Intro to How to Buy a Website Business

Posted by on Friday, November 30th, 2012 - 2023 in Buy a Business, Franchises, Newbie Topics, Sell a Business, Uncategorized, Website Businesses

You can explain how you should approach buying a website business analogously with a prosecutor having to prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that a defendant committed an act of crime. The seller is the prosecutor, the buyer the defendant and the act of crime is replaced with the sellers picture of the subject business’s financial condition and climate. The seller has to prove the business is doing what he says it is doing. The big difference in the analogy is that the buyer has nothing at stake regardless if the seller makes their case or not, until, of course, they decide to buy the business. Anyway, point being if the seller can’t or won’t convince you through verifiable proof of how a business is doing you should not be pursuing that business any longer, drop the case.

I’m assuming you are already familiar with all the internet destinations to find website businesses and are ready to choose one, put in an offer and start due diligence. Please keep in mind that my experience, although extensive, is limited to how I have done due diligence and I have never made it to the closing table in a business for sale transaction. Although, I have made it to contract on several just never could pull the trigger. This is something else you may want to take into consideration as I do show tendencies to be overly conservative.

There is so much to cover that we are going to do this in a series (sorry) but I’ll give a rundown of the curriculum in the remainder of this article.

What to buy? Buy what you know. The more you know about the industry the better. If you are charting into unfamiliar territory then educate yourself on everything there is to know about the industry. If you are planning on getting into an industry your unfamiliar with then you should spend months learning about it. You need to understand what you can do and what you need others to do for you and their costs.

How to verify? Conduct due diligence in a systematic order. Cover every base and if anything is amiss or questionable, question it. If the answers don’t make you feel comfortable then you may want to pass on the opportunity. I’s easy to be overly cautious and doing so will keep you from ever closing on a deal but there is a lot of fraud out there and you must be reasonably comfortable with your due diligence results.

How to close the deal? This can be summed up with the answer… use reputable escrow agent. The closing and exchanging of property is much different in website businesses than brick&mortar businesses and should be done in a certain manner. This stage of a website business for sale transaction can also be susceptible to fraudsters, even when using escrow.

I’ve got the business… now what? Owning a website business is much more involved than most all website business sellers will admit to. It’s no easier than a traditional business, especially when you have just taken over a previously owned one. There will be a task list a mile long to get accounts, user names and passwords changed over to you on top of the learning curve of managing an internet business.

We make our living helping people like you when you want to buy or sell a business, internet businesses especially, and we provide information on our site so that you know more about the process and what is involved in buying or selling a business. If there are any specific question you have, please, do not hesitate to contact us and a certified business broker will be available to answer your questions privately and confidentially. Subscribe to get updates on new postings to this series.

 

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