How George Moulos Began an Online Empire as a Teenager

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Stories of triumph, innovation, and resilience are why we’re so drawn towards entrepreneurship. One such story belongs to George Moulos, an online entrepreneur who has defied the odds and carved a path to unparalleled success. The stories of individuals like George are a testament to the extraordinary heights one can reach when fueled by passion, determination, and a relentless pursuit of entrepreneurial vision. 

Today, at just 25 years old, George runs Ecommerce Brokers (a business he started in his early teens), where he facilitates multi-million dollar exits for clients around the world. You might assume that someone who’s accomplished so much by the age of 25 had some built-in advantages or benefitted from a business foundation laid by previous generations. But that wasn’t the case for George.

From Immigrant Family to Teen Entrepreneur

George grew up near Syndey, Australia, as part of a Greek immigrant family. His grandfather, also named George, left Nazi-occupied Greece at the age of 14 to start a business in Australia. 

The hard-working mentality of his family deeply impacted George. As far back as the family history can be traced, his ancestors survived through manual labor. Motivated by his grandfather’s determination and his own desire to break free from the reliance on manual labor, George started his first online business in 2011 when he was just 13 years old. 

Speaking about his motivation, George said, “I did not want to have to work such grueling hours for the rest of my life. I did not come from money or have great connections, so I knew I had no time to waste. In short, I had urgency from day one.”

Books provided plenty of motivation and got George’s creativity flowing. He started with personal development books, then progressed to biographies of entrepreneurs, and eventually to books about online business.

One of the major obstacles George had to overcome as a teen was the mindset of the people around him. He says, “Greek immigrant culture around the world is conservative, so my family and friends were pessimistic, to say the least, about me pursuing this ‘silly internet stuff,’ let alone not going to college and pursuing it full time. Breaking through societal norms of what constitutes a normal entrepreneurial career and doing it all in spite of the data on success rates and even the opinions of people I respected was the hardest part.” 

As a teenager, George held a variety of jobs, including working at McDonald’s for the equivalent of $5 US per hour. Other jobs involved unloading shipping containers and construction/demolition work. 

But while George was attending school and working those part-time jobs, online business became his true passion. Part of George’s motivation for his online endeavors was to make enough money so he could quit his job at McDonald’s. 

He started by creating Facebook Groups for students and had several that reached tens of thousands of members. George monetized these groups with affiliate marketing, promoting products and services that were relevant to the audience. 

After running the groups for a while, he sold them and moved on to his next venture. George started, grew, and sold several different online businesses as a teen. Some, like the Facebook Groups, were monetized with affiliate marketing, and others sold digital products. In each case, George would run the business for a year or two before selling.

Needless to say, George’s success allowed him to quit his job at McDonald’s.

Laying the Foundation of Ecommerce Brokers

While he was working on his online businesses, George decided to use the knowledge and experience he’d gained to start a marketing agency, Moulos Media. This venture, also started when he was just 13, allowed George to help clients grow their own businesses. 

Many of George’s clients ran e-commerce businesses, and several asked for his help with selling their businesses. Since George had experience selling his own businesses, this became a natural extension of his services.

Early on, George was selling businesses worth $1,000 – $10,000. But before long, he sold $50,000 businesses, then $100,000, then $1,000,000, and the size of the average deal kept growing.

With a professional network that had rapidly expanded, the brokerage accounted for most of Moulos Media’s revenue. At that time, George decided to devote all of his efforts to growing the brokerage aspect, and that part of the business was rebranded as Ecommerce Brokers. 

Growing Ecommerce Brokers

Today, Ecommerce Brokers is a global M&A advisor for e-commerce, Amazon FBA, content, and SaaS businesses. Their listings typically have six, seven, or eight-figure valuations, with some exceeding $50,000,000. Over the past 11+ years, George and his team have brokered more than 500 exits. 

In addition to helping online business owners achieve a life-changing exit, Ecommerce Brokers also offers buy-side services. They assist investors looking to purchase an online business by sourcing deals that meet the investor’s criteria. Ecommerce Brokers then negotiates on the client’s behalf while advising throughout the process. 

In 2021, George Moulos’s incredible accomplishments were recognized when Forbes named him as one of Greece’s top 30 entrepreneurs under 30 (George was 22 years old at the time).

Of course, receiving this prestigious honor meant a lot to George. He points out that young entrepreneurs don’t get the same types of validation as students, in terms of acing a test or getting a pat on the back for good work. He said, “Winning in entrepreneurship is making rent payments and getting employees paid on time. So when I first got some outside recognition, it felt validating that I was doing something right.”

Giving Back 

In addition to running an international brokerage that’s growing very quickly, George is deeply driven by helping and encouraging other young entrepreneurs. He frequently speaks at universities throughout Greece, Cyprus, and now the whole of Europe

George notes that these countries do not have a culture of entrepreneurship, and he wants to encourage young people to start businesses. He said, “I wanted to serve as a young and real example that there are no excuses for our generation. If you have access to a computer and the internet, you can make waves in this world. Don’t come from money? Don’t have great connections? Doesn’t matter. The internet is the great equalizer, and it’s a bloody beautiful thing!” 

Looking Ahead

What George Moulos has accomplished by the age of 25 is nothing short of amazing. But his goals and ambitions still leave plenty of room for additional growth.

When I asked George what motivates him today, he said, “I love the game. When we have a client successfully buy a business at a significantly discounted price and on great terms that we negotiated for them, or when we sell a business far above the average multiple in the industry and they give us glowing testimonials, that’s what winning is for me. I’m highly competitive, and when my team can achieve this for clients, I know we are winning. After we get these testimonials, we sign off on the final docs and then get paid, and it just feels like a cherry on top rather than the whole reason we do it.”

That love of the game and desire to help clients has George setting his sights on making a major impact within the industry. He said, “I will build Ecommerce Brokers to be the #1 online business brokerage by quality and by number of multi-million dollar deals done. Then, I will utterly disrupt the offline business brokering world and be the authority figure and dominant brokerage in terms of quality and number of multi-million dollar deals done. I want any human who wants to sell their business, offline or online, in North America to first think of George Moulos.”

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