EggCartons.com: How Sarah Moore Bought a $50M Business with $0 Down
Sarah Moore was under 30, broke, and her most valuable asset was her RAV4. She had no money, no business experience, and no connections to the egg industry.
She also had audacity.
Moore wanted to buy a business, but she couldn't afford one. So she found EggCartons.com—a company doing millions in revenue—and convinced the owner and a bank to let her buy it with zero dollars of her own money.
Today, EggCartons.com does nearly $50 million in annual revenue.
The Search
Moore spent a year hunting through over 20,000 businesses. She set up her "office" in a university library and hired 50 unpaid interns from Craigslist to help her sift through companies.
The interns weren't even students at her university, so she made fake IDs to get them library access.
She sent cold outreach at scale. One of her tactics: faxing business owners photos of herself wearing a hoodie that said "I want to buy your business."
Eventually, she found EggCartons.com.
The Perfect Domain
EggCartons.com wasn't just a catchy name. It was infrastructure:
- High-intent SEO traffic - Anyone searching "egg cartons" was a potential customer
- 100+ variant domains - The previous owner had secured related domains, creating a moat
- Instant credibility - The domain was the category, making trust automatic
- Digital distribution - No need to find customers; customers found them
The domain ranked well for search terms that drove actual sales. In a niche industry where most companies operated offline or through distributors, EggCartons.com owned the online channel.
The $0 Down Deal
Moore had no money. But she structured a deal that required no personal capital:
- 75% bank debt - After being rejected by 100+ banks, she found one willing to issue an uncollateralized loan
- 25% seller financing - The seller agreed to finance part of the purchase, betting on Moore's ability to run the business
She bought a multi-million dollar business without putting a dollar of her own money in.
Beyond Eggs
When Moore bought the business, she thought she was buying an "egg company."
She was wrong.
Today, 40% of the business comes from products entirely unrelated to eggs. Customers include Boeing, SpaceX, Disney, Madison Square Garden, Crayola, Magnolia Bakery, and EOS.
Moore realized EggCartons.com wasn't about eggs—it was about specialty packaging. The domain gave her the distribution and credibility to expand into any niche that needed custom packaging solutions.
The domain that started as egg cartons became the foundation for a $50M packaging empire.
The Shaan Puri Effect
The only reason most people know this story is because Shaan Puri, co-host of My First Million, came across a blurb about Sarah and sent her a cold email with a Google Doc full of questions.
He turned her responses into one of the best segments in My First Million history. The episode showcased not just the audacity of buying a business with zero down, but the strategic value of owning the exact-match domain in a niche industry.
The Domain as Moat
What makes EggCartons.com special isn't that it's a great domain. It's that the domain is the business.
Without the domain:
- Customers would need to find them through ads or sales
- Competitors could outrank them with better SEO
- Trust would need to be built through branding and reputation
- Expansion into new packaging categories would be harder
With EggCartons.com:
- High-intent search traffic comes directly to them
- The domain creates a defensible SEO moat
- Instant category authority and trust
- Brand flexibility to expand into adjacent markets
Moore didn't just buy a business. She bought the digital distribution channel that made the business possible.
The Zero-Capital Playbook
Moore's story rewrites the rules of business acquisition:
- No money? Use leverage - 75% bank debt, 25% seller financing, 0% personal capital
- No connections? Build a team - 50 Craigslist interns working for free
- No credibility? Outwork everyone - 20,000+ businesses reviewed, 100+ banks contacted
- No brand? Buy the category - EggCartons.com was instant authority
The domain wasn't just part of the acquisition—it was the reason the acquisition worked.
A great domain isn't a URL. It's distribution, trust, and market positioning baked into a single asset.
EggCartons.com gave Moore all three. She turned it into a $50M business without spending a dollar of her own money.
Not bad for someone whose biggest asset was a RAV4.