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It's not what you know, it's who you know

2 points by _ud4a ↗ HN
you always hear stories about some ex-googler or ex-"big startup" made their own site and got it funded and sold for millions pre-launch which proves the fact that i made the exact same thing, it'd still be running on my own home web server!!

so how do you break this cycle when you are not in the "inner circle"?!

i have a site that's 4 years old, makes around 80-100K per year with no money on marketing and no social media presence or anythign. only incoming money from adsense and couple of other ads. it's grown on pure word of mouth and google search. It has a page rank of 4 with around 200K uniques a month and 14pageviews per visit.

if i want to sell this site, how can i go about it other than posting it on flippa.com? how would I see who is interested ans get the word out?

any people interested on this board?

2 comments

[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 18.7 ms ] thread
_ud4a
also as a side note, this website is a side project since i have a fulltime job and since it's 3 of us, the money isn't sufficient to just let it sit and live off of and we don't have enough time to put into it to take it to the next level.
JacobAldridge
You're actually in a similar position to most small businesses that start to consider an exit - you've never really needed to build relationships with potential purchasers, and so you haven't.

The fact that yours is a website gives you some advantages (potentially global purchasers, depending on your product) and some disadvantages (many of those small businesses sell to their staff, which you don't have or need).

To get the word out, you do need to make some approaches and build some relationships (start building out who you know - it's a very useful skill, if only because it scares most of us so we avoid it).

As a broad suggestion, look horizontally - who are your competitors or very similar businesses operating in the same space. They may see you as a successful acquisition; then look vertically - what do your paying customers buy shortly before or shortly after your service, because those businesses can readily expand into your market through your acquisition.

Approach them to discuss the market in general, the opportunities they see etc. This is all excellent research, and with the right people (ones you feel comfortable with) you can start mentioning your plans to pursue 'other projects' or even 'outright sell'.

This isn't the only way to sell your business of course, but it's a smart place to start.