor, the ad network, the store dashboard — never trust a screenshot. Reconcile the claimed profit against those figures over the trailing twelve months, and confirm the trend is stable rather than a spike being sold at the top.

Interrogate the add-backs one by one: an expense added back to inflate SDE that the business actually needs is real profit the buyer will lose. Separate the owner’s genuine pay from costs the business cannot run without.

Find the single point of failure. How much of the traffic comes from one keyword, one platform, or one referral source? How much of the revenue from one customer, one product, or one advertiser? A business that gets 80% of its visits from one Google query is one algorithm update away from zero, whatever its history says.

Check the durability of the top channels: are the rankings, the ad account, or the marketplace listing something the buyer keeps on transfer, or something tied to the seller?

Price the owner out. What does the seller personally do each week, and what will the buyer have to replace — a skill, a relationship, hours of work? A business that runs on documented systems is worth more and safer than one that runs on the founder’s head.

Confirm the tools, suppliers and team transfer: software subscriptions, supplier terms, freelancers or staff, and any content or code the business depends on.

Confirm the seller actually owns and can transfer every asset: the domain, the code, the trademarks, the accounts, the content. Check for anything that would not survive the sale — a licence in the seller’s name, a platform account that cannot be transferred, undisclosed liabilities.

When the figures and the story hold up, protect the transaction: agree terms in writing, use an escrow service so money and assets change hands together, and release funds only once the assets are verified in your control.