

Ask HN: Is a 'reverse' Flippa a good idea? - zombiestartup

People post appropriate bids for websites they&#x27;d like to buy.<p>This way, owners can see if there is interest in their website.<p>Would something like this be interesting?
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justingilchrist
There's a part of that idea that works, but I think the execution is flawed. I
work in this industry day in and day out. We have a serious inventory issue.

There are far more buyers than sellers of quality businesses between $50K and
$2MM. The result is that prices (multiples at least) are steadily rising and
have been for the last three years. Currently, the average (what defines
average is another discussion in itself) is around 2.83 annual net for an
Ecommerce business and slightly less, ironically, for a SaaS one.

I know that significantly more inventory could be created from a middleman
being proactive about letting an owner know that there's interest. Many of the
sellers I speak to are only selling now because of a cold call or email from
broker. Until that point, they didn't realize how fluid the market was for
selling internet businesses of their size.

The idea of a reverse auction possibly needs some work, but the problem you're
deliberately or perhaps unwittingly trying to solve is certainly one with a
lot of reward if you can solve it.

Best of luck.

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AndyBaker
The reason most websites aren't for sale, is because they're not for sale.

But that aside...

How could you stop people "bidding" $100m for their own site?

Anyone with capital, why would they waste their time putting fake bids down?
If they're genuinely interested in a site - they'd approach the owner
privately.

What is the value of this, beyond "ooo look how much this site is worth"?
Don't you just become another flawed website value calculator?

Just some ideas.

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AznHisoka
"If they're genuinely interested in a site - they'd approach the owner
privately."

Bingo. Why even give my money to a middleman?

