HACKER Q&A
📣 legrisch

How to Sell a Website


Back in 2018 I started a Website together with two friends. It's a platform for people to create desktop wallpapers – I will not share the URL here. It's based on a feature that was introduced in a major OS back then and I think we still are the only online tool to make use of that feature. The platform is rather successful in terms of users/wallpapers/clicks but last year we needed to implement ads – a step which we tried to prevent from the beginning. It was necessary as the expenses went up quite a lot. We are now living in different cities (different countries even), the website needs a constantly running mac server (which fails often, very often) and we are all pretty busy with other projects.

We agreed to try to sell it and we asked ourselves how selling something like a website would go about?

Where would you find possible buyers?

What data is important to share?

Do we share our code for review?

  👤 f0e4c2f7 Accepted Answer ✓
There are markets for selling websites and internet businesses like Microacquire, Flippa, and Empire Flippers.

You can get an idea of what kind of data is shared by browsing those markets.

https://microacquire.com/

https://empireflippers.com/

https://flippa.com/

👤 is0tope
Off topic question to those who are the buyers of these "small websites". What exactly is the idea here? Do you buy it up for the domain, or for the underlying business/cash flow? I've heard of this many times but have yet to meet anyone on the purchasing end of it.
👤 Brajeshwar
Besides the suggestions in the comments; add a ribbon/banner on the top of your site that it is on Sale. There also used to be lots of forums for buy/sell of domains/businesses. I'm not sure how they are these days.

About 10-years ago, I was approached by someone (who turned out to be a broker) for a pretty common tech-word domain. I sold it kinda cheap. Later, I learnt that the buyer (or final owner) was a one of the world's top tech billion-dollar company.

I think I just ran a simple blog on that for a while with a little banner that sold "Domain on Sale" or something in that line.

👤 1_player
Check out feinternational.com - not affiliated, but I have almost been a client myself and I'd try again with them next time I have a business to sell.
👤 new_guy
Don't share your code, someone will just copy it and you won't get a penny.

Try https://flippa.com it's like ebay for websites.

👤 winternett
I have had a domain for many years I was thinking about using to build a luxury apartment listings or interior design site or app on, but there is a lot of work involved in pushing it forward. I got caught up in other projects and fear that it may just sit around for more time unused...

Was thinking about where to sell the domain name, but that market looks wild with all the scams around on the internet and excessive fees and processes...

Perhaps I may just make a email to send to key real estate companies at some point, but I have no clue on how to properly determine what the domain is worth. :/

👤 giarc
To share code for review, just create a few Github gists that you can share. https://gist.github.com/ That allows potential buyers to ensure it's not spaghetti.

I've sold on Flippa and MicroAcquire before. I'd suggest MicroAcquire. Happy to expand on my reasoning if you'd like.

👤 galuggus
Cold email people in the same space
👤 zigzaggy
I don't see an email address in your bio, can you add some contact information? Or at least come back here and post where you listed the site maybe?

Thanks!

👤 carlgreene
I would use flippa.com or microacquire.com depending on the revenue.

I also buy small website businesses and am interested! Email is in my profile

👤 _lex
I also might be interested - definitely reach out to me (my email is in my profile).
👤 quickthrower2
Maybe Canva would buy you out.
👤 hpagey
it typically goes for about 24 to 36 times your monthly revenue.