FacebookProfile Site Sold, $5,500
A little while I go I was selling FacebookProfile, a site which I started in May 2006 as a small little side project. Traffic quickly rose on it as the popular social networking site Facebook got ever more popular.
Despite my lack of attention to it, I had managed to get the site to make about $100/month with just Google Adsense, but I was just letting the site sit there. It had tons of traffic, and therefore lots of potential for someone to take the reigns.
So I posted it for sale on the SitePoint forums and started getting lots of serious bids through private message. However I started the bidding way too low. Even before I posted the site for sale I had serious buyers trying to pay $3,000 for the site. Therefore all the normal bids on the auction I ignored, and only spoke with buyers who sent in much higher private bids.
The highest bid I got was $6,500 but I was wary because the buyer was dragging their feet and didn't know much about the transfer of the website or how to operate it. I wanted a quick sale and quick transfer, so I sold the site to someone who knew what they were doing and could transfer everything without a hitch.
Within three days of posting the auction I had my $5,500 via Google Checkout, and less than a week later the full website and database were transferred over to the new owner without me doing much work (this is why I chose to sell to someone who knew what they were doing).
For me the transaction is over, but it's nice to see the new owner is actually drastically improving upon the website. He added a whole slew of new features, posts, articles, re-structured the advertising and even added a Facebook Forum for developers and users.
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So from a random idea last year, I got some good experience, several hundred dollars in adverting revenue and a nice $5,500 payout this year!
Despite my lack of attention to it, I had managed to get the site to make about $100/month with just Google Adsense, but I was just letting the site sit there. It had tons of traffic, and therefore lots of potential for someone to take the reigns.
So I posted it for sale on the SitePoint forums and started getting lots of serious bids through private message. However I started the bidding way too low. Even before I posted the site for sale I had serious buyers trying to pay $3,000 for the site. Therefore all the normal bids on the auction I ignored, and only spoke with buyers who sent in much higher private bids.
The highest bid I got was $6,500 but I was wary because the buyer was dragging their feet and didn't know much about the transfer of the website or how to operate it. I wanted a quick sale and quick transfer, so I sold the site to someone who knew what they were doing and could transfer everything without a hitch.
Within three days of posting the auction I had my $5,500 via Google Checkout, and less than a week later the full website and database were transferred over to the new owner without me doing much work (this is why I chose to sell to someone who knew what they were doing).
For me the transaction is over, but it's nice to see the new owner is actually drastically improving upon the website. He added a whole slew of new features, posts, articles, re-structured the advertising and even added a Facebook Forum for developers and users.
---------
So from a random idea last year, I got some good experience, several hundred dollars in adverting revenue and a nice $5,500 payout this year!
Labels: eCommerce
posted by Neville @ 1:03 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
In any event, still enjoy reading about your exploits, "financial" or not. I've moved back to Austin after being in Charlotte for two years, so maybe we can meet up and chat sometime like we talked about oh so long ago...
)
First of all just wanna to Congrats you Neville!! That was really an appreciable job. You have a good idea on Marketing Strategy.
What are the main things you have done for that site?
Congrats again
You probably should have kept Facebook Profile...might have been worth so much more in the long run now that there are talks about Facebook being acquired by a larger company. Deeper pockets = greater potential payout for related sites! :)
-Raymond (MONEY BLUE BOOK)
-Raymond (MONEY BLUE BOOK)
Thanks for sharing this. Reading this was what motivated me to put two websites I owned and ran, up for sale. I sold both sites for over $5000, but if I hadn't read your post, I probably would not have pursued selling my websites.
Thanks for the inspiration and resources!
Congrats on the sale but just wanted to ask you one thing. Why was the hosting expense 0. where did you host it. Was it a part of Facebook or you used another company to host this site
I just don;t have time for it as I am focusing on a local web project for my city.
J
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