What skill sets are required to make money flipping web sites

[KenW3]

New business-people wanting to make money flipping websites may have an incorrect perception of the level of difficulty for the process, and the amount of knowledge needed, when entering into this business model.

Although flipping is often seen as a single concept, flipping is not a single skill, it's an extensive series of skill sets. What skills would you suggest be included in the curriculum of a class on flipping web sites and Why are these needed?

Also, what questions do you need answered based upon your experience?

[akirk]

Business skills - and the ability to delegate / bring in others where you have no skills...
content / marketing / coding / design skills

Alasdair

[Thomas]

Depends what sites you buy and where you want to add value.

Personally, I have no design/technical skills so I would never look to buy a site and increase value that way.

I tend to focus on sites where I can improve the monetization and get more out of the traffic that already exists. It's amazing how many sites are hugely under-monetized, so often it's not that hard to double revenue on an established site.

The only pre-requisite is probably negotiation and general business skills. If you can't negotiate a good deal when buying/selling, you're not going to be profitable.

[Clinton]

Skills:

#1 Being able to sift through the mountains of junk, preferably using some automation, to find potential buys
#2 Being a cynical, suspicious sod as you have to see through all the sellers' gloss
#3 Having experience monetising sites in the sector / niche you're considering and in the monetising methods used by the sites you're considering
#4 Being able to form an educated guess on the main risks faced by your prospective buys
#5 Being able to quantify those risks and adjust for them in the price determination
#6 Being able to do DD on traffic, on revenue, on time required to run the site, on everything
#7 Having the ability to negotiate the deal, agree contractual terms, complete the transaction safely, transfer the site to your hosting a/c
#8 Having the skills to add value to the site via your existing contacts, via access to content, via owning other sites in the niche etc.
#9 Knowing where and how to list your site for sale and how to conduct a sale to get maximum price rather than simply listing on Flippa
#10 Last but not least - having common sense and good business acumen. For example, if you put a zero value to all the time you invest yourself in the whole buying and selling process, a cost most siteflipping ebooks and courses are strangely silent on (because it would invalidate all their claims about the vast profits to be made), is dumb.

[sitemanager]

I think that having basic business common sense is a good start.

Whenever I look at businesses to buy (whether online or offline), I normally like to see the last years worth of income (along with other information). I am always amazed to see websites that have sold for thousands of dollars that don't even have 2-3 months worth of income verification. Some don't even have 1 month worth of income proof.