Creating & Selling Web Businesses?

Hey Biz-ers... Does anyone have any ideas and experience about creating great websites with the intent to sell them? I have several excellent site ideas, and one current site I am dedicated to right now. In the future, I'd like to create sites/businesses, grow them and then sell.

Anyone have any thoughts about that whole process? This is not a typical topic, and I have not found a lot of information as of yet.

Thanks all, Krista Dunk NWweddingplace.com

8 Bizniks have posted replies

Posted by Barry Hurd, Seattle, Washington | Jul 04, 2008

I have bought and sold several sites over the years. I was also a fairly active domainer (guy who sells/buys domain names) for a year or two and keep a list of 500+ in my portfolio.

The value of a site greatly depends on the ability to generate revenue and promotion, which is far easier to quantify today than it was a few years ago. If you are ever up in Seattle drop me a line and we can have coffee sometime and chat.
Posted by John Huddleston, Seattle & Bellevue, Washington | Jul 04, 2008

Krista, I have a client that is in the business of buying websites. Email me anytime.

John

Huddleston Tax Consulting

3 CPAs & Tax Accountant in Seattle, Bellevue & Tacoma
Posted by Krista Dunk, Olympia, Washington | Jul 04, 2008

Great - sounds like both of you have good contacts and info.

So Barry, was your strategy to get them producing a good income and then sell, or was it more of a focus to get high traffic numbers?

Thanks guys, Krista
Posted by Barry Hurd, Seattle, Washington | Jul 04, 2008

High traffic numbers are rather worthless by themselves without having a conversion to $$$.

Using all sorts of web techniques, I can get 100k+ monthly traffic to any site. The problem is that 100k people doing nothing, is worth nothing.

If you have a site that produces 100 people a month that create a $2500 monthly revenue, now you have something which has scale and apparent return on investment.

Depending on the revenue and scalability, sites can range for asking prices anywhere from 3x to 35x annual revenue. If a site doesn't have a revenue model, those multipliers are literally cut in half.
Posted by Barry Hurd, Seattle, Washington | Jul 04, 2008

High traffic numbers are rather worthless by themselves without having a conversion to $$$.

Using all sorts of web techniques, I can get 100k+ monthly traffic to any site. The problem is that 100k people doing nothing, is worth nothing.

If you have a site that produces 100 people a month that create a $2500 monthly revenue, now you have something which has scale and apparent return on investment.

Depending on the revenue and scalability, sites can range for asking prices anywhere from 3x to 35x annual revenue. If a site doesn't have a revenue model, those multipliers are literally cut in half.
Posted by Krista Dunk, Olympia, Washington | Jul 07, 2008

Thanks Barry - good info.

John & Barry - will you be at BizJam this week?
Posted by John Huddleston, Seattle & Bellevue, Washington | Jul 07, 2008

I will not. I'm hosting a one hour event this Wednesday at noon (Tax Savings with LLCs, S Corps, C Corps, Sole Proprietorships Explained), so I can't make it.

John

3 CPAs & Tax Accountant in Seattle, Bellevue & Tacoma
Posted by Barry Hurd, Seattle, Washington | Jul 07, 2008

I will not either. I don't think I'll be making the afters either , but show up to other weekly events fairly often.