Making Sites to Sell
Today I announced that I have sold one of my flagship sites for a sum $XX,XXX (sorry I promised the buyer that the exact amount wouldn’t be disclosed). Now when the negotiations were occurring of course I went through the usual thought process of deciding whether or not this was a business model to pursue. I mean is it feasible to create sites just to be sold?
I know of a couple of people who create sites, work them for a short period of time and unload them for a couple thousand dollars. However, in my opinion this is not the smartest strategy to go with if you intend to make money on the web. Why? It’s too much like real estate.
Like Real Estate?
Think about it. You buy a piece of land (domain name) and work the land or fix up the house only to hopefully find someone to buy it later. People who buy up websites do so only to the ones that have a proven track record. If they don’t see the potential of making money in the site then they have no interest in buying. To create a site that appeals to potential buyers usually takes a lot of effort and time. And what if you don’t end up selling the site like you intended or if you do, what happens if you do for an amount much lower than what you wanted?
If you are working with a content site there are a number of ways to monetize it. You might only be making a couple of dollars a day so the prospect of selling gets to be even more intriguing. However, if you can’t make money off of it, what makes you think that others would be willing to give it a try?
Cliche time. Create a content site, but do so with a subject you have a passion for. Work on building up the traffic and then you can focus on making money from the site. Maybe, just maybe, you will be approached by another entreprenuer interested in buying your site and you can walk away with a happy feeling and more cushy bank account. However, never create a site with the intention of having someone buy it later.
When I created the CSS Vault I didn’t even plan on making any money from it let alone sell it. Things just happened to work out the right way in the end. Dumb luck. Later this week I will go more into detail the reasons for selling as opposed to keeping it from a business perspective.
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POSTED IN: Personal Thoughts
4 opinions for Making Sites to Sell
Darren Rowse
Jan 25, 2005 at 9:21 am
Congratulations on the sale. I’ve often used the analogy of ‘blog farming’ growing up little blogs to sell at market….hope to do that one day myself.
Are you able to discuss how you made a decision on what to value the site at? ie some suggest daily revenue multiplied by 18 months, other think about the time and effort they’ve put into the site etc….
Scrivs
Jan 25, 2005 at 9:34 am
Since I didn’t have any prior experience either to selling websites I to found that there are a number of ways to go about calculating the sale price. However, since I didn’t put that much effort into making the Vault a money making machine the price calculated would’ve been way below anything reasonable. Instead the buy sent me a price, I countered, and we sort of met in the middle.
I will try to go into as much detail as possible later this week.
James Archer
Jan 25, 2005 at 10:27 am
You make a good point, Scrivs. I’ve seen people try to build sites with the intent of selling them, and the end result is that they’re uninspired. Because of that, they never succeed to the point of being worth purchasing.
You got $xx,xxx out of the deal, but this Jacob fellow must be getting $xx,xxx + $n value out of it (or he wouldn’t have purchased it).
I think the trick isn’t to build sites and then to sell them; it’s to figure out what the buyers are doing that makes the sites worth purchasing for so much.
Proph3t
Jan 25, 2005 at 6:24 pm
I sold my site not too long ago as well. While I had the intention of making money off of it, I was having too much trouble with that and decided that selling it off would earn me more for my work.
For some advice, it was a content based website, so I made a deal with some friends. You write quality articles, I pay you per article. The site sold for much more than the total cost of the articles, and I didn’t have to put much work in it at all.
Some people find value in other things besides making money directly off the site as well. The buyer of my past content site happened to like the articles and PR, and only wanted it for those reasons (needed nice incoming links, and articles).
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