How Jon Payne Scored Two 7-Figure Exits with SEO and Amazon FBA

Early SEO Hustle Becomes a Full-Time Agency

Jon Payne started playing with HTML in college and majored in Business/Marketing with a focus on E-Business. After internships, he picked up small web design and maintenance gigs for rent money. Cold emails got him one local non-profit at $780/month, and SEO propelled the rest. He learned to rank his site and landed clients across the country without meeting them. By year two, every new lead came from search and referrals, so he never had to chase prospects again.

Scaling to 15 Staff and Selling His Agency

Over a decade Jon grew Ephricon to 15 team members, handling web builds, SEO and strategy. Burnout hit after Google’s Panda and Penguin shook the industry. He worked long hours with two kids at home. A broker valuation kicked off talks, but the actual buyer came from a lucky click on a competitor’s “acquisitions” page. Straight North moved fast, and a low-seven-figure LOI was signed within weeks. Due diligence took about 60 days, and Jon stayed on for a year to integrate teams. He walked away with enough to fund college tuitions and secure investments.

Pivot to Amazon FBA and a $5M Exit

Post-sale, a lunch chat revealed Amazon as a search engine with built-in buyers. Jon learned the “999 trick” to estimate daily sales and tracked hundreds of SKUs manually in spreadsheets. His first product launched in early 2015. Over seven years he built three brands—Wardrobe Hackers, Candleology and a third niche line—expanding to Canada and the UK. By 2022 annual revenue hit $5 million. He emailed several aggregators, reconnected when numbers recovered post-COVID slump, and closed another low-seven-figure deal just as funding began drying up.

Why SEO and E-Commerce Matter Today

Jon still runs Vocational Media, helping brands grow on Amazon through SEO and PPC. He sticks to Amazon as his sales channel—diversifying across products and markets rather than platforms. He left niche content sites behind after the Helpful Content update wiped out deals. His view: e-commerce makes money for Amazon, content sites siphon ad revenue from Google. Today he spends time as a fractional CMO for Viking Mergers & Acquisitions, advising other owners how to sell, while guiding Illuminated Goods’ product road map.