Inspiring Story About a Bird Brained Website Flipper
Mr. Frager of the Frager Factor tipped me off to a great New York Times article entitled “Find an Undervalued Asset. Fix It Up. Flip It. (Now It’s Websites, Not Houses).”
I love reading these online success stories, they really get the entrepreneurial gears turning and motivate me to continue developing out my domain portfolio.
“Dave Hermansen did not own a bird or a cage when he bought bird-cage.com, an online store, for $1,800 three years ago. He simply saw a Web site that was ‘very, very poorly done,’ and begged the owners to sell it to him. He then redesigned the site, added advertising and drove up traffic. Last December, he sold it for $173,000.”
In this day and age, you don’t even have to invest any money beyond a domain name to “flip” a website. By developing quickly and driving traffic you continually increase the value of a website, especially if that new website is earning revenue. However, even if you have not earned a dime you can often times sell your newly matured online property for several hundred dollars in just a couple months time.
“Some Web sites begin as labors of love. Take Celebrity Baby Blog, which Danielle Friedland, the creator, has said she created after reeling off facts during the 2004 Golden Globes ‘about who was pregnant with twins or had recently given birth.’ Four years later, People.com bought the Web site after it noticed an unfulfilled niche: ‘a very passionate community of young moms,’ said Fran Hauser, president of People Digital.
Ms. Hauser said she would not comment on the sale price. Industry insiders speculate it was in the low millions.”
You can read the full story at the New York Times.
We would love to hear your website flipping success stories. Please leave a comment below.
Popularity: 49% [?]
August 5th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Hope to be here with a success story too. I’ve just started working on http://www.mrboating.com and hope to increase it’s value in 100-200 times
August 6th, 2008 at 1:35 am
There is my inspiration to earn more money. I also started to work on my site. cheers
August 11th, 2008 at 9:32 am
It is good to know that we can increase the value of a website with low cost of money. I think your blog is really valuable for everyone.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Wow well there is my inspiration for flipping a site or two this month. Too bad there aren’t any details as to how he saw a future profitability in it (even with a better site, there are only so many people that need bird cages).
August 25th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
ThinkHost, that’s actually the key, staying inside the niches. All the ‘big dogs’ play in the highly competetive markets like MP3 Players & TVs.
Finding a niche is probably the biggest key to success, even more so than finding a good domain name. In my process, I actually find the niche, then find the domain name, then beef up traffic, and then flip the site.
I’m actually working on a video series to show people how to do it. The video series is called ‘Make A Living Flipping Websites.’ This video series will show people the exact process from step 1 to the flip.
As for the comments about money, we generally are into each flip less than $1k before it starts making money. The $1,800 I spent for BIRD-CAGE.COM was because it was already in a niche that I had another store & I knew I could sell the product line. Plus, it was #2 already in Google for ‘bird cages’ and that was my #1 most targeted keyword phrase.
Best wishes everyone!
Dave Hermansen