Website flipping is a business activity where existing web properties are purchased to scale them further up. Similar to real estate flipping, where a physical property is bought to resold at a premium after having repurposed it for the market.
Key Components
Why it makes sense to buy existing websites?
All things considered, itโs a pretty great time to be an entrepreneur . The concept of the self-made millionaire used to be something of a joke, with those singled out as…
Where can you buy or sell a website?
While of course, you can independently arrange the purchase or sale of a website (as we'll see understanding the deal flow, and how the private market works, beyond marketplaces…
What makes a website worth buying?
Whichever marketplace you ultimately decide to use, the hardest part is choosing a website to buy.
When I interviewed Walker Deibel, an entrepreneur, investor, advisor and the author of the book “Buy Then Build” he told me that to be a successful acquisition entrepreneur you needed to avoid these pitfalls:ย
Lack of urgency: As he explained “the number one reason in my view, why that never ends up working out is because they donโt work with a sense of urgency. They believe that everyone who is selling, they know something destructive to theย businessย and theyโre trying to unload it really quickly.”
Accusatory mindset: and he also emphasized “nine times out of ten (businesses on sale are not getting unloaded). Usually, someone who has built something ofvaluethey eventually want to sell it. And so a lot of times you get the first question from a first-time buyer, and thatโs โWell, why are they selling?โ And itโs this sort of accusatory question.”
Walker Deibel explained:
The truth is that if youโre an entrepreneur and you start abusiness, and you start this thing from scratch. Itโs hard, its hard work and then the second year if youโre one of the lucky ones, yourbusinessgrows, whatever, 200% over the year before.
The next year it grows another 200% the following year it grows 100%. The year after that it grows 50%, the year after that it grows like 20%, and youโre like โI donโt even know what to do with this anymore.โ
Right? It sort of โIโve done with it all that I can.โ And Iโve run my course and not only that, but Iโm an entrepreneur.
So, I need to kind of move on and do my next thing, and itโs a great opportunity for an acquisition entrepreneur to come in. Presumably, use a bit of leverage to get an outstandingROIon it.
Jump in, take over, and create thebusinessthat they want intending to take thatbusinessto the next level โ all the while getting theROIย of the equity build up as well. So,number one is that they put way too much weight on the reason for selling.
One thing, of course, is to make sure you do your homework and due diligence:ย
You need to understand the due diligencemodel; you need to understand why itโs working. You need to figure out if this is the right fit for you, but be patient.The negatives will turn up because there is an appropriate time, and thatโs immediately following the letter of intent.
All things considered, itโs a pretty great time to be an entrepreneur .
While of course, you can independently arrange the purchase or sale of a website (as we'll see understanding the deal flow, and how the private…
Whichever marketplace you ultimately decide to use, the hardest part is choosing a website to buy.
Another option to become good at acquiring businesses is to leverage on the Thras.io R Cubed model.ย
This is well suited for those that want to buy FBAs (third-party stores on top of Amazon), and as Thras.io explains it’s based on a few key steps:ย
As Ken Kubec from the Thras.io teamย highlighted, the company starts with a broad research approach, and it starts narrowing it down to what they call theย R Cubed (Reviews, Rating and Rank).
And from there, they start asking questions with a drill down approach, starting from the reviews:
Do they have reviews that should establish them as aย leadershipย position?
If so, it goes a level down and look atย product/rating:
Do they have their rating, theย productย quality to back up and sustain their position?
And lastly, about ranking:
...and then rank: are they ranking organically on high keyword volume?
Thras.io looks at what they call โsimple everyday hard-good objects.โ
The buying process is primarily focused on businesses which revenues span from 1-30 million dollars, and that are private labels.
Thras.io also looks for Amazon businesses with a lower amount of SKUs (fewer products but more sales). Indeed, for Thras.io the most valuable businesses are those that hit over a million in sales with the fewer SKUs.
Do you need other ideas to make money? Below a list of ideas with low cost and high profit we found for you:
Website flipping is a business activity where existing web properties are purchased to scale them further up. Similar to real estate flipping, where a physical property is bought to resold at a premium after having repurposed it for the market. Website flipping, therefore, enables to scale existing web properties, thus generating a profit by scaling them up further.
Why it makes sense to buy existing websites?
All things considered, itโs a pretty great time to be an entrepreneur . The concept of the self-made millionaire used to be something of a joke, with those singled out as success stories generally coming from wealthy backgrounds or having benefited from great fortune in some other sense โ today, though thereโs still some fortune required, itโs relatively minimal.
Where can you buy or sell a website?
While of course, you can independently arrange the purchase or sale of a website (as we'll see understanding the deal flow, and how the private market works, beyond marketplaces is critical). We're going to list a few market places, as itโs generally easiest to get started from there.
What makes a website worth buying?
Whichever marketplace you ultimately decide to use, the hardest part is choosing a website to buy. You want something that already works well enough can be updated somewhat to drive up the sales and is likely to hold its value (at least for a little while). Letโs look at some examples of how you can get this wrong:
What is Become an acquisition entrepreneur?
Acquisition Entrepreneurship (AE) starts by buying an existing business instead of starting one from scratch. Therefore, an acquisition entrepreneur masters the process of acquiring existing businesses to shorten the path to success.
What is the r cubed acquisition model?
Thras.io follows an acquisition entrepreneurship template, by surfing the Amazon third-party ecosystem. The company acquires Amazon sellers' businesses and it scales them up. It follows a fast acquisition template to offer an exit to Amazon sellers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Website Flipping: A Comprehensive Guide?
Website flipping is a business activity where existing web properties are purchased to scale them further up. Similar to real estate flipping, where a physical property is bought to resold at a premium after having repurposed it for the market.
Why it makes sense to buy existing websites?
All things considered, itโs a pretty great time to be an entrepreneur . The concept of the self-made millionaire used to be something of a joke, with those singled out as success stories generally coming from wealthy backgrounds or having benefited from great fortune in some other sense โ today, though thereโs still some fortune required, itโs relatively minimal.
Where can you buy or sell a website?
While of course, you can independently arrange the purchase or sale of a website (as we'll see understanding the deal flow, and how the private market works, beyond marketplaces is critical). We're going to list a few market places, as itโs generally easiest to get started from there.
What makes a website worth buying?
Whichever marketplace you ultimately decide to use, the hardest part is choosing a website to buy. You want something that already works well enough can be updated somewhat to drive up the sales and is likely to hold its value (at least for a little while). Letโs look at some examples of how you can get this wrong:
Acquisition Entrepreneurship (AE) starts by buying an existing business instead of starting one from scratch. Therefore, an acquisition entrepreneur masters the process of acquiring existing businesses to shorten the path to success.
Thras.io follows an acquisition entrepreneurship template, by surfing the Amazon third-party ecosystem. The company acquires Amazon sellers' businesses and it scales them up. It follows a fast acquisition template to offer an exit to Amazon sellers.
Gennaro Cuofano is a business analyst with an International MBA in corporate finance and business strategy (2012). He leads research at FourWeekMBA, which he created, and at The Business Engineer (businessengineer.ai), his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 90,000 subscribers and more than 660 published analyses. His work breaks down how companies make money, read from their own filings: revenue and profit structure, capital allocation and ownership. FourWeekMBA reached about four million business people, including C-level executives, investors, analysts and product managers, in 2022 alone. See how we source.
