Would you ever sell your business?

I personally would never sell my business, because I'm creating a online poker business, and it's my dream to own one. Would you ever sell your business?

 

Everyone should have an exit strategy.

 

I think that the market values websites very cheaply. Most sites on Flippa go for around 8 months earnings. I would rather hold onto my blog, make that money in 8 months, and keep making more in the future. If someone were to offer me a huge sum for my blog I might sell it, but I doubt they would have reason to. I would definitely not sell it at a market value unless I had some sudden need for the money.

 

You will never be successful with that state of mind. People that give up, don't make money.

 

That's a good question.

I sold a web site a very long time ago that I just didn't have time for and lost interest on. The new owner ran it in to the ground then let the domain expire. I felt bad.

I also have a website that was very close to me. At one time it had 10s of thousands of users visiting it every day. Over the years things changed.. MySpace and FaceBook became huge social monsters and literally squashed my site. I had the opportunity to sell it 2 years ago for basically 1.5 years of declining revenue. I didn't because I couldn't. Even though I was no longer updating the web site and was spending my time on other projects I'd rather keep it running under my ownership than to sell it. Fast forward 2 years later...I never touched it and made what I would of sold it for and I still have it. I feel perfectly fine with the decision I made. And if you were interested 1.5 revenue was about $10,000. At one point the site made over $60k in a single year and it really could of done much better if the Walmarts and Kmarts of social networking didn't open.

 

It's more like 10-12x monthly revenue but it's still crazy really and nothing like how offline businesses are valued.

 

10-12 months rev is not the standard to evaluating a web sites worth. It's just the standard people set with low traffic and poor quality web sites.

The truth is... if you have a web site that is steadily increasing revenue month after month it is worth more than a web site steadily decreasing revenue month after month regardless if they both made the SAME amount of money for 10-12 months.

You must take in to consideration the content, programming, graphical work, traffic, backlinks, members(?), age of site and domain, competition, market, overhead and potential in order to value a web site.

A web site that has 5,000 hits a day with over 100 unique articles and only makes $5/month is worth a hell of a lot more than $50. Especially when you take in to account that you CANNOT replicate the site for $50 and you CAN monetize the web site differently to create more revenue.

 

You are wrong, plenty of established sites sell for around 1-year revenue. It's a buyers market at the moment.

I actually made a blog post about how to value a website here.

 

What part of my post was wrong?

You believe that a website with declining revenue is worth the same as a website with inclining revenue if they generated the same amount of money with in 10-12 months?

That makes no sense. In the upcoming year one site will be generating more money while the other one is losing revenue
You absolutely can't value a website strictly based on revenue times 1 year.

It's irrelevant what you blogged about. Or any single person for that matter. It's a matter of common sense in the scenario I just explained.

As for it being a Buyers market for the purchase of web sites that makes absolutely no sense. In realestate it's a buyers market because the economy is upside down, unemployment is on the rise, and existing mortgages are through the roof thanks to the recession. Sellers WANT to get out of their mortgages because they can't afford them. An owner of a PROFITABLE web site is NOT in dire need to "get out of it", obviously. If they are profitable there is absolutely no reason to sell for 10 months of revenue. That is outlandish UNLESS they are forecasting a larger overhead that they cannot afford.

I just looked at your blog post... and you are stating that in order to value a web site you must look at the content, traffic, revenue, link popularity etc. All of the items I mentioned....yet you are in disagreement? With what?

 

You are wrong in thinking it's only sites with decreasing revenues or low quality sites that sell for these kinds of multiples.

Plenty of sites with consistent revenue are selling at these prices.

The way things are valued online is completely different to the offline world.

 

I've never stated it's only sites with decreasing revenues...
I stated (exactly): It's just the standard people set with low traffic and poor quality web sites.
And it's true... because a PROFITABLE web site is NOT going to sell for 10 months of revenue.

I don't know your background but the only difference between a Physical Business and a Virtual Business would be your assets. It's an investment. And an investment is always going to be evaluated by risk and return. A web site generating $100k a year is NOT going to be worth less than a physical business generating $100k, assuming both companies have the same value for assets and overhead.

If my web site produced $1million above my overhead per year with steadily inclining traffic and revenue why would I or ANY investor value that at $833k when it would take less than 10 months to see a RETURN. That would be a DREAM...and if REAL web sites sold that way then I would be a multi-millionair.

If a web site is only making $40/month I CLEARLY can see it being sold for $400-$480....and that's only because it's a nominal amount of money and the length of time to operate such a site may not be worth the reward. If it was $40k a month there is no way you would touch it for $400k.

 

I would sell my business for a lot of reasons. Your particular situation I can understand if the whole poker site is a "dream" of yours.

 

Never! i wouldn't sell my business! I have invest to much time in it ... :/
But Netstar says it ... if a website only produce $40 a month ...

Get you ass out there!

 

Hi
I think that market itself was transforming due to an underlying technological shift virtualization. Virtualization meant that the entire market needed to be re-tooled, so we were embarking on a new R&D race to build the best management for virtualized environments.

 

No i didn't but my friend long time ago sold her business because she needed money as she was suffering from financial crisis.

 

Well I sold my business recently for 500k. I was happy with it - no work for a while

 

If I would get a fear price for it, yes, I would sell it.
No one has only one dream. If I lived one dream, I would sell my bussines and with the money, create another one.
Its good to keep go farward

regards

 

If an business is profitable, no one will sell their business. Profitable business only sell ideas or solutions to clients and not business.

 

I've put so many hours, weeks and months into my business that I never even thought of selling it.

It's mine - my creations - I know every word (exaggeration) of every page of every website I own.

But, hey, if someone offered me a million for the whole thing - I'd probably be on the next flight to the Caribbean.

 

I´m thinking of selling my business, they offer me a good amount but still dont know what to do after selling it