Site flipping article on Sitepoint

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My Sitepoint article about flipping websites is up.

Give it a read!

I’d love to have any feedback, either here or there in the comments.

And, what should I write about next!

March 16, 2007 by admin

Comments

18 Responses to “Site flipping article on Sitepoint”

Pz Sniper on March 19th, 2007 10:41 pm

Great article i read it right now, but i still have a couple of questions and an idea after that reading, i wonder how could i contact u privatly, please mail me i left email on form here

Thank you very much

Greetings from Italy
Giovanna on March 22nd, 2007 11:54 pm

Peter – Thank you so very very much for your tips. I’ve searched the all over the web and could not find an article so in-depth as yours. I will definitely apply my new knowledge for acquiring websites.
Anton Cheranev on March 29th, 2007 3:30 am

Hello Peter,

Thanks for your great tips. I’ve read your article Yesterday and I was impressed.
I’m interested in this theme because I want to sell my website. Your tips is really good but I still don’t choose right price for my website. What price I should bid on my site – http://www.golfcanbeasimplegame.com?

That is difficult question for me.

In advance thanks.
Anton Cheranev
CEO of golfcanbeasimplegame.com
Peter T Davis on March 29th, 2007 8:25 pm

Hi Anton, with a site like that which is selling something, the key detail would be how much it’s earning.
Lester on April 2nd, 2007 12:39 am

I liked this article a lot. I never knew you could do that with a web site. Could you help me get into the business?
Peter Davis on April 3rd, 2007 11:40 pm

Hi Lester, thanks for the comment. I’ve had a bunch of people ask me about this since the article was published. I’d love to help everyone, but sadly my time is limited and I still have to earn my own keep as well. Having said that, I would consider consulting with someone on interesting projects, but would have to charge something for my time.
Matt Whitesell on April 5th, 2007 8:24 am

Peter,

I did read your article if you can believe this on my first trip to sitepoint ever. I just got into this world very recently coming from a finance background and will give you kudos on explaining honestly and simply some critical business-decision making fundamentals that usually are not spoken for free like that.

I’d share with the others here that the advice you gave is akin to telling someone how to lose weight by saying: consume less calories while burning more. It is usually not what people want to hear but for the ones that can accept it, losing weight is no problem.

Personally as I read your strategy, I was thinking two things:

1. How much fun it would be to quantifiy your criteria in some kind of financial tool…like a website valuation calculator…similar to this: http://acuityconsulting.us/RE

2. How much I would like to know how to ‘rehab’ a website like some of you guys. Even though I love tweaking my site right now, I just do NOT have the expertise.

So anyways, thanks for the fun read and if you or anyone want to trade knowlede some time, I’m game.

- Matt
Lee on May 13th, 2007 2:18 pm

Hi Peter,

Great article but i’m still not sure about selling. I have been developing a site for the last 5 years and once it used to have a massive community and have over 100 posts a day but nowadays it has died as i don’t have the time to update it. The address to the site is punkcentre.com. It doesn’t make any money but i still feel it has potential. I was just wondering whether you think i should sell it and if so how much would it make? The whole site is built around a cms and therefore just about all aspects of the site can be changed from within the admin panel.

Appreciate the advice. Thanks
Peter Davis on May 14th, 2007 12:48 am

Thanks again for your comments.
Matt, interesting points. Perhaps the market for websites will develop enough that someday we could build a Zillow.com for web real estate. And sure I’d be interested to “trade knowledge” get in touch when you can.
Lee, it’s easier to place a value on a website when you base it as a multiple of earnings. That doesn’t mean that a site with no earnings has no value. In fact, I’d personally rather buy a website with traffic but no earnings than the reverse. Asside from traffic, you can find value in content, product, etc. It just might be harder to arrive at a selling price.
Aaron Stahl on May 30th, 2007 8:15 pm

Peter,

Thanks for the article, real good stuff. I’ve got a question that may make a good article for you(i may just have to read your entire blog to see if you already addressed this:).

What skills does one need to buy and sell websites?

I’ve got a decent business background so I get most of it, but what I’m curious about are the technical skills.

For instance do you outsource all coding? Do you outsource advertising/seo/webmaster stuff?

I’ve got a limited technical knowledge of websites, but if one is built like yahoo mail I think I could handle it:). Hope this makes sense. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks!!
admin on May 30th, 2007 9:01 pm

Hi Aaron, thanks for the comments. I don’t think that a depth of technical knowledge is required to be successful at flipping sites. In fact, as you mention, outsourcing coding is possible and certainly something I do, as I’m not really a talented coder. Your talents in managing freelancers may be more valuable than actually doing the work yourself.
Another thing I’ve been pursuing currently is teaming up with others instead of doing it all solo. Certainly a team of people can accomplish much more than each of them could accomplish as individuals. Even considering that, there are things that I would still outsource. It really depends on the skill sets within the team.
Aaron Stahl on May 31st, 2007 2:48 pm

Peter, Thanks for replying! So I guess the next step would be finding site(one that costs only what I’m willing to lose), doing my due diligence, and giving it a shot right? Trial by fire:). Thanks for all the good info on the blog!
admin on May 31st, 2007 3:36 pm

Yes, giving it a try, and not risking more than your willing to lose are good principals to live by in any business.
mhdoc on June 14th, 2007 10:32 am

Hi Peter,
I saw your post on shoemoney’s blog and hadn’t read any of your stuff for a while. Really nice article on flipping websites. Combine what you said with Frank Schillings advice about buying good .coms and it could become quite interesting.

As for new ideas for you to write about… We are looking at adding some of the javascript tools such as those at scriptaculous or mootools to improve the intuitiveness of the user interface. At first glance it looks like it should be possible to change the user experience with little or no back end programming work. If a site with a clunky interface was purchased cheaply and then improved that might make it stand out from the competition. I would be interested in your thought…
admin on June 14th, 2007 6:36 pm

Hi mhdoc. Yes, I really enjoy Franks blog. I think you have a good point, but you might actually do better doing the reverse – the market for domains has taken off a lot stronger than the market for small to mid size websites. You can, with a lot of effort, buy a website with a great domain and pay website prices for it and strip off the domain and sell it at the higher premiums we’re seeing in the domain industry.
tovorinok on July 5th, 2007 12:30 am

Hello

Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!

Bye
Shawn on September 20th, 2007 5:26 am

Thanks Peter ! Great article!

Actually it was *this* article on sitepoint that got me into the mood to explore this business. After reading it i got all excited and hit google.

Not that many places on the net talking about this, especially from people giving advice from their *own* experience.

A “twist” to the story is not buying and selling but creating and selling. This was done by a Warrior guy who created a series of videos and shows the whole process “live”.

Long story short, i bought the videos and have had moderate success: around $550 for 3 sites and a few hours (around 20) of work.

What is your opinion on this? Would you advise holding on longer to increase PR before flipping ? Have you had any experience with this ?

TIA
-Shawn
Peter Davis on September 21st, 2007 7:29 am

Shawn, I’d really have to invistigate the individual case to be able to give any decent advice. I generally don’t think that the expensive ebook/video gurus stuff is all that worthwhile. There is no substitute for just getting out there and taking action, the ebooks/videos are in my opinion a distraction from that.