if you were just offered 12 months avg *gross* income
 

for your online company - would you sell? though you were unsure about what the buyer might potentially do to what you've built? discuss...

:glugglug

who's gonna give me $500? :(

having a vague idea of your overhead which i figure to be high in bandwidth bills etc, i'd say its a good deal *if* you have a tried and true moneymaker that could make you MORE money per annum... maybe keep a small stake in the biz as part of the deal to hedge? shrug

i slept 1 hour last night my brain is fried today...

12 months *net* is about the exact middle grounds for i-net sites from what i've experienced.....

... hmmm, looks like markets are rising again ... tough question ... 6 month ago I would have sold ... today ... I don´t know !!

well since its gross it sounds good offer having in mind you are seeking to quit,quiet,quit quiet

12 months gross? Hell yeah, I'd take it but only if they paid up front. None of this easy monthly payment crap. Once I had the money I wouldn't give a shit what they did with the business. You might have some sentiment attached to it, which is natural, but the new owner would be the one calling the shots.

my profit before taxes hovers close to 70%.

but this isn't about me! just looking for discussion :glugglug

What twistyneck said. + I'd take 2 months break and then invest 10% of money and build the same stuff within 6 months again from scratch. :thumbsup
XM

dude, nobody has enough fucking money to buy 12 months worth of my income. hahahah, you're silly, quiet!

As long as there were no non-competition clauses that would stop me from starting another business, hell yeah.

I could start from scratch and get back to my current income level in maybe 6 mos of hard work.

i would think that would be somewhat unlikely, considering. hell, i remember having to sign a 1-year noncompetition agreement for selling computers in the dumbest computer store in the world... computer fucking renaissance.

Well.. I wouldn't want to cheat whoever made the purchase out of getting his moneys worth, so I would certainly agree not to compete in the same niche, or even the same type of site if it was a TGP or something like that. But if it meant I had to leave the biz altogether, no way.

a non-comp clause would be essential.

:glugglug

I could see doing it if the proceeds were going to be enough to set me up for life, but I'm not at that point yet.

on the one hand, i feel like screaming hell yeah, and be done for good.

on the other, i know i could make more over a couple years.

shiat.

If what you have plus what you would get (in cash, up front, I am assuming) is enough that you can walk away from this business and either start another, or wait until the non-compete runs out and begin again without a substantial loss in the new venture due to the time delay, then I'd suggest you take it.

Especially if you can leverage a small percentage of what you get from the sale into a new moneymaking venture. If it would take all the money or you wouldn't have enough to maintain your lifestyle over the long term then, nope, I would stay my course.

12 months? No way in hell. Are you in this business short-term?

So I guess you changed your mind on retiring in October 2003 :winkwink:

DynaMite

I wouldn't give up a good business - especially if you've built webmaster loyalty - for the idea of building another one and assuming it will be easy and it will do just as well. That can be more difficult than people think.

12 months is a short period of time. In the meantime you could have been building the original business and growing those profits.

Of course, proper evaluation really depends on many factors so I guess we'll see all kinds of answers.

Turned down way more several times. One of these years I'll turn it over to someone else. No telling what they'd do with it.

yeah why you have to be so selfish? :helpme

Ah but Colin, let's not forget that sometimes you've reached the optimum point in a particular venture's worth as far as being sold will go.

While you may continue on, even doing better than before, the time for sale of that particular asset or company at the best price may only come one time, and the next offer may be lower significantly...

Or you may not have takers if you put it on the block yourself...

Sorry, just a particular situation comes to mind at the moment.

like it says in the title, gross. not profit.

i agree with what a lot of what kk has to say. it's very tempting, and came pretty unexpected. bah...

another fun, meaningless thread :glugglug

I thought you said it wasn't about you(rs) :Graucho ç

DynaMite

definitely. just discussion.

:glugglug

Ahh I get it hypotheticaly (or however you spell that word) spoken.

DynaMite :eyecrazy

nope

Selling a one-man design company could be hard... especially if I stopped working there.

i have not achieved anywhere near my potential, so "i" would not sell my sites for 12 month gross !

knowing a little about what site(s) you run and the $$ you make
i'd say SELL and get yourself a GF/Partner and enjoy life !
( my opinion after following some of your posts over the last few month )

just my :2 cents:
:glugglug

hehe. goodnight :)

18 months would be better than 12. In these uncertain times it would be tempting as with the money we already have and the money we would get from say 18 months gross would mean that we could live very comfortably without having to work again if we were careful. :2 cents:

My sites are pretty much worthless without me, so its hard to consider that question. I suppose a year's gross income would be pretty tempting, though.

Do you make a lot of money?
Do you enjoy what you do?
If you stopped doing what you did, would you have anything else better to do? (and snowboarding all day doesn't count)

If it was a roofing company, sell....a pornsite? why? Once you sell it, you won't be able to stay off of the computer because you'll be checking out your site to see how the new owner is handling it....then you will never have peace of mind because you knew that new owner probably isn't doing it the way you would do it and then you would be thinking about all of that money you lost by selling it....

gross income? i would take that in a second.

you are lucky to get 6 months

12 months is god given.

Anybody who buys your site for 12 months is retarded too.

most likely the person buying is not serious..nobody even average smart will buy sites like that amid the visa/mastercard problems.


What will happen if your movie sites lose their processing ability tomorrow, your whole busniess will be gone.

Most people forget how lucky we really are. I mean I am sitting in my living room in my underwear drinking coffee and smoking, the kids are still asleep. I am pondering what to do today. How many people can live like we do? I mean we make money while we are sleeping, shitting, playing etc. How many people can make money and be poolside at the same time? Not many. Don't sell man. Your business is part of you now. Selling it would be like selling your soul.

i wouldn't go that far. buy low, sell high

Nope, cant say that i would.

youre damn right dude
all those losers working their ass off for lousy 6 bucks per hour

i could easily stay a month away from the computer still getting paid what i earnt the month before without a single cent lost!!!

I would take it

'If it were your situation' (because every company is different)

It wouldn't be 'retarded' for the person buying it simply because if they were to open it up for webmasters to promote it - a few at a time and can maintain your magic - they'd be able to get their money back in less than a year.

As for yourself (always if we would be speaking about your particular case) it all depends on what you have planned for the future. If you want to seriously get out of this business and the non-compete clause is severe enough to get you out of adult for 1-2 years, then you'd have to surely have a plan as to what you want to do. I'm sure the financial side of things would be taken care of - that's not the problem, you'd be ok for a few years (you don't look like the splurging bigshot type) however you do seem like someone who takes things to heart. Will seeing changes on your 'baby' upset you? Will it make you regret selling? Will being out of the business for awhile cause you grief? If so, then don't do it. If you think you can let go and never turn back - then do it. You have 3 months until you turn 30 where you mentioned you wanted to retire. If you are serious about retiring, it probably would be a waste not to get something for what you've so meticulously built.

If what you're looking for is another challenge within the business, perhaps you'd want to start opening up your site to other webmaster and see where that takes you.

The grass isn't necessarily greener the other side...once you sell your site and have all this money but nothing to do - you may find yourself needing the adrenaline again and your formula for success might not be as lucrative starting from scratch in these times. Just a possibility.

Either way, I'm sure you know what you're doing. :)

sorry for the long post......

I wont. I make just some living money and my site is almost 5 years old. I love it so much. I am 21, so about 1/4 of my life I have spent working and growing it.
One year gross income wouldnt set me for life, just for a few months.

But in your case things are way different. One year gross income is a fucking good offer.
Maybe I would not sell it and work hard to make more $ in this year.

it's a nice offer. providing what somebody else said, the money's upfront, heard of some people cashing out of this biz for alot of money but then the buyer screws up and the payments which the buyer assumed would come out of the profits stop arriving.

also depends on the length of the non-compete and the terms in it.

even though it would be tempting to just take a few million dollars and ride into the sunset, if you're confident that your sites will continue to do the same amount of $$$ for the next 5 years, you're giving up alot of money. A steal for somebody at 3 mil, if the biz can make 1.5-2 mil a year going forward.

gotta love stories like quiet's, he's so much more profitable than the 'big boys', did it a whole different way.

take the money and pay someone like me to manage it :)

What is the price? :Graucho

I might do it as long as there is no non compete in it

That's a tough question.. First, do you have something else to do or another source of revenue once the 12 month gross runs out? Can you maintain your lifestyle. Second, how attached is your name with the biz? Have you made your name on this one biz and if it's ruined by buyers will your name be ruined? Third, if it's fun for you and doesn't seem like work and it's profits are increasing every year at a decent percentage why give it up. Hire someone you trust to take over day to day headaches and enjoy it.