Buying an online business vs. starting a new one from fresh

[Elizabeth1970]

Kathy,

It seems to me that you have one of the most important components to having a successful online business, well any business for that matter. You write! As you know good content is more than half the work. With that skill I would take the time and start a business from scratch.

That's what I did and from not even knowing the first thing about how to start. I went from running an international property management business with all the hassles of managing 50 employees to running my own online business and I started from scratch. And now I help others do the same. I have to tell you it's really fulfilling.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Elizabeth Blanche
Attention Beginners and Newcommers - Create Your First Website By 3:45 This Afternoon
Chris Farrell - How To Make Money Online

[BusinessStories]

Interesting thread, I too have considered the dilemma of buying vs. starting out fresh. What would everyone say is a good way to price out an existing website?

[AndrewPallett]

There are positives and negatives to buying vs starting your own online business.

One thing I would be wary of is paying the right price if you do choose to purchase an existing site - I would say that from experience, 2x or 3x gross profit and a contribution towards existing customers or traffic (commonly known as good will). I once was approached by someone selling a website that turned out to be nothing more than a fancy homepage and a doman name for £15k!

Best,

Andrew

[new wave]

Finding value in a website is pretty hard because your dealing with other dynamics like page rank, traffic, and so on..

Also buying a blog or any service based business is kinda tricky because you're replacing the person that the service was once performed by, and customers can get upset about this. Blogs are a good example. Each writer has their own style. Their personality and tone of voice comes across in their articles and it attracts a certain following.

Replace that writer (the blog owner) and replace him/her with a different style, and it could be a problem.

Whatever you do, if you're serious about this, have YOUR accountant go over their books and have YOUR attorney review any contracts. Not to mention it's HIGHLY unethical for an attorney to represent both parties....