
Ask HN: Ways to sell a failed business - sabertoothed
Is there a way to sell a failed business? Are there common platforms for that?<p>I am talking about my own business but also the idea in general.<p>Are there platforms that allow you to sell your failed business? The idea is that the potential buyers are aware that what they are buying needs to be turned around and the sellers are aware that they are selling at a discount.<p>It is often the case that people have built their niche, invested money in domains, trademark, other IP etc. and then shutting everything down seems like a waste of money. Often the reasons for shutting down might not even be related to the business; maybe it is just lack of time or other incidents.<p>Any hint on this? One obvious obstacle is publicly admitting the failure and the resulting bad PR.
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davismwfl
Failing is relative. Many failing businesses are sold every day, it is what
IP, what value does the business contain that can be sold. There are entire
industries built around buying failing companies and selling off the assets,
or sometimes turning them around.

A huge percentage of all small business sales in the US are asset purchases,
not stock sales. So for you, depending on your situation you may have valuable
assets, e.g. client lists, clients themselves, technology, trademarks etc that
all can be sold. Don't get hung up on a web address (unless it is hugely
popular and almost a household name or similar). Also, just because you paid
$5k for something last year, doesn't mean it is worth anywhere near that
today, so don't get hung up on what you paid, get focused on how much things
are worth.

You can approach competitors about purchasing your client list or technology
if you strongly feel they can benefit. You can list the entire business for
sale through a broker and just point out the warts but also the position and
strengths. Lots of ways to go.

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mtmail
There's [https://flippa.com/](https://flippa.com/),
[https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home](https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home)
I've also seen offers on ebay and in Facebook groups and I'm sure a couple
mentioned on hackernews which I didn't bookmark. There's investors who
explicitly look for non-performing or struggling online businesses to acquire
and turn them around.

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sabertoothed
Thank you!

