FP - 'Flipping' vs 'Hatching'

[flipcrowd]

In Bryan's post (http://flippingplanet.com/forum/thre...g-Myths-Vol.-1) he talked about the following common myth:

MYTH #1: SITE FLIPPING IS BUILDING SITES AND THEN SELLING THEM

This is the main one and makes me giggle every time I see it. And I must say, I see it oh so often. There's even a countless number of e-books released that teach you how to "flip websites for profit", whereas in reality they teach you how to build them from ground up and then sell them - and hopefully profit. A little.

I'm not going into the debate of whether there's money to be made building and selling turnkey sites or not (those who know me know my position on this already), but I am going to say that this is NOT flipping. At least not in its traditional sense.

Flipping is - and has been for ages - buying something and then selling it for a profit.

I completely agree.
I think the key issue and source of confusion/debate is that website 'flipping' has moved from its infancy into adolescence without a relative term ever been used to differentiate the act of creating a website from scratch as opposed to true site flipping, which is buying one and selling it for a profit.

I think a clear differentiation is needed to not only put the debate to rest, but also to acknowledge and define the parameters of two quite different activities at work:

Website Hatching: Building sites from scratch then selling them

Website Flipping: Buying sites and then selling it for a profit

Both variations may include some level of development, ongoing refining, seo, marketing etc before sale, but to me, at the heart of it is two simple definitions:

If you have built the site from scratch and sell it (at what ever stage) you are Hatching a website

If you buy an existing site and add value/perceived value to sell for a profit you are Flipping a website

*NOTE: To clarify and give som eof the posts in the thread context, I had originally proposed 'Scratching' as the term for describing making a site from scratch and selling it, after some good discussion, this has evolved into 'Hatching' a website.

[Bryan]

Would've given you 7 thanks if the system allowed me to.

Let's start promoting this thing!! And in 6 months everybody will know what's Flipping and what's Hatching.

(I should probably release a WSO on website scratching to get the word out. LOL)

[flipcrowd]

I concur! It's high time the two were seperated once and for all

[Christian]

I was wondering what that would be called. Okay, does anyone have experience with Hatching?

[flipcrowd]

Anyone that has ever built a site from scratch and sold it does, they just didnt have a term to call it I suppose...so there should be quite a few members with experience and insight

[Christian]

Sweet, because I just posted a thread about some domains I don't know what to do with, and I would love to hatch them haha....

[thebrokenbox]

I like it! It's good to have this whole thing clearly defined, I'm pretty tired of seeing people "flip" sites that they created from scratch. Now I'm definitely gonna try and use hatching when referring to that.

[GreyWolf]

I'm not trying to take anything away from your idea, but I've always just called it either "building" for creating a new site or "flipping" for buying and selling an old site.

Mostly because that's how it's defined in real estate. Builders and Flippers are both real estate investors, but they're completely different in what they do. Builders build and then sell, Flippers buy and then sell. It's the same thing as with internet domains.

Domains are kind of like the real estate of the internet, so using the same terms always made sense to me.

Scratching might be a cool sounding term, except that to me "Scratching a site" sounds almost like shutting down or bailing out on a site. Kind of like scratching something off a list.

Building vs. Flipping, and Builder vs. Flipper sound just like what they're doing without giving much thought to "why that term?"

I just though I'd point that out. It doesn't really matter to me what term becomes popular though. Whatever the term it would definitely be a good idea to distinguish between the two. Just like with the confusion about SEO. (It's a lot more clear to refer to SEO for on-page optimization, and SEP or SEM for offpage promotion or marketing like backlinks, etc.

You're definitely right that it simplifies things when there's more clearly defined terms for things.



edit -
BTW, I think the term "flipping" for buying a new domain name and then selling it came about when the internet was younger and that was the main type of speculation. As time progressed though and the market became bigger for actual flipping, the very first type of domain investing that was called flipping isn't usually even called that any more. The act of buying new domains to resell has been referred to as "domaining" for awhile now.

So really you have three different classes of domain investors.
Domainers - Buy a domain name and then resell it with no website.
Builders - Buy a domain, build a website, and then sell it.
Flippers - Buy an existing website, add value, and then resell it.

For website investors though it would just be the two. Builders and Flippers.

[flipcrowd]

You raise some good points Grey. For me the thing is that when people talk about 'building' a site, that can also include 'building on' a site, ie building on an existising site you bought, then flipped, can still use the term 'building'. It's the same with 'developers/developing'..its common vernacular, but can be used in either context - ie building a site from 'scratch' or building on an existing site/building value in an existing site.

By using the term 'scratching' - its clear and definitive, not open to contextual interpretation etc.
It's interesting you mentioned scratching as in bailing out on a site or 'scratching' it off a list...that's part of the reason I like the term so much...the double entendre is quite apt as that's exactly what the a scratcher is doing...they build it from 'scratch' then 'scratch' that site of their list....where a flipper then moves in, buys the asset, increases/builds value/perceived value, then 'flips' for a profit.

[GreyWolf]

That's true of course, but it's also true in real estate. A lot of house flippers do a lot of building and remodelling. Just depends on the flipper, some like to find a fixer-upper, fix it up and resell it. Others like to find homes that are just undervalued because the realty company doesn't know how to get top dollar, they buy the house, take better pictures, write a better listing and then sell for a profit with very little actual work.

In the housing market no one really gets confused about whether there talking about a "Builder" or the people that actually do the building. I think the same is true with websites, I think the context makes it pretty clear whether you're talking about "Site Builders" or builders of sites.

Like I said I don't care what it's called, but I thought I'd point out that scratching is a term pretty well associated with canceling, deleting, throwing out, etc. So the initial thing that came to mind when I saw "Site Scratching" is that it on it's own without the explanation it looked more like it would mean "time to bail out on an unsuccessful site". That's not quite what you'd want the initial thought to be. I think the best terms and the ones that usually take off are the ones that immediately bring to mind what it means without much explaining.

Maybe it's just me, but that was the first thing that popped in my head when I read it in your first post. I don't know that "Builder/Building" is any better than "Scratcher/Scratching" it's just the first thing that comes to mind for me because of the real estate connection.

The main thing though as I said before is that you're right about a term being needed to differentiate between it and "Flipper/Flipping".