Building a Small Business Flipping Websites & Domains Story

[aleclarson]

I've been meaning to share this piece with the Fastlane forum for over a year now, finally got around to writing it out. It's nothing crazy, just interesting because without the Millionaire Fastlane I would not have gotten the idea to build a directory site (my first website sale) or found one of my favorite quotes in the book that is the foundation for what I do: "in a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".

After reading the book in 2013, I was inspired to build a directory site. I was involved in the drone industry years before and noticed how many new drone pilots were starting aerial photography companies. The light bulb came on and I knew that I had to build a Drone Pilot Directory for real estate agents. I knew nothing about web development and after a week of research I concluded that the most plausible way of developing the idea was building the site on WordPress with a directory theme. About a month later I had a pretty nice looking and functioning directory site with custom logos and images I had designed myself. With a list of about 90 drone pilots I found on instagram, I started sending my initial emails for signups. I was able to get roughly 8 of 90 pilots signed up on free profiles. A few weeks into the process of marketing I realized the sheer amount of sweat equity I was going to have to put into the project. With competitors already popping up I felt a little discouraged because I didn't have the time to fully dedicate to it. It was during this time that I was browsing websites for sale on Flippa and watched a food truck directory with no traffic or revenue sell for $800. Out of curiosity I decided to list my drone pilot directory AerialConnect on flippa. It ended up selling two weeks later for $2,050.

"In a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".
​

This brought me to my next light bulb moment. With everyone trying to build the next Facebook or Airbnb (not saying this isn't a realistic task) maybe there is a big market in selling the apps, the tools, the plugins, the graphic design or the software. My idea was: "there might be a market for building these startup ideas as viable platforms to sell. Instead of going through the sometimes frustrating process of learning about domains/hosting, setting up wordpress, integrating specific themes and plugins, designing logos and writing content, what if you could just buy a fully functioning website already built and ready to go"? This is the model I implemented. Within the same month, I built an awesome flight school directory and sold it for $500. I repeated that process and sold about a dozen directory ideas over the year. Interestingly enough, some users would see my listings and request that I build out their domains/ideas because they liked my work. It was almost as if I was building a web development company by accident. I then started buying premium domain names at no reserve auctions. For example, I bought the domain Night-Clubs.com at auction on Flippa for $47, built it into an incredible night club directory and sold it a few weeks later for $1000. I focused on building great ideas that are actually viable businesses to sell to entrepreneurs who either had better sales, marketing or SEO skills than I had.

After a few months of this I had another light bulb moment. I decided to start working on a video training course detailing the process of building and designing starter websites and selling them on Flippa. I named the course "The Ultimate Flippa Guide and named the website SellTheShovels.net I reached out to Flippa and asked if they'd be interested in featuring my story in an article, they agreed and we wrote a pretty cool article together last August. That initial article helped me build a mailing list of about 150 users that I eventually launched my training course to. I sold about 6 the first week and I let the site go dormant for a while until last may I wrote a second article with Flippa and then a third last month.

Thanks for reading! I know my story probably isn't that exciting because I'm really only making part time income doing this but it still feels special to me. I could go more into detail but I didn't want to write an extremely long an boring piece, feel free to reach out to me.

 

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[DuncDad]

I've been meaning to share this piece with the Fastlane forum for over a year now, finally got around to writing it out. It's nothing crazy, just interesting because without the Millionaire Fastlane I would not have gotten the idea to build a directory site (my first website sale) or found one of my favorite quotes in the book that is the foundation for what I do: "in a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".

After reading the book in 2013, I was inspired to build a directory site. I was involved in the drone industry years before and noticed how many new drone pilots were starting aerial photography companies. The light bulb came on and I knew that I had to build a Drone Pilot Directory for real estate agents. I knew nothing about web development and after a week of research I concluded that the most plausible way of developing the idea was building the site on WordPress with a directory theme. About a month later I had a pretty nice looking and functioning directory site with custom logos and images I had designed myself. With a list of about 90 drone pilots I found on instagram, I started sending my initial emails for signups. I was able to get roughly 8 of 90 pilots signed up on free profiles. A few weeks into the process of marketing I realized the sheer amount of sweat equity I was going to have to put into the project. With competitors already popping up I felt a little discouraged because I didn't have the time to fully dedicate to it. It was during this time that I was browsing websites for sale on Flippa and watched a food truck directory with no traffic or revenue sell for $800. Out of curiosity I decided to list my drone pilot directory AerialConnect on flippa. It ended up selling two weeks later for $2,050.

"In a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".
​

This brought me to my next light bulb moment. With everyone trying to build the next Facebook or Airbnb (not saying this isn't a realistic task) maybe there is a big market in selling the apps, the tools, the plugins, the graphic design or the software. My idea was: "there might be a market for building these startup ideas as viable platforms to sell. Instead of going through the sometimes frustrating process of learning about domains/hosting, setting up wordpress, integrating specific themes and plugins, designing logos and writing content, what if you could just buy a fully functioning website already built and ready to go"? This is the model I implemented. Within the same month, I built an awesome flight school directory and sold it for $500. I repeated that process and sold about a dozen directory ideas over the year. Interestingly enough, some users would see my listings and request that I build out their domains/ideas because they liked my work. It was almost as if I was building a web development company by accident. I then started buying premium domain names at no reserve auctions. For example, I bought the domain Night-Clubs.com at auction on Flippa for $47, built it into an incredible night club directory and sold it a few weeks later for $1000. I focused on building great ideas that are actually viable businesses to sell to entrepreneurs who either had better sales, marketing or SEO skills than I had.

After a few months of this I had another light bulb moment. I decided to start working on a video training course detailing the process of building and designing starter websites and selling them on Flippa. I named the course "The Ultimate Flippa Guide and named the website SellTheShovels.net I reached out to Flippa and asked if they'd be interested in featuring my story in an article, they agreed and we wrote a pretty cool article together last August. That initial article helped me build a mailing list of about 150 users that I eventually launched my training course to. I sold about 6 the first week and I let the site go dormant for a while until last may I wrote a second article with Flippa and then a third last month.

Thanks for reading! I know my story probably isn't that exciting because I'm really only making part time income doing this but it still feels special to me. I could go more into detail but I didn't want to write an extremely long an boring piece, feel free to reach out to me.

I find it interesting. It encourages me to get my 'game on'


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Scot]

Very interesting idea! I'm sure the knowledge you gained from this experience will go a long way. Looking forward to seeing it on the forum!

When building directly style sites, what do you find are the best features that "sell" to the businesses that will be part of the directory?

 

[miked_d]

I know my story probably isn't that exciting...

Is the story finished? I want to hear more! Increase the size of your list, continue blogging, become the SME (subject matter expert).

Don't let it go dormant. Continue to build!

 

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[aleclarson]

Very interesting idea! I'm sure the knowledge you gained from this experience will go a long way. Looking forward to seeing it on the forum!

When building directly style sites, what do you find are the best features that "sell" to the businesses that will be part of the directory?

Hey Scot, thanks! With directories that are fresh and usually have no traffic it can be challenging to find the value proposition for the businesses. If I were to build out a directory and give it all I had, I would concentrate on building organic end user traffic first. I would feel more comfortable charging higher subscription fees if I could be certain I was giving value in return. Some other selling points included the fact that with some industries the businesses had primary websites that were outdated. With my directories, they had the benefit of having a modern looking profile that would be cleaner and simpler that their actual site. You could also explain how having a high quality backlink is beneficial. You could also offer free packages in return for a backlink (this could get complicated though for several reasons). One other idea I had thought could be implemented in the early stages of building a directory was PPC campaigns for each individual profile. The concept would be something like - if you buy the $xx a month package we strategically spend $xx amount in PPC (probably with adwords). This way it's beneficial to both parties.

 

[aleclarson]

Is the story finished? I want to hear more! Increase the size of your list, continue blogging, become the SME (subject matter expert).

Don't let it go dormant. Continue to build!

Hey Mike! Thanks for the reply. I agree, I shouldn't let it go dormant because I'm ranking pretty high organically for the flippa training keywords and having the 3 articles from flippa itself could be hugely beneficial if it continues to grow. I actually have the selltheshovels.net site listed for sale on flippa at the moment, I wanted to exit to have capital for multi family investments. I'm reconsidering letting it go though, I think the next step is an intricate facebook PPC pitch page and email campaign, I'm just not an expert but it may be time to try.

 

[Guest34764]

Thanks for reading! I know my story probably isn't that exciting because I'm really only making part time income doing this but it still feels special to me. I could go more into detail but I didn't want to write an extremely long an boring piece, feel free to reach out to me.

This is actually a really great thread.Something I should look into to, I knew such things as flipping websites could be legit but I never really put thought into it.

Thanks!

 

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[Carlitos]

What do you think about flipping bilingual or multilingual websites? (English, Spanish & Italian)

 

[pickeringmt]

The cool thing about this is that you are building on what you have done.

Going deep rather than wide - that is where the good stuff happens.

Cool thread, thanks for sharing!

 

[Scot]

Hey Scot, thanks! With directories that are fresh and usually have no traffic it can be challenging to find the value proposition for the businesses. If I were to build out a directory and give it all I had, I would concentrate on building organic end user traffic first. I would feel more comfortable charging higher subscription fees if I could be certain I was giving value in return. Some other selling points included the fact that with some industries the businesses had primary websites that were outdated. With my directories, they had the benefit of having a modern looking profile that would be cleaner and simpler that their actual site. You could also explain how having a high quality backlink is beneficial. You could also offer free packages in return for a backlink (this could get complicated though for several reasons). One other idea I had thought could be implemented in the early stages of building a directory was PPC campaigns for each individual profile. The concept would be something like - if you buy the $xx a month package we strategically spend $xx amount in PPC (probably with adwords). This way it's beneficial to both parties.

So you focus on getting traffic from the end user to the site. What do you do to keep them engaged before you have anyone in the directory? Essentially they go tothis great directory, and there's only 1 in there in Tulsa, OK, but they live in California.. why would they come back?

 

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[locinj]

"In a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".

That's a great quote.

What happens after you sell the website? Do you show the buyer how to make changes if necessary or do you help them with that?

 

[WebMedic]

I've been meaning to share this piece with the Fastlane forum for over a year now, finally got around to writing it out. It's nothing crazy, just interesting because without the Millionaire Fastlane I would not have gotten the idea to build a directory site (my first website sale) or found one of my favorite quotes in the book that is the foundation for what I do: "in a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".

After reading the book in 2013, I was inspired to build a directory site. I was involved in the drone industry years before and noticed how many new drone pilots were starting aerial photography companies. The light bulb came on and I knew that I had to build a Drone Pilot Directory for real estate agents. I knew nothing about web development and after a week of research I concluded that the most plausible way of developing the idea was building the site on WordPress with a directory theme. About a month later I had a pretty nice looking and functioning directory site with custom logos and images I had designed myself. With a list of about 90 drone pilots I found on instagram, I started sending my initial emails for signups. I was able to get roughly 8 of 90 pilots signed up on free profiles. A few weeks into the process of marketing I realized the sheer amount of sweat equity I was going to have to put into the project. With competitors already popping up I felt a little discouraged because I didn't have the time to fully dedicate to it. It was during this time that I was browsing websites for sale on Flippa and watched a food truck directory with no traffic or revenue sell for $800. Out of curiosity I decided to list my drone pilot directory AerialConnect on flippa. It ended up selling two weeks later for $2,050.

"In a gold rush, don't dig for gold, sell the shovels".
​

This brought me to my next light bulb moment. With everyone trying to build the next Facebook or Airbnb (not saying this isn't a realistic task) maybe there is a big market in selling the apps, the tools, the plugins, the graphic design or the software. My idea was: "there might be a market for building these startup ideas as viable platforms to sell. Instead of going through the sometimes frustrating process of learning about domains/hosting, setting up wordpress, integrating specific themes and plugins, designing logos and writing content, what if you could just buy a fully functioning website already built and ready to go"? This is the model I implemented. Within the same month, I built an awesome flight school directory and sold it for $500. I repeated that process and sold about a dozen directory ideas over the year. Interestingly enough, some users would see my listings and request that I build out their domains/ideas because they liked my work. It was almost as if I was building a web development company by accident. I then started buying premium domain names at no reserve auctions. For example, I bought the domain Night-Clubs.com at auction on Flippa for $47, built it into an incredible night club directory and sold it a few weeks later for $1000. I focused on building great ideas that are actually viable businesses to sell to entrepreneurs who either had better sales, marketing or SEO skills than I had.

After a few months of this I had another light bulb moment. I decided to start working on a video training course detailing the process of building and designing starter websites and selling them on Flippa. I named the course "The Ultimate Flippa Guide and named the website SellTheShovels.net I reached out to Flippa and asked if they'd be interested in featuring my story in an article, they agreed and we wrote a pretty cool article together last August. That initial article helped me build a mailing list of about 150 users that I eventually launched my training course to. I sold about 6 the first week and I let the site go dormant for a while until last may I wrote a second article with Flippa and then a third last month.

Thanks for reading! I know my story probably isn't that exciting because I'm really only making part time income doing this but it still feels special to me. I could go more into detail but I didn't want to write an extremely long an boring piece, feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you for sharing, got me interested and want to look more into flipping websites.

Do you usually have to generate traffic on the websites to sell them or they can be simply content sites without traffic?

On building shovels, have you looked into Envato marketplace? themes and plugins are sold on it in massive numbers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this...ing-one-wordpress-theme-2014-8?IR=T&r=US&IR=T

 

[devine]

On building shovels, have you looked into Envato marketplace? themes and plugins are sold on it in massive numbers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this...ing-one-wordpress-theme-2014-8?IR=T&r=US&IR=T

OP is not about that.

But:
Relying on Envato marketplace is a very bad business model.
We're currently working with a top-seller team from Envato and 1 product we created to sell off Envato generated more money in 3 months, than their best-selling theme in 16 months. With less sales, less PPC advertising and less work.
It also required 92% less time spent on customer support in last 3 months, considering it's a recently launched product and their themeforest best-selling theme is already taking off.

 

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