Anyone with experience buying online businesses? (10)
I have an option to purchase an online business that provides a simple outsourced service. From what I can tell, it's a good opportunity. I've been given some stats that look good, but really have no experience with purchasing a web business want to make sure that I'm going about it correctly and not overlooking anything.
If someone here with experience in this can give me a couple minutes today on skype to discuss it, or just pm with me, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Dont know what field you are in, but I see sites like this on Flippa all the time. Outsourced SEO... outsourced link building business for sale making $xxxx a month.
Are you sure this is a legit idea and not a concept that is sold over and over and over again?
I sold one of my sites using a broker (Ismael Wrixen) from FE International - they also offer sites for sale (of course), so definitely worth trying to potentially talk to him re: some advice... careful on the due diligence etc!
If you post the numbers and key stats and how much the seller is asking for the business, I am sure many people here can tell you right away if it seems fishy.
Chances are high though that if you have never done this sort of thing before, you will get taken to the cleaners. It's like buying a used car ... if you don't know what you are doing, you will most likely get ripped off.
Just a quote from Warren Buffet to remember
"If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy."
Buying a online bussiness is very risky, but can be very rewarding..
1) If have a solid plan how to add value to the bussiness it worth consider
2) If you think it will be easy and it going to be passive income with minimal effort you probably wrong..
For many cases it part of bigger problem.. the buyer trying to escaping fom working hard.. and searching for shiny
object..
Moreover:
If the seller will try to hide something its going to be almost impossible to detect it..
(I bought few website and sold few)
If the site is listed on Flippa, I can tell you with almost 99% assurance you will be disappointed and probably not recover ANY of your purchase price. I am always looking at web businesses for sale on various sites and I can tell you it is like looking for a needle in a stack of needles in a haystack. I agree with one of the other STM members, post the details here and you will get some great feedback as there are a lot of savvy business owners who can help you evaluate the opportunity you are evaluating.
I have bought from flippa before and found out after the sale the seller had multiple sites he was peddling. He just set up different domains and changed the site look. Used the same content and resources. I can only imagine how many sites he sold by just re-packaging it. I did a reverse ip check and found his server and then found all the sites he was selling. Must have been 15-20 of them Checked them all out and was pretty upset. Unfortunately it was after the fact. Personally Flippa is garbage imo. Be very careful....Any site that says its easy passive income...Ask if its so easy then why the hell are they selling it. Do you due diligence before you waste your money. This guy got me for 12k. It didn't break me but definitely stung a little.
Ok guys, you've talked me out of it. It wasn't actually on Flippa, but I can see that there's too many ways for it to not work out, and I'll never know beforehand.
@marketone - 12k.. ouch. I appreciate you sharing that... makes me feel a little better about the money I've lost on similar deals.
Originally Posted by radiosurf
Sometimes the money spent on buying a business can be better used to create a similar one from scratch *your own way*. Depending on time and resources ofcourse.
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