Final Sale Price

$ 52,000

The Success Story

Robert Birming isn’t one to shy from adventure. So when the bricklayer-turned-musician-turned-web entrepreneur received requests to create an English-language version of his Swedish site Smidigt, he jumped right in. Little did he know that decision would ultimately lead to his first experience as a website seller.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better start,” Robert explains. “Many of the major blogs posted about the fact that an English version of Smidigt, GeekAlerts.com, had been launched. I planned to run it for a long time and had no thoughts whatsoever to sell it.”

He loved all aspects of the new site—“everything from searching for cool stuff to write about to following up on comments,” he says. “I guess I spent around five hours a day on it during the busiest periods.”

That was fine, until a project Robert and his business partner were working on started to require more and more time. He decided to offload the site by selling it.

“I didn’t really know what to expect, since this was my first time as a website seller,” Robert reveals. “I asked around about where one could sell websites and almost everyone answered that Flippa was the way to go.”

Just 14 bids and a matter of days later, he’d sold GeekAlerts.com for $52,000.

Robert had no trouble building up trust with potential buyers, or trusting them himself. He was happy to post statistics, revenue figures, and more as prospects sought more information, and really enjoyed the sales process.

“My advice to anyone who’s planning on selling a website would be: devote a fair amount of time to the sale process,” says Robert. “Be active and follow up on everything. It’s well worth it!”

The result?

“I was happy with the price and—equally important—I was very happy with the buyer,“ Robert explains. Given all the work he’d done through the sales process, it’s no surprise that the transaction went without a hitch.

These days, he says, “I love the way the site is being run. They are doing a great job with it. GeekAlerts still has the same spirit and I’m sure the readers are very happy with the new owner.”

As you might expect, Robert’s entrepreneurial passions didn’t end with the sale of GeekAlerts. He and his partner are currently working on a real-time group chat web service called Qvaq, and developing new features for popular Swedish social news website Pusha.

“We have a brand new project that we are very excited about in the pipeline,” Robert adds. “It’s still very hush-hush, but I can say that it will be something unique and very useful for bloggers (and others).” We’ll be intrigued to see it launch in early 2012.