KIBI.ONE PRESENTS…
How to Sell a Website For $80,000 And Live to Regret it!
About 3 years ago we sold our last website. We sold it on Flippa for $80,000 and have since come to the realization that selling websites is not smart.
Kibi.One is a no-code SaaS incubation program focused on helping non-technical founders build software companies. Visit our homepage to learn more about our program.
Why You Should Think Twice About Selling Websites
As a content marketing agency, we need to find ways to systematize and optimize complex content production processes. Once our content is produced, we also need to find ways to efficiently distribution the content we’ve completed.
We recently built a no-code SaaS platform that took us around a year to build. At its peak, the platform was making over $16,000 / month. During it’s worst month it was making around $4000 / month. In this video I’m going to tell you how we built and sold this website on Flippa for $80,000.
The Road to Our $80,000 Flippa Sale
So first, we ended up selling the project I’m featuring in this video on Flippa for just over $80,000 US. As you can see, our project became an editor choice listing and we had over 25 bids on it. Our traffic on this website ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of page views each month. All and all, the sale was successful and everything went smoothly.
However, the funny thing, or maybe not so funny thing is, looking back, I wish we didn’t sell this platform. Let me explain why.
I Regret Selling This Website
For those of you who subscribe and follow us on YouTube, or are members of our no-code incubator program, you’ll know we’re big believers in keeping what you build. We teach the members of our program to focus on building income generating no-code SaaS applications or platform businesses, much like a real estate investor would build a portfolio of properties.
In our case, we’re dealing with a different asset class, but the concepts are mostly the same. If you’re always building and flipping, you’re always starting back at zero. And at the end of the day, I don’t think you should be too focused on making money, I think you should look at web properties as an opportunity to build real wealth.
At Kibi.One, we actually stopped flipping about 3 years ago and now we’re currently running over 12 No-code, SaaS and agency businesses and our portfolio is getting bigger each year.
Now the reason why I regret selling is because when you sell a young web platform, you’re likely only looking at a 1- 4 year valuation.
Selling Your Website? Expect a Really Low Valuation
So first of all, I believe you should consider selling only as a last resort. The only reasons I think you should sell are for the following reasons:
– You see something on the horizon you can’t or don’t want to deal with.
– You’re desperate to free up capital and You have other projects fall back on.
Those are really the only two reasons I think you should sell. If you can think of other valid reasons for selling, I would love to hear them in the comments section below.
But I often see people sell because they lost interest in their project or because their project takes up too much of their time. Some others sell because their project is taking too long to gain traction and they feel frustrated with their growth speed. In my opinion, those are problems you can solve without having to sell.
You need to realize that if you sell, as I’ve mentioned you’ll likely get a really low valuation. So you have to ask yourself: Have you really exploited all of the growth opportunities? Have you done everything you can to create a systems dependent business where you personally don’t need to be too involved? Or are you just giving up because you’re tired and can’t see light at the end of the tunnel?
I think too many no-code and SaaS entrepreneurs give up on their ideas before their ideas give up on them.
How to Increase Your Website Valuation
But if you do decide that selling is the right move for you at this time, here are some things that will help you increase your sale price:
– First, Investors buy website history and growth. Valuation multiples also tend to go up, if the perceived risk is lower. Therefore, it’s best to Hold on to your platform as long as possible before selling and try to get your traffic and revenue curve pointing up and to the right.
– Second, Have transferable assets like twitter, FB and YouTube accounts. Having these accounts setup with a baseline level of followers or subscribers, show investors you’re not just a build and flip or a premade template. In general, the more defendable assets you have the better.
– Next, try to get your pages ranking in organic search. AGain, this shows investors you put in time into SEO and investors will often pay a premium for that.
– Next, Make sure your site has a decent Domain Authority. If you want, I’ll provide a link below to a list of over 60 channels where you can distribute your no-code or SaaS content online. Distributing your content on these channels will help you get your first links and investors will pay more for a site with a higher DA.
Lastly, as a side note, if you are thinking about selling a platform you’ve built, get in touch with me first, because I might be interested in buying it off you. Again, I don’t think you should sell, but if you’re going to, make an offer to us over at Kibi.One first.
What Building Building a Portfolio of Websites and Keeping Them All?
Okay, so what do I recommend you do rather than sell?
What I suggest you do is you build and keep. Focus on building a portfolio of no-code SaaS and no-code platform businesses that will act as passive income generating digital assets for you for years to come.
I mentioned earlier that I regret selling the no-code platform that I’m showcasing in this video. And the reason being is because I was looking at it with a really limited vision for what it should be. AT Kibi.One when we launch no-code products within our no-code incubator we aim to scale projects to a minimum of $10,000 / month in revenue.
Once this site started only making $4000 to $6000 / month, it fell out of our desirable revenue range.
But I think the mistake I made was looking at it like a stand-alone project not thinking about how it can help us support the other no-code projects we build and incubate within our startup studio.
For example, even if a project is only doing $4000 or $6000 / month, we could have still used that money to help fund other projects within our portfolio.
$80,000 might seem like a decent lump sum payment and it might seem substantially better than making $5000 / month. But it’s really not.
Around the time we sold this project, we also sold two others. In our no-code incubator program we scaled another project in the learning management systems space to around $6000 in MRR in 6 months. We flipped it for $60,000 on Flippa.
Then we scaled another site to just under $20,000 / month in revenue and we flipped it for about $250,000 privately.
I regret selling each of these projects. They were nowhere near mature enough to sell. The last time I checked in with the new owners, both projects were doing over $40,000 / month in revenue. And of course I’m happy for both of the new owners, but I mean, news like this stings a little it.
And this is why I stopped building and selling platforms. And this is also why when members of our no-code SaaS incubator program as if they should flip what they build. My advice would be not to in most cases.
I believe, if you’ve built something of value, keep it. A younger version of myself might say sell it. BUt now, with more experience under my belt I see both sides of the story. I think the world of buying and selling digital assets is much more a buyers market than a sellers market.
It’s honestly not that hard to build a website, or a no-code platform that provides value. This is what we do on auto-pilot at Kibi.One.
It’s Not That Hard to Build Valuable Platforms
and we are so SURE OF OUR PROCESS WE actually tell the participants if our no-code incubator program doesn’t produce a positive ROI for you, we’ll buy your platform from you for the price you enrolled in our program and we’ll give you $100 extra. Essentially, we’re giving over a 100% refund if it doesn’t produce a positive return on investment.
The truth is, that it’s just not that hard to build a platform that provides value. I think the harder thing is to be patient and not give up on your platforms too soon. It might seem like a good idea to take a one to two year valuation. But 12 to 24 months flies by at the end, you’ll likely have spent all of the money, and be left without a platform.
So in short, in the majority of cases, I just don’t think it’s smart.
Conclusion
So that’s the story of how we built and sold a platform for $80,000 in flippa and lived to regret it.
Again, if you want to know more about the portfolio of projects we currently run, just sign up for our newsletter in the description below. Or if you’re interested in joining our incubator program and building a valuable digital asset for yourself then I’ll include a link to our no-code incubation program, as well as a coupon code for $100 off below.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Kibi.One is a no-code SaaS incubation program focused on helping non-technical founders build software companies. Visit our homepage to learn more about our program.
Build SaaS Platforms Without Code
Kibi.One is a platform development incubator that helps non-technical founders and entrepreneurs build software companies without having to know how to code.
We're so sure of our program, that if it's doesn't generate a positive ROI for you, we'll buy your platform from you. Watch the video to the right to learn more.