205 - Flipping websites with Blake Hutchison

Interview with Blake Hutchison and Nathan Wrigley

Flipping domains can be a profitable business and today on the WP Builds WordPress podcast we're going to be hearing about how and why you might want to look into doing it.

Firstly though, what is domain flipping? In it's simplest form it's the process of buying (or selling) a domain. In the real world businesses are bought and sold all the time, there's nothing unusual about it at all, but buying a current domain can be a little harder.

This difficulty is what lead today's guest, Blake Hutchison to create the website Flippa. It's a marketplace where you can look to purchase an existing online business from the current owner.

They've packaged up the whole process so that it's as easy as possible, and as you'll hear in the podcast, there's a lot more to this that you migth think.

Firstly, it's a double fronted marketplace, meaning that you can go there with a business to sell, or go there with the intention of buying a business. Flippa works from both ends to make the process as smooth as possible.

I keep using the word business, but Flippa deals with just about anything online that could be bought or sold. That could be any of the following:

• website
• eCommerce store
• blog
• domain
• SaaS business
• affiliate site
• app

The list could go on, but the point is that it's not just domains that you can buy and sell, but to make life easier, I'll just use the word 'business' and we know that it means way more!

In the podcast I talk to Blake briefly about how the pandemic is affecting the business of flipping.

We then move into a more substantive talk about what the Flippa platform is like to use from the point of view of a seller. What hoops do you have to jump through to ensure that your listing is accurate and suitable for sale on the site? What kind of websites are a good fit for flipping? Are there any rules for what sells well and what does not. What due diligence does Flippa need before a site can be listed? We don't want to buy something which turns out to just be smoke and mirrors do we? We want to know the details: how many people visist the site a month, what revenue streams does the site offer? What do the books look like over the last period? All of this is vital if you're going to buy something worth investing in and not a dud!

This leads to the opposite side of the same conversation - what is not worth flipping. Maybe you have a passion project that you've devoted countless hours to, it's worked out well, but it's not likely to continue being a success unless the new owner shares that passion. I for example can think of multiple sites that I would love to take over. I'd pour my energy into them because I'm interested in the content that they create, but there also countless websites that I'd hate to run. I'd be lousy at keeping them going because I'm just not fascinated by what it is that they create. I'd run them into the ground in a few months and what profitability there was would be squandered.

So... we talk about that. If you're going to get into flipping websites, what are the questions that you need to ask yourself in order to make the process more likely to get a return.

I also get into a conversation about the legalities of flipping domains. Clearly, you're going to need to know that what you've bought is legally yours. How does Flippa ensure this. It's actually really robust and allows you to move through the process with confidence...

• How does the payment system work?
• What about cross border sales, who takes care of the legal side of things when there's multiple jurisdictions at play?

It's a great conversation about a new subject to me. The audio is a little spotty at times, but there certainly nothing unlistenable in here.

Please comment here or in the WP Builds Facebook group if you've got something that you'd like to add.

Mentioned in this podcast:

https://flippa.com/