Coffee Chat Interview… 4 Things You Must Know When Buying an OnLine Business

Coffee Chat Interview… 4 Things You Must Know When Buying an OnLine Business

BabyBoomersBusinessOwners CoffeeChat

The thing about Online Businesses | Websites these days is that the market has been around long enough whereby there are businesses of quality, with verifiable statistics and easier to follow financials. So the information collected is more capably captured and consistent.

I had the pleasure of talking about this with Lorraine Pirihi of Relaunch Your Life and member of the Baby Boomers Business Owners Facebook group.

To listen to the full interview, click on the play button

answer these questions to kickstart your Online Strategy…

help

The following is a series of questions to help start your thinking around your Online Strategy. 

  • Does the Business currently have an online presence at all? If not, why not?
  • Is there a mapped out Online Strategy in place?
  • If yes, how old is it?
  • How well has it been executed?
  • If not yet and  it had to be executed immediately, does it make sense?
  • Is it addressing what really needs to be addressed?
  • If yes, what’s worked? what hasn’t?
  • What are you still doing that you shouldn’t be?
  • If selling is an option, does it appeal to a Buyer in its current form?
  • Is it set up to be able to “hand over” to a third party?
  • How are the online records (eg Google Anaytics) looking?
  • Does this reporting of the Business (e.g.: to the ATO) reflect its online “value”?
  • Where is the Online Strategy at right now vs. where does it want/intend to be?
  • If it relies solely on YOU, what steps need to be taken to reduce the risk/potential damage?
  • Is there the option to do both ie build/acquire to grow and then Exit once all in place?
  • Alternatively, is now the prime time to acquire an Online business to help fill gaps, if that’s possible?
  • If looking at a Buy option, will acquiring a website get the Business there more quickly?

In order for you to Start with the End in Mind TODAY, what has to happen?
Based on where the Business is now and what is wanted long-term, will determine the gaps to be filled.

By all means contact me if you want to talk any of this through…

buy | sell websites; is it like buying any other business?

BoomBust

Back not so long ago, there were the boom-and-bust years of the WWW when companies paid big bucks for what appeared to be unprofitable online businesses/websites. A sort of gold fever gripped investors: some became almost instant millionaires and others, well many others went the other way, in a big way!

Since the bubble burst, however, the online market has established at a more measured and sustainable pace. Trends show that there are sites that continue to increase in value across the board and the trend remains upward.

This environment presents ample opportunity for successful speculation. Just like the physical property market, the online property market is rightly being regarded by many as a great place to make not just a quick profit, but—potentially—a living.

As with a property, you can buy a web site and have it increase in value over time without having to do anything but maintain it (although the value of physical property depends on the scarcity of real estate, which is unlikely ever to be a problem online!). [“Flipping Websites for Profit“]

As with any business purchase, there are steps to this process:
1. Locating an online business you want to buy
2. Negotiating and completing the sale
3. Adding value to the business
4. Making the decision what to do next – do I keep it? or do i sell it?
5. If part of an existing business’ online strategy, is it doing its job? has it lived up to expectations? is it time to buy another one perhaps?

Lets look at Step 1.
How do you find an online business to buy?
Do you know of one being sold, that you’re interested in?
How do you know what you’re looking at, really? How do you analyse it?

I’ll into more detail about these points next week…

buy | sell websites – “shopping” has commenced…

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This week I’ve been “shopping” for websites.
Plenty around but not many I’m all that interested in. Mainly because even though they may look pretty, there’s been no real revenue-generating thought put into them. Yes, in some cases that can offer opportunity for me, agreed. But not at the asking prices!

Buying and selling a a website is no different to buying and selling a business.
Just because the owner of the site has spent, in some cases, a lot of money to get the site functioning the way it does, it does not automatically mean the site is worth that much.

If it is nothing more than a really expensive “brochure”, the value as such will usually be negligible to a potential buyer. What a seller wants to be able to demonstrate, to illustrate value, is only two things… traffic (incl. database) and revenue.

If neither of these is able to be validated, then realistic interest in the site will be no more than it is for the construction of an average site, regardless of the bells and whistles. That said, there’s always the exception whereby the site holds some strategic value and will save the potential buyer a lot of effort. They, however, are few and far between…

If you have a website you’d like me to have a look at, please email details to sell@theentrepreneurialmother.com

do you have a website for sale?

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Whilst each of you are determining your own Online Business Strategy, I’ve been working on mine. That is, I am now in hot pursuit of Online Businesses and websites as a potential purchase for myself and/or my network of potential buyers… Do you have one?

Is your Online Business/website:

  • profitable?
  • traffic savvy?
  • niche driven?
  • older than 12 months?
  • ready to be sold?
  • priced to buy?

If yes to any of the above, please contact me at sell@theentrepreneurialmother.com advising the above details and the best way to contact you?

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