DD Resources: Buying A Website? Need Help With Due Diligence?

[Clinton]

Found a site you'd like to buy and need help with investigating it?

There's no known service out there advertising due diligence on the smaller web businesses.

The way I see it, you have two options.

Option 1: Start a thread in this section asking for opinions. This forum has probably the highest concentration of experienced website buyers in the world. Some will drop in and possibly tip you off to a flaw or two you hadn't spotted yourself.

Option 2: Find someone who can work with you and investigate a site more thoroughly on your behalf. You can use the list below. These members have all said they'd be willing to consider taking on private DD work. Browse through their posts, pick the one/s you think sound like they know what they're talking about and drop them a PM. You're basing your choice on what you've judged of their suitability to assist you. You may get some help free, you may have to pay for some help, you may be able to reach a barter agreement. Whatever it is, that's between you and the person you've chosen.

Please do not PM me about due diligence work. Please do not PM to ask me to recommend someone.

Members with over 300 posts as of June 2010:
benitez17 - Posts made
tke71709 - Posts made

Others:
3Six - Posts Made
petertdavis - Posts Made

Are you someone who'd like to conduct due diligence as discussed in this thread? Make at least 20 posts on the forum (because that's what people are using to judge your knowledge and experience) and then send me a PM requesting listing and I'll list you.

[Clinton]

It has come to my attention that some people are signing up here just so they can tout for business by PM.

If you get a Private Message (PM) offering to do due diligence for you, ignore it (or notify me and I'll take action). This is a non-commercial forum and unsolicited approaches like this are PM spam.

You do the choosing. If they are good enough and are willing to provide due diligence or other website buying advice, they'll be listed above and you can browse their posts to decide the extent of their knowledge and experience. Go by what they've demonstrated they know rather than what they say they know.

[Clinton]

I've modified the original post to give prominence to those members who've been more active around here. As clients are judging experts by their posts on this forum, I believe this makes it easier for them.

I'm beginning to get more and more PMs asking for assistance with due diligence related matters. I'm sending all such enquiries to this thread and have updated my profile to point visitors here and save me having to tell them by PM that this is where they'll find the services they need.

[Clinton]

I made this post in this thread earlier today, but moved it here as this is a more appropriate location.

I find it a bit strange that people will pay for expertise from lawyers, accountants etc., but on a matter like this which requires even harder to find expertise, they are reluctant to pay for assistance. I'm not saying that you aren't, but I've had numerous cases in the past with people looking to buy $500K - $1M sites who thought my $10K-$15K price was too expensive for the week's worth of work I would have had to put in. At least one of those people ended up losing most of his $700K from being caught out by the simplest of cons - fake traffic! What used to bug me was that they'd offer to pay the money if the enquiry ended successfully and they went ahead with the purchase (i.e. if they chickened out, I'd get no payment for my time and work)!! It's a DD, dummy, not a business laundry service where I make a unviable business viable. How stupid do you need to be to give your DD consultant an incentive to recommend you go ahead with the purchase?

[Clinton]

I just found this page on the websiteproperties.com broker site listing some of the things you should check when buying a site. I've put together a due diligence guide here. There a thread in the VIP Lounge here (for those who have enough posts to access the VIP Lounge).

Please add any other good sources of information on doing due diligence on websites.