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To sell or not to sell (my profiting website)? This is the question!

Sell or hold?

  • Sell

    Votes: 3 50.0%
  • Hold

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • Total voters
    6

Onimusha

The Notorious
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Oct 6, 2017
20
14
A very hot place
Hi everyone,

Iv'e been facing a dilemma in the past few weeks, and I figured it would be a good a idea to post it here and get some quality insights from ya'll :)

I have a website that makes an average of $250 per month.
I've received an offer to sell my website for $4,250, which is about 17 months (or about 1.5 years) of future profits.
The website is ranking for every single word in a certain niche, let's just call it "eyelashes" in my country (literally everything).
The income is 100% generated from Amazon Affiliate Ads, and it's 100% passive.
Back in the day I was playing with the idea of creating my own eyelashes products, and sell it on my website, which would increase the revenue but will also require me to deal with logistics, order, customer service etc = eliminating the passivity of the business, without a life-changing increase in profits (I could make $2,500 out of it per month, but I will have to work on it every day).

At the moment, I am the only eyelashes Authority website in my country, and I'm years ahead of my competition. I get about 10,000 unique visitors on a monthly basis from google, which is roughly 80% of the organic traffic in this niche around here.

It costed me about $2,250 to get the website to where it is today (not including the time I've invested), as a hobby that I did in my free time.
I know that a big company has made an offer of $7,500 to a Facebook Group in my niche with about 2,000 members, so I figured my website should be worth 2 times more than that.

So my dilemma is: should I sell the website and cash out, or just keep on getting the commissions? Or, any other idea you might have that I haven't thought about yet?

P.S
The offer I received by the way, is not based on my website's profits (the buyer didn't ask about it before he made the offer), so I believe he wants to buy it for some other reasons than the affiliate commissions - maybe he has a product in the niche and he wants to dominate it from day one.
 
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Vairavan

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A dollar today is better than 10 dollars tomorrow. Nobody knows what happens in the future. You can't be sure your website will provide constant profit for a year and a half. Maybe Amazon changes its terms and you will be instantly out of business. I hope I answered your questions.
 

PippoW

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Dec 22, 2016
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Hi Onimusha,

I was nearly in the same position. I had over 10 sites and sold 9 of them. Now only 1 affiliate site exists and I expanded with my own ecommerce brand.

But the question must be:
  • What are you going to do after the sale?
  • Why only $2.500 with an own brand?
If you have a good brand, you can expand your product range or expand to new markets. For sure, it is a complete new challenge. But without any limits.

And you can use the affiliate site for the first step. To push your first sales.

PS: Make yourself not dependent from Google, Amazon & Co. Try to use more traffic sources and affiliate programs (maybe from clickbank, private shops etc.)
 

Lex DeVille

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I know that a big company has made an offer of $7,500 to a Facebook Group in my niche with about 2,000 members, so I figured my website should be worth 2 times more than that.

Ask for what you want. $10,000, $20,000, $50,000. Just like his offer seems low to you, your offer will seem high to him. It's negotiation and you've gotta have a starting point.

If it were me and it were already generating $250/mo then I would probably keep it and add something to increase those numbers. An ebook. A course. Something else that is also passive and related but sells for a higher price.

My target number for passive systems is a minimum of $3,000/mo. If I can hit that then I'm happy (and if it increases then I'm even happier haha).
 
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Inuc

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Jul 14, 2014
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If a website can make you $1 then it can make multiple of such... Think of how to scale the current $250 higher... Or if you want to go selling route, ask yourself what you will do after that...

Some people love the concept of buying and selling, since this initial website has show the ropes... Do you think you can replicate it faster and bigger if starting all over again.

Will advise you weigh from the 2 angles.
 

George Appiah

Silver Contributor
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Another point angle to look at is: what does this money mean to you?

In order words, do you need this money? Can you put it to work to accelerate some other, (hopefully) more lucrative venture?

Whether you decide to sell or not, definitely make a counteroffer: write back to thank the person for the offer, gently reject it, and name a bigger number.

As you don't seem to be in a rush to sell, don't be afraid to shoot higher (within reason, of course, so you don't sound like a jerk just wasting the fellow's time).

Even if the deal falls through (or if you decide not to sell at any price) this will give you an idea of what one fellow is willing to pony up to acquire your site... which will give you the confidence to push higher when another comes knocking (again, as you're not in a rush to sell).

This is not unlike doing job interviews and negotiating offers at a time when you have no reason to quit your current job.

Good luck!
 

Tubs

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Hi everyone,

Iv'e been facing a dilemma in the past few weeks, and I figured it would be a good a idea to post it here and get some quality insights from ya'll :)

I have a website that makes an average of $250 per month.
I've received an offer to sell my website for $4,250, which is about 17 months (or about 1.5 years) of future profits.
The website is ranking for every single word in a certain niche, let's just call it "eyelashes" in my country (literally everything).
The income is 100% generated from Amazon Affiliate Ads, and it's 100% passive.
Back in the day I was playing with the idea of creating my own eyelashes products, and sell it on my website, which would increase the revenue but will also require me to deal with logistics, order, customer service etc = eliminating the passivity of the business, without a life-changing increase in profits (I could make $2,500 out of it per month, but I will have to work on it every day).

At the moment, I am the only eyelashes Authority website in my country, and I'm years ahead of my competition. I get about 10,000 unique visitors on a monthly basis from google, which is roughly 80% of the organic traffic in this niche around here.

It costed me about $2,250 to get the website to where it is today (not including the time I've invested), as a hobby that I did in my free time.
I know that a big company has made an offer of $7,500 to a Facebook Group in my niche with about 2,000 members, so I figured my website should be worth 2 times more than that.

So my dilemma is: should I sell the website and cash out, or just keep on getting the commissions? Or, any other idea you might have that I haven't thought about yet?

P.S
The offer I received by the way, is not based on my website's profits (the buyer didn't ask about it before he made the offer), so I believe he wants to buy it for some other reasons than the affiliate commissions - maybe he has a product in the niche and he wants to dominate it from day one.


It really depends on if you think it could grow bigger and potentially outsource the work.
For example if it's a blog could you hire a writer to do everything and focus on growing it somehow and eventually get it to the point where it's bringing a substantial mostly passive income?

What are your goals and where are you planning on going? Do you maybe plan to invest the money from this sale into starting another business?

If you do end up deciding to sell the site, make sure you negotiate and get a fair price. No point in selling a passive income stream if you're not getting a fair price.
 
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Onimusha

The Notorious
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
70%
Oct 6, 2017
20
14
A very hot place
Thank you all for sharing your comments and insights! I'll reply 1 by 1:

A dollar today is better than 10 dollars tomorrow. Nobody knows what happens in the future. You can't be sure your website will provide constant profit for a year and a half. Maybe Amazon changes its terms and you will be instantly out of business. I hope I answered your questions.

Yeah, I thought about it too, and you're basically right - not selling it is taking a risk. That said, selling it is also taking a risk, and as much as it could stop generating revenue, it could also keep on generating it, or even more.

I think it's more a question of patience, or if it would be worth my while to sell it at this price.
Some entrepreneurs receive buyout offers, don't sell, and then sell for 100 times more. And obviously the opposite happens too.

Hi Onimusha,

I was nearly in the same position. I had over 10 sites and sold 9 of them. Now only 1 affiliate site exists and I expanded with my own ecommerce brand.

But the question must be:
  • What are you going to do after the sale?
  • Why only $2.500 with an own brand?
If you have a good brand, you can expand your product range or expand to new markets. For sure, it is a complete new challenge. But without any limits.

And you can use the affiliate site for the first step. To push your first sales.

PS: Make yourself not dependent from Google, Amazon & Co. Try to use more traffic sources and affiliate programs (maybe from clickbank, private shops etc.)

That's great to hear! I also believe that narrowing your focus on that 10% that performs better than the other 90% is best.

After the sale I will reinvest the money.
What do you mean by "Why only $2.500 with an own brand" ?

About the brand, yes, of course I can expend, but I don't want to create my own product because the niche is small in my country (huge in other counties), and the amount of time I'll have to invest in it, will not be worthy of the final $$$. Plus, currently it's 100% passive.

And yes, I fully agree with you about not being dependent on just 1-2 affiliate programs, great tip, thank you!

Ask for what you want. $10,000, $20,000, $50,000. Just like his offer seems low to you, your offer will seem high to him. It's negotiation and you've gotta have a starting point.

If it were me and it were already generating $250/mo then I would probably keep it and add something to increase those numbers. An ebook. A course. Something else that is also passive and related but sells for a higher price.

My target number for passive systems is a minimum of $3,000/mo. If I can hit that then I'm happy (and if it increases then I'm even happier haha).

Haha thanks for the insight! It's a great idea!
I actually already have an ebook I can sell for a couple of bucks, and I definitely can create a course or at least sell one (a friend of mine runs of the best courses in the country in this niche, I can actually work with him on a revenue share model)

If a website can make you $1 then it can make multiple of such... Think of how to scale the current $250 higher... Or if you want to go selling route, ask yourself what you will do after that...

Some people love the concept of buying and selling, since this initial website has show the ropes... Do you think you can replicate it faster and bigger if starting all over again.

Will advise you weigh from the 2 angles.

Great insight, thank you!
About "what would you do after that", you mean what will I do with the money after I sell?

Another point angle to look at is: what does this money mean to you?

In order words, do you need this money? Can you put it to work to accelerate some other, (hopefully) more lucrative venture?

Whether you decide to sell or not, definitely make a counteroffer: write back to thank the person for the offer, gently reject it, and name a bigger number.

As you don't seem to be in a rush to sell, don't be afraid to shoot higher (within reason, of course, so you don't sound like a jerk just wasting the fellow's time).

Even if the deal falls through (or if you decide not to sell at any price) this will give you an idea of what one fellow is willing to pony up to acquire your site... which will give you the confidence to push higher when another comes knocking (again, as you're not in a rush to sell).

This is not unlike doing job interviews and negotiating offers at a time when you have no reason to quit your current job.

Good luck!

Thank you for the tips and the insights!
Actually I don't want to think in terms of "what does this money means to me" because I want this decision to be 100% on numbers, and not on emotions and current position in life.

I want to make the best possible decision business-wise :)

It really depends on if you think it could grow bigger and potentially outsource the work.
For example if it's a blog could you hire a writer to do everything and focus on growing it somehow and eventually get it to the point where it's bringing a substantial mostly passive income?

What are your goals and where are you planning on going? Do you maybe plan to invest the money from this sale into starting another business?

If you do end up deciding to sell the site, make sure you negotiate and get a fair price. No point in selling a passive income stream if you're not getting a fair price.

You're absolutely right - there's really no point in selling it if I'm not getting a fair price, and I know the website worth more than that.

--------------------------------------------
Thanks again for all the tips and insights!
For now, I decided to:
  • Re-design the website and make it faster, better and a lot more user friendly
  • Publish the eBook I had for quite some time in the niche to get more exposure
  • Create a page that will advertise my friend's course on the website and get it to rank high on Google
  • Do a revision of the website and see where I can add more Affiliate Products to sell
 

George Appiah

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Thank you for the tips and the insights!
Actually I don't want to think in terms of "what does this money means to me" because I want this decision to be 100% on numbers, and not on emotions and current position in life.

I want to make the best possible decision business-wise :)

Actually, I wasn't thinking of emotions at all: I was thinking 100% business and numbers, along the line of this statement: Can you put it to work to accelerate some other, (hopefully) more lucrative venture?

Say, as an example, you have perfected a sales funnel for a product you control that brings in $3 for every$ 1 spent on an FB/G ad campaign. I would argue that, if you don't have access to any other funds, it would make business sense to sell a small site like this and use the funds to blow up this campaign. At least that's a call I would make.
 

AgainstAllOdds

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2.5x annual earnings is the minimum you should aim to sell for.

I'd say 3x since you were approached instead of listing the site.

So $7,500 is the minimum to ask for if you want to sell. But request a higher amount to get it down there. I'd ask for $25,000 and work it down if you're in selling mode.

(I could make $2,500 out of it per month, but I will have to work on it every day).

And no. You don't have to work on it every day. You have to work on it to get it going, and then hire out the daily tasks to someone else. You can even start by investing the $250 per month you make to certain services and see what happens.
 
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GoodluckChuck

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Of the affiliate sites I've worked on for other people there are always a couple things to change that can have huge impacts. No sense changing x if y is where the money is at.

Have you broken down the analytics and identified where 80% of the $ is coming from? A few tweaks might double your monthly and double your cash out.

Another thought: have you tried to make any deals other than Amazon? You might increase commission by 1000% by working directly with a source.
 

Onimusha

The Notorious
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Oct 6, 2017
20
14
A very hot place
Thank you very much to everyone who replied with their insights and tips, you've helped me quite a lot!

I decided to put in some work into this website to see how I can increase its revenue, instead of selling it for a price that won't be worth my while.

Right now, I'm improving the design and functionality, and after I'll finish, I'll add more product pages, products, and also a lead generating page that will collect leads for courses in the niche, and sell those leads for % or $.

Thanks again everyone, all your help is not being taken for granted!!! :)
 

biophase

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I think you may be underestimating your niche. If someone is offering $2500 for basically your domain and a FB group sold for $7500, then maybe there’s more traffic and dollars than you think.
I’d love to hear where you get all your traffic and niche revenue numbers.
 
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Onimusha

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Quick update: I turned down the offer, and told him not to contact me for less than $7,000. He contacted me again a few days later and offered $5,600 - a $1,200 more than his first offer.

It feels good, but after giving it some thought and reading through your comments, it's still not an offer I'm willing to accept.
 
D

Deleted73331

Guest
You would probably know if the buyer wants to dominate the niche if on the buying agreements he wants to introduce some language that forbids you to start another website on the same field. If not, probably he was able to track your traffic and really wants to buy it for the public you have. Either way you should have some leeway to negotiate a better price or maybe retain a little ownership on it or at least a tiny share on the profits. Maybe it would be just 25 dollars today but you don't know how this person is going to grow it.

I hope everything goes incredibly good.

Congrats on the success.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Kevin88660

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Hi everyone,

Iv'e been facing a dilemma in the past few weeks, and I figured it would be a good a idea to post it here and get some quality insights from ya'll :)

I have a website that makes an average of $250 per month.
I've received an offer to sell my website for $4,250, which is about 17 months (or about 1.5 years) of future profits.
The website is ranking for every single word in a certain niche, let's just call it "eyelashes" in my country (literally everything).
The income is 100% generated from Amazon Affiliate Ads, and it's 100% passive.
Back in the day I was playing with the idea of creating my own eyelashes products, and sell it on my website, which would increase the revenue but will also require me to deal with logistics, order, customer service etc = eliminating the passivity of the business, without a life-changing increase in profits (I could make $2,500 out of it per month, but I will have to work on it every day).

At the moment, I am the only eyelashes Authority website in my country, and I'm years ahead of my competition. I get about 10,000 unique visitors on a monthly basis from google, which is roughly 80% of the organic traffic in this niche around here.

It costed me about $2,250 to get the website to where it is today (not including the time I've invested), as a hobby that I did in my free time.
I know that a big company has made an offer of $7,500 to a Facebook Group in my niche with about 2,000 members, so I figured my website should be worth 2 times more than that.

So my dilemma is: should I sell the website and cash out, or just keep on getting the commissions? Or, any other idea you might have that I haven't thought about yet?

P.S
The offer I received by the way, is not based on my website's profits (the buyer didn't ask about it before he made the offer), so I believe he wants to buy it for some other reasons than the affiliate commissions - maybe he has a product in the niche and he wants to dominate it from day one.
Maybe you should look into the industry standard on earning multiples. 17 months seems a price too low. I rather ask for a higher price or keep it.

But since the amount of money is too small to be consequential. Maybe you should use it as a chance to see if there is bigger opportunity in the field?
 
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Kingsta

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Where are you based?

I'll get you the eyelashes (or anything cosmetics based, not entirely sure if its the same niche) so you can start your own brand that way you don't have to worry about dealing with a supplier from china, if that was your concern. My friends are some of the biggest cosmetics distributors in Europe.

Then all you have to worry about is can you make more than $250 per month after expenses.
 

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