Flippa's Pro Website Buyers' Guide - Anyone Read It?

[Clinton]

From their blog - something for buyers.

They've giving away a copy of this "Pro" guide they've put together. You need to be registered at Flippa to get your free copy (but I'm sure pirated versions will appear online in due course as they usually do .)

this guide draws on our behind-the-scenes website marketplace insights as well as consulting with industry experts such as FlipFilter.

Has anyone here, apart from Justin at FlipFilter, been consulted on this? Just curious. I was wondering who the industry experts were because I've been noticing something...

Browsing through the Flippa blog and elsewhere I get the impression that content wise the ground is thinning for Flippa and there aren't that many people willing to contribute material. I'm sure there are still "site flipping" evangelists who'd like to post something that promotes their own sites. If so well done to Andrew for resisting what's often a lot of nonsense, misinformation and blatant self-promotion from semi-clueless wannabes

But, as much as I love Justin's contribution - both on the A-List and elsewhere - has the excitement about writing quality articles on the topic cooled somewhat recently? Or is everyone busy writing his own ebook? The ones who used to generate quality material don't do it anymore. Travis was good. But he sold Flipwebsites.com to Eppie. Eppie was good but then he sold to Chris Yates and David Gass. (Till they sell to someone else.) Flippingnetwork.com closed all public articles. Similar story with others who used to write on the subject. If Justin's getting more exclusive he should raise his prices

Anyway, I'm off to read the ebook. Your thoughts on this big effort from Flippa?

[JockP]

here my take on it all.

Some big guru pushed it for a but, everyone talk about it, everyone tried it, everyone failed.

I think you have to spend at least 10k to get a good site and made a good profit

I think there is limited supply of good websites to buy compared to other opportunities of making money on the internet. I.e. millions of business onwers to sell a website to verusus 20-500k sites of which 2% want to sell right now = 10,000 sites

Unfortunately it's not a big enough niche / market to make money by showing people how to make money.

On a side note - never read the report, however love justins A list it rocks !!

[eppie]

I was asked to consult on it but ended up negotiating a private sale of FlipWebsites.com with Chris and David. I'm not sure if Flippa decided to replace me with someone else as an "industry expert" or not.

As for the lack of expert contributors to Flippa's blog, I find it a bit curious. In the time that I ran FW, they only contacted me once (to consult on this ebook). You'd think they'd do more industry outreach, asking people to guest post for them, interviewing successful sellers and buyers, etc. They also aren't keen on advertising on industry related sites. It's an odd dynamic to say the least.

If they ever opened up an affiliate program, the niche would be much more lucrative and would probably grow faster. Unlike a lot of other make money online niches, it's still going to have limited upside because there's a greater barrier to entry (at least for real "flips" - buy an underperforming site, improve it, sell it). You need some money to get in the game, which means there's more risk.

[crabfoot]

From the outside -
I'm a member of forums that have been purchased by Chris and David, As I see things, they are not attempting to rapidly improve revenues or violently disturb the status quo on any of the sites they have recently bought.

As an end user, I find that "lack of disturbance" somewhat reassuring.

As someone who has a clue about business, I find the lack of activity somewhat disturbing. While they bought a "live" product with Meathead's forum, they are not actively promoting it - despite the obvious facts that it is a good product worth selling, with valid and current info. The forum itself is rather lifeless without input from new members - and the Ebook was the main source of new members.

The incentive to get posters on Flipping Network was an invite/recommendation reference for your friends. I invited a couple - George Marshall, whose book "Get Out While You Can" was a pre-release sell-out on Amazon, and Ty Hancock, who was a BBC producer, and is a PHP guru who makes a living from his sites. I pointed out to Chris that these are people who should have the "run of the site" to start with, but he said that they would be excluded from the VIP area until they had proved their worth through posting useful things. Can they be bothered about that ... pardon my football analogy, that's like asking Sir Bobby Charlton to score against Boston United to show he can kick a ball. Don't matter that he could do it in his prime, he has to do it NOW or we stop listening ...

Whatever C&D do, they don't like outsider ideas, or suggestions that don't concur with their thoughts. We can all see why they might ignore random suggestions, in the same way that Sir Alec Ferguson has to ignore 40k opinions before he picks the Manchester United team. But the problem is, from where I stand, C&D have already decided that Heskey and Milner are not even on the books ...

Eppie has my sympathy.

[Thomas]

I've blogged for Flippa a few times (usually semi-promotional, but like to think I contibute decent content) but wasn't "consulted" on this product. The ebook itself is alright. If I were Flippa, I wouldn't be releasing any content on the topic of buying/selling as it could open up a can of worms if people follow the advice and start getting screwed over. I would be doing whatever I can to "persuade" others in the industry to promote instead (as Eppie rightly points out, they would really need an affiliate program).

I've seen quite a bit of poor rehashed content on the topic of flipping around the web lately so it's good to see Flippa don't let them loose on their blog. Clinton, I remember you saying a while ago that his content on buying/selling sites ends up rehashed all over the web, so I guess it could be considered flattering!

I'd agree that Justin's A-list is great, he really knows his stuff. Let's just hope he doesn't end up selling FlipFilter to someone who will run it into the ground

The way I see it: those who actually know what they are talking about move onto bigger things and those who don't will write a few posts, release a WSO and move on to the next pot of gold. It's also inevitable that those who have been in the market for a while get to the stage where a lot of their sites sell privately with no need for Flippa.

From my perspective, producing quality products is important. It's not really possible to create quality products on a regular basis so we've stayed away from that for now and focused on our main business. It would also be slightly hypocritical to release a product without backing it up with "real" proof. I know, Clinton, that you're not a fan of the make money online info-products, but in my opinion, there is still plenty of room for quality content on the subject of buying/selling/flipping websites and people are willing to pay for it.

[Clinton]

As for the lack of expert contributors to Flippa's blog, I find it a bit curious. In the time that I ran FW, they only contacted me once

eppie, we discussed this a lot during the early days of this forum. Luke Moulton, marketing manager at that time (as you know), gave the impression that he wanted a wide and varied input but, in reality, it appeared that they wanted the opinions of just those who talked up site-flipping even if it meant making concessions such as promoting the authors' sites, projects, ebooks etc. That tended to skew the material in a certain direction. 3Six offered to create a post correcting some glaring errors in claims Flippa made, but they weren't interested. benitez17 withdrew his interest as well. I think it was because there was no guarantee of an article he wrote getting posted. I believe it was a case of "write the article and we'll publish if we agree with it". And they certainly wouldn't have taken a post from me explaining that Luke's advice on valuing websites was a bunch of crap. (Anyone remember the Adwords valuation method? Apparently you could value a site based on SERPs traffic times the cost of that keyword in Adwords!)

I'd agree that Justin's A-list is great, he really knows his stuff. Let's just hope he doesn't end up selling FlipFilter to someone who will run it into the ground

The amount Flippa's pays for the A-list isn't likely to cover the true worth of someone of Justin's calibre spending the amount of time he spends. If the flipfilter website doesn't generate enough of the green stuff I wouldn't blame Justin if he bailed at some point. As you say, if you're sufficiently good at the game, you'll play it rather than spend your time writing rule books. And Justin is a talented and intelligent chap.

It's also inevitable that those who have been in the market for a while get to the stage where a lot of their sites sell privately with no need for Flippa.

That's interesting. Could you expand?

Clinton, that you're not a fan of the make money online info-products, but in my opinion, there is still plenty of room for quality content on the subject of buying/selling/flipping websites and people are willing to pay for it.

I completely agree with you. I have no doubt there's demand, that further demand can be created with the right marketing and enough hype. What I'm not convinced about is that these customers will actually make money. And I don't feel it's right to sell them a dream that, in reality, doesn't exist. I don't feel it's right to raise their expectations on the level of demand there is, the level of skill required, the extent of risk and the level of difficulty involved in making money from flipping. And Flippa, like most writing on the subject of flipping, exaggerate the ease and/or exaggerate what the product can do.

[Thomas]

That's interesting. Could you expand?

I completely agree with you. I have no doubt there's demand, that further demand can be created with the right marketing and enough hype. What I'm not convinced about is that these customers will actually make money. And I don't feel it's right to sell them a dream that, in reality, doesn't exist. I don't feel it's right to raise their expectations on the level of demand there is, the level of skill required, the extent of risk and the level of difficulty involved in making money from flipping. And Flippa, like most writing on the subject of flipping, exaggerate the ease and/or exaggerate what the product can do.

1) When I first started out, I had to use a public outlet such as Flippa in order to get exposure for my sites. As time has gone on, I've built up a client base (either past buyers or referrals from clients/forums/blogs) so quite often can sell a site without even needing to use Flippa. I'll use it from time to time, but most of the time it's quicker (and cheaper) to work with buyers who I've worked with in the past. The main issue with Flippa is the number of tyre-kickers so used to waste countless hours dealing with people who have no interest in buying. It's still a viable outlet that I will continue to use, but there's no doubting having a few trusted buyers makes life much easier (and more lucrative).

2) There's never any guarantee that anyone will make money, whatever you teach them. The majority of people won't even bother trying and then complain that it doesn't work (common across many industries). I don't see any problem with "selling them a dream" if that "dream" is a lifestyle the seller has built for themselves through that method/strategy (whether it be flipping or whatever else) - it might not be reachable for all, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Domain registrations go up year on year, so I would argue the demand is quite healthy (not everyone would be looking to buy established sites, but domain regs being up implies increased demand in the industry in general). Skill varies, and I would always encourage people to work to their strengths, I have no tech skills whatsoever and do okay for myself. Risk is relative. What "risk" would/should someone be willing to take if it meant the possibility of being able to quit their day job and be their own boss?

I'll agree on the ease exaggerations - but it's quite hard to define how easy or hard something might be, as everyone is different with varied levels of experience. Exaggerating what the product can do is just asking for trouble - it's only going to lead to refunds and a bad rep.