I have sold (or as entrepreneurs say “let go”) one of my projects UserInterfaceIcons.com. It was a four month old site that was launched November last year. It was listed on SitePoint and within 10 minutes of listing was bought through BIN (Buy It Now) feature for $5,900.
Initially I had invested about $550 for the development of the icons and hosting + domain name. So it’s about 10 fold return, which I think is quite good.
Be Careful To Whom You Sell Your Sites
Now the regret part. I had explicitly asked what the new owner will do with the site, what his plans were, and how he would be using the site. Because I didn’t want the site to go to someone who would abuse it and use it for illegal things. His response was, he would be using it for the same reason (providing free icons) and develop it further.
He didn’t use it for illegal things, but he is now pushing Adware (Zango Toolbar) product when the user wants to download the icons. Clearly this is what I didn’t want the site to be used for! But deal is deal and the site has been sold. I can’t really do anything about it now.
I have told him to remove my personal info from the site asap. Because I do not want to be associated with pushing adware products. If you have time, please send him a message to stop using my name on the site. (Thanks in advance).
I am sure he would want to have my name there as long as possible, because it will be more believable to the users. As a result he would push more downloads and make more money. But I won’t allow that, if he fails to remove it, I will be taking legal action against him.
Lesson: Make a proper background check of the buyer before you sell your sites! I had checked, but obviously I didn’t check enough.
I tried to contact him throught the link but kept getting an error.
Some people just have no respect.
Thanks Lori! I have updated the link, now it points to his email directly.
That’s a nice profit off a small investment but it sounds like it coming back to bit you in the ace. I guess another lesson to learn is to take off all of your personal info. when you sell a site.
I agree with jayson. For now, I think the new owner will try to get his investments back before taking out your name on it. Anyway I just send him a message to remove your name.
Hi Ades,
thats a good news, with a lot of time spent developing detailed icons its a really a good money..
Way to go man! Congrats and keep up the entrepreneur spirit!
Congrats on your sale. How did you manage to get the site up to PR5 – a fact that no doubt helped its sale.
mmb, because it became very fast popular and it was getting a lot of traffic (30K unique/month) and links from other sites.
wow…congrats on the sale….but wow…I don’t expect it fetches so high……i guess because of the PR
Have you included your icons in sale? Must say that I have downloaded them just before your transaction :)
Congrats on great sale! With PR5 new owner is making mistake with Zango, my opinion.
Wow, that’s some crazy profit.
Congrats, it’s a good RoI :-)
When talking about making good money by developing new site and flip it for money, Ades is the man !!
Congrats Ades..
See, even though your laptop is a bit faulty you got big return :)
Stay tune and develop more new projects Ades. By the way, quick question, do you use Escrow to do the sales or just a simple independent transaction.
If you do use Escrow then make a post about it.. Something to learn
Saiful, thanks! yes I did use escrow. It’s quite simple actually. Ok I will make a post about it one day.
I think he removed the personal information, it’s J.Smith now (kinda generic name) nevertheless, congratulations on your venture.
Nice return on investment, pity about the individual who purchased said site not keeping to his word. Free is the buzzword that guarantees some measure of success on the internet, and if the new owner of the site loses that perspective the outcome will simply be riding the site into the ground. Maybe you can buy it back for cents to the dollar in the near future…hahahahah
Congrats Ades…. Awesome amount!
Ades, i must say that i envy your acheievements.bravo!!!!!!!!!!!
Lesson 2: Change the info before you sell the site. I also read once that it’s best if you remove your AdSense from a site before the sale finalizes, as they might get you banned somehow.
Sorry but not much you can do now, at least you’ve learned a valuable lesson about people on the internet. The good thing is, you are $5900 richer.