Selling College Startup
Did that headline get your attention?
It’s not a joke. For the past few days I’ve been pondering the idea of selling College Startup. It was a hard decision - this blog has given me more than a few connections and has provided me with the opportunity to work on some interesting projects.
Would people think I’m selling out? Would anyone be willing to buy the blog? Would I be able to start a new blog, from scratch, and get my readers to move with me? I asked a few people for some advice and they all said the same thing: if you’re tired of the site and willing to sell it, SELL!
My conclusion
I thought back to when Yaro purchased Small Business Branding from Michael Pollock. I didn’t think Michael was a sell out and I thought it was smart of Yaro to jump on the opportunity to purchase a blog that fit in with his other projects. That alleviated my biggest fear, which is “selling out.” Sure some people will think I did, but as long as I know I’m not, that’s good enough.
And so I’ve decided to try to sell College Startup. You’re probably wondering, “Why?”
I’ve lost interest in the idea. When I started the blog I thought I wanted to focus more on business, less on design, and kind of “teach” people to make money without getting a real job. The focus of the site has drifted away from the initial idea and, as you can tell from the lack of posts every month, I’ve lost interest in this site. I still post once or twice a week but it’s been a long time since I have posted anything about making money.
I think there are smart people who could turn this site into something bigger. Maybe someone who wants to start blogging but doesn’t want to build a site from scratch. Maybe someone thinks I’ve been doing it all wrong and thinks they can do better.
I have always looked at websites and blogs as assets. They are very small businesses. If there is a market to sell, why not? The other option is to slowly let the website die - let it sit here as an archive of what I did for 8 months. I don’t want to do that. I want to see the site keep growing and I want to see someone pump out fresh content and keep people interested in reading and subscribing.
So, how much money is College Startup worth?
This is where I run into more problems. Valuing a blog I’ve invested so much time into is difficult. I don’t make much money from College Startup, so the traditional way of valuing a website or business based on monthly revenue doesn’t even come close to what I think the website is worth. Then again, I’m not one for valuing websites based on potential.
However, if I look at what the website generated when I really focused on monetization for the first two months, I feel like the potential to earn quite a bit of money is certainly there.
So what do I do?
I’ve come up with a simple solution: I value the site at what I think it’s worth and if I get a buyer, great, if not, I’ll hang onto the site and keep writing once in a while.
The website still has quite a few things going for it as far as valuations go. A unique template (arguably worth more than $1,000), 129 pages indexed in Google, a PageRank of 5, an Alexa Rank of 108,606, a Technorati rank in the top 20,000, steady traffic, over 300 people subscribing to the feed, and the monthly revenue easily covers hosting costs and then some.
You’re wondering about a number, I bet. You can see it at the SitePoint auction. I didn’t use an equation, I simply picked a price that I was comfortable with. If the site doesn’t sell, it doesn’t sell. What can you do? Note: I’m not looking for approval of the price, if you think it’s too high or too low, that’s nice - but don’t leave comments about it.
Where will I be blogging?
You can expect me to continue blogging at Bleikamp.com, a domain that I’ve been neglecting for the past year. I think I’ll be able to be a lot more creative and show off my personality a little more. I’ll be able to talk politics, business, blogging, design - anything I want. I know I tried to launch Bleikamp.com a little while ago, but I felt obligated to post at College Startup and didn’t feel like writing twice as much.
If you want to keep up with me and keep reading my posts, head over to Bleikamp.com in about a week and you’ll be able to see some fresh content and a new design.
The auction can be seen at: http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/165?
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Good luck with the sale Ben, you’ve built a great site here.