Neil
04-24-2007, 11:08 AM
My success story: $1,000 into $16,000
Although this was quite some time ago, I thought I'd just post this here so this section of the forum doesn't look so empty, and to hopefully encourage other junior webmasters to post their stories of success.
How it all started:
Well, it all started when I was looking for a decent forum to buy. I was looking all over DigitalPoint, SitePoint, and v7n.
The opportunity
A few days later, as I was browsing through the marketplace at v7n, I came across a site that was for sale. It was a site/forum about the popular online game, Ragnarok Online. Although I had no real interest in Ragnarok Online to begin with, I just wanted to see what it would be like to own such a large forum. The forum had around 14,000 members at the time of sale and after sending him a PM, he was willing to sell for $1,000.
I didn't hesitate to make the purchase. I had around $2,500 in my PayPal account from previous website sales. I felt kind of mean taking advantage of the fact that he was forced to sell because he couldn't pay off the server fees, but all the possibilities just scoured through my mind and began to take control of me. :D I just ignored the fact that I was spending $1,000 on a WEBSITE and just continued on with the transaction. I was only 15 years old and I thought I'd never in my life want to spend that much on a site, but at the time, I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
After sending payment, I received all the login details aswell as the domain itself. I then introduced myself to the members and then began to administer the forum and recruit some moderators. Everything seemed smooth the first few days, but day after day, I found it harder and harder to manage the forum. The countless PM's about posts needing to be moved, members needing to be banned, it was a nightmare to tell you the truth. And to add to that, the site experienced lots of slowdowns even though it was on a server that was costing mid $xxx / month.
So, enough abobut the nightmares I had with the site. I then spent a day or two off the site and started to find some advertisers to bring the site some revenue and to help me pay for the server fees. By the time I came back, the forum had over 16,000 members and my PM inbox was full from all the PM's I received. :eek: At that point in time, I thought I jumped into this whole thing too quick, I didn't expect a forum like that to be such a nightmare to manage. I thought it'd all be fun and gravy.
I then, two days later, decided to list the site for sale because of this, and because of the server fees. (I barely made any profit from selling advertising space because of the damn fees)
The $16,000 sale
I listed the site for sale at SitePoint with a BIN of $16,000, and to be completely honest, I thought it'd never sell. The next morning I woke up, I received an email from SitePoint saying something like "katalina has bidded BIN on your auction" and I was like "HOLY SHIT" - literally. I jumped out of my bed and took the laptop to the lounge and PM'ed this user about the sale, and well, what can I say? It was a smooth and quick sale via Escrow.
Proof of sale: http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/1454?
So yeah.. that's how I turned $1,000 into $16,000 in a matter of around 2 weeks.
I doubt an opportunity to snag a site like that for so cheap and sell it for so much more is going to come up again for me anytime soon, but I'm happy it did :p
Thanks for reading! :)
Although this was quite some time ago, I thought I'd just post this here so this section of the forum doesn't look so empty, and to hopefully encourage other junior webmasters to post their stories of success.
How it all started:
Well, it all started when I was looking for a decent forum to buy. I was looking all over DigitalPoint, SitePoint, and v7n.
The opportunity
A few days later, as I was browsing through the marketplace at v7n, I came across a site that was for sale. It was a site/forum about the popular online game, Ragnarok Online. Although I had no real interest in Ragnarok Online to begin with, I just wanted to see what it would be like to own such a large forum. The forum had around 14,000 members at the time of sale and after sending him a PM, he was willing to sell for $1,000.
I didn't hesitate to make the purchase. I had around $2,500 in my PayPal account from previous website sales. I felt kind of mean taking advantage of the fact that he was forced to sell because he couldn't pay off the server fees, but all the possibilities just scoured through my mind and began to take control of me. :D I just ignored the fact that I was spending $1,000 on a WEBSITE and just continued on with the transaction. I was only 15 years old and I thought I'd never in my life want to spend that much on a site, but at the time, I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
After sending payment, I received all the login details aswell as the domain itself. I then introduced myself to the members and then began to administer the forum and recruit some moderators. Everything seemed smooth the first few days, but day after day, I found it harder and harder to manage the forum. The countless PM's about posts needing to be moved, members needing to be banned, it was a nightmare to tell you the truth. And to add to that, the site experienced lots of slowdowns even though it was on a server that was costing mid $xxx / month.
So, enough abobut the nightmares I had with the site. I then spent a day or two off the site and started to find some advertisers to bring the site some revenue and to help me pay for the server fees. By the time I came back, the forum had over 16,000 members and my PM inbox was full from all the PM's I received. :eek: At that point in time, I thought I jumped into this whole thing too quick, I didn't expect a forum like that to be such a nightmare to manage. I thought it'd all be fun and gravy.
I then, two days later, decided to list the site for sale because of this, and because of the server fees. (I barely made any profit from selling advertising space because of the damn fees)
The $16,000 sale
I listed the site for sale at SitePoint with a BIN of $16,000, and to be completely honest, I thought it'd never sell. The next morning I woke up, I received an email from SitePoint saying something like "katalina has bidded BIN on your auction" and I was like "HOLY SHIT" - literally. I jumped out of my bed and took the laptop to the lounge and PM'ed this user about the sale, and well, what can I say? It was a smooth and quick sale via Escrow.
Proof of sale: http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/1454?
So yeah.. that's how I turned $1,000 into $16,000 in a matter of around 2 weeks.
I doubt an opportunity to snag a site like that for so cheap and sell it for so much more is going to come up again for me anytime soon, but I'm happy it did :p
Thanks for reading! :)