This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Side Hustle School, welcome back. Chris Guillebeau here. It's the Ides of November, 15th November, episode 2,510. If you have ever poured your heart and soul into a digital project, you know how deeply personal and attached you can become to it. It happens.
You love something for a long time. You put a lot of work into it, but then of course life can change. And you're like, what do I do now? Can I sell this asset? Can I profit from what I've created?
Not just the profit that I've had so far perhaps, but maybe something that's kind of a one-time payoff or perhaps ongoing series of payments. Can I sell a website basically? And of course the answer is yes, but there's more to it than that. And there are ways to maximize the value of this digital asset you have created. So I'm gonna hear a question today about that.
Jordan from Traverse City, Michigan is pondering this exact situation with a coding centric blog. So let's explore the ins and outs of selling a website while preserving its integrity because Jordan in particular is concerned with finding the right buyer. So let's talk about all that in a short action-packed episode. It's time to sell my website. How do I do it?
Stay tuned. [Music]
My team, it's Jordan from Traverse City, Michigan. Over the past few years, I built a blog around my interest in coding and making single purpose apps. However, due to changing life circumstances, I'm thinking about selling the site. The idea of parting with my digital baby is daunting and I'm unsure how to even begin evaluating it.
Can you walk me through the process of selling a website and ensuring it lands in the right hands? [Music]
All right, Jordan, selling a blog, a website, any digital asset, especially one that you have poured a lot of time and passion into. No small decision, but there's some steps and considerations that are gonna help you do this better. And I also do really respect the part about how, like making sure it lands in the right hands, that is a little bit trickier than just like, how do I sell it for the most amount of money? So let's focus on the first one, but maybe a little bit of emphasis on the second.
So basically what you wanna do is, there's some websites that provide valuation and you can go and look and say, okay, but here's some numbers. Here's a rough estimate of what my business might be worth. And it's gonna give you a range. It's gonna give you a range that is typically a multiple of your monthly revenue. Okay, so that's the key factor.
So look at, there's one by Empire Flippers, there's one by Flippa. Just look for a valuation tool, like small business valuation tool. If you Google that, you're gonna find a bunch of resources. You'll also find resources, including the ones I just mentioned, also one called Biz by Sell, which contains a wealth of listings, of all sorts of businesses and digital assets that are for sale. And there's a format to those listings.
You'll see that they include specific metrics, takes a little bit to kind of learn that format and understand exactly what everything is referring to with acronyms and such. But if you wanna sell your business, this is something you wanna spend some time on, right? And you really wanna figure out how can you maximize the value. A big part of that is going to be the growth rate. So you're gonna look at the income, but also how has it grown over the past year or two?
That determines the multiple. That's one of the most important factors of determining the multiple. Another big factor, especially for subscriptions, is the churn rate. Like how many people are subscribing and paying and then unsubscribing, versus how many people are kind of staying on for a long period of time. Obviously, the longer they stay on, the better.
So that's gonna increase your valuation. Being willing to stay on for the project, to continue managing it, that also increases the valuation, versus like, I wanna sell it and be done with it forever. Of course, that's valid too, but you won't get as good of a deal typically in doing that. So there's more, but that's a few tips that will help you out. Go check out these resources.
I'll link them up in the show notes page, but just to mention them again quickly, Flippa, Empire Flippers, Flippa is F-L-I-P-P-A, and bizbysell.com. No affiliation with any of those, but they can be helpful resources for anyone wanting to sell a business. Good luck, listeners. Let me know if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. More episodes coming out.
Between now and the end of the year, we've got a bunch of stuff planned. I'm excited to share it with you. Also be wishing you well throughout the holiday season. I'll say more about that at some point soon. But for now, thank you for tuning in.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
