|
NOTICE: PLEASE READ THIS THOROUGHLY BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS!! ANY QUESTIONS WHICH HAVE ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED WILL BE IGNORED. IF YOU ARE A SERIOUS BUYER YOU WILL TAKE THE TIME TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND EACH SECTION OF THE INFORMATION BELOW AND WILL NOT ASK QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN PREVIOUSLY ANSWERED.
Due to a change in future business plans (non website design and hosting related), I am considering selling of our 6 year old family owned business.
This potential sale would include all company domain names, client domains, client accounts, leased server account (which include control panel licenses) online billing script and possibly PayPal Account. Any offers MUST be for the entire package to make the transition easier for our clients and not require any of them to be moved causing them downtime. I will NOT "part out" the business or sell just the clients. If you do not want everything offered please do not respondto this offer!
NOTE: All figures quoted in this offer are in US Dollars ($).
Included in the sale:[*]Primary business name and domain names for the website design company (2 domain names).[*]1 domain name for a template website
(This site was mentioned in PC Magazine and is a PayPal development partner website)
Please see details below about the template site
[*]5 leased servers (most are Dell PowerEdge - 3 dedicated - 2 corporate accounts), all at the same Data Center.
[*]All paying client accounts (active, past-due and suspended).
[*]ModernBill monthly lease license
[*]All 27 client domains managed and controlled by us (all with godaddy).
[*]1 CD of over 1000 templates, files, etc purchased from eBay with resell rights (used to offer clients free site templates if needed).
NOT included in the sale:
* Equipment, computers, phones, etc
* Any non-related business ventures or domains/sites.
* Any domains/sites not part of the hosting business.
* GoDaddy domain account (all included domains will be transferred to your account).
Offer Details:
Current Income Figures:
2004 Bank statements showed a gross of aprox $51,241.
Until Feb 2005 we used BillingOrchard.com for client billing then switched to Modern Bill.
We started using Modern Bill in Feb of 2005.
2005 Billing to date is $25,025.68
(This does not include commissions from partners and google adsense which will vary from $150 to over $300 per month combined)
Expenses:
The only recurring expenses that will be transferred to the buyer are the 5 servers which run roughly $556.90/mo, $24.95 monthly lease payment for Modern Bill and of course domain renewals. Most other expenses are typical business related and are not transferred to the new owner (phone, cell phones, office internet connection, etc).
Profit:
Hosting Income Gross: $15455.30 Per Year
Broken Down as follows:
6 Accounts monthly @ $739.90 per month
22 Accounts Yearly @ $6576.50 per year
We are positioned high on Google, Yahoo, MSN and several other search engines so we receive between 5 and 15 requests for new websites per week just from search engines.
Most of the websites we do are eCommerce using Zen Cart in which we customize for each client.
We have the minimum project amount set at $2000 for complete sites but the average is about $2300 to $2500 per website with no arguments from potential clients.
We do not design websites for online casinos, prescription drugs, adult sites, etc.
We have turned down almost $50k in projects this year due to the size of the projects and not having the time to dedicate to them and to our current clients.
Template Website:
As a side business we started a website in July of 2001 selling website templates.
We started selling website templates we created but due to time factors we have templates on the site we are reselling for another large template company.
Our template website was mentioned in PC magazine on April 4 2002 in the article "70 Assists for a Winning Site" (one of the top 20).
We were also contacted by PayPal to become a development partner and have a link to our template website from PayPal.
The template website has been pushed aside but still has good search engine rankings, it has potential if someone is willing to put some time into it and add some new custom templates.
It is already set up with a shopping cart/payment system and a clickbank.com merchant account that will go with it.
Extra Income:
We receive various commissions from Template Monster, Google Adsense, Internet Marketing Center and Merchant Account Partners ranging from $150 to $300 a month as mentioned above.
Billing Details:
All of our clients are billed using Modern Bill with all invoices due on the anniversary of each account (considered late 5 days past the anniversary date, as a rule our clients are excellent to pay and have been with us several years.) Billing can be transitioned to put all accounts monthly as their anniversary date comes around if you want to do this.
Support levels & averages:
We currently offer support via ticket system (built into ModernBill), email and phone but phone support must be scheduled. We average between 2 and 10 requests per month with most months being under 6 requests. Most requests are made via the ticket system with a few phone calls on occasion. Most clients never need support unless it is server, account or billing related. We've been fortunate to have some very easy to manage long term clients.
Our office and work hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F closed Sat and Sun and our clients know and respect this.
Most requests are for new work, updates to websites, etc.
All changes and updates to existing websites are billed in advance and run $35 an hour for minor text changes, $65 an hour for design changes and $75 an hour for programming changes (xhtml, css, php, mysql)
Client Breakdown (as of this post - according to ModernBill stats):
38 total clients in ModernBill
2 Dedicated Server clients
2 Shared Reseller clients
36 active accounts
0 suspended accounts
0 fraud attempt accounts
2 cancelled accounts (left in for record keeping and collections of past due amounts owed)
7 clients that do not host with us
There is 1 server for hosting & reseller accounts and 4 servers for dedicated server clients. Standard/Virtual hosting accounts vary in size and price due to us honoring existing plans and prices when we moved hosting from a previous company several years ago so it's impossible to list here. A couple of our clients are big names and well known on the internet and in their industry. A lot of our clients have been with us for over a year and many for between 2 and 4 years.
Now for the most important part:
We have always had an excellent relationship with our clients. Most of them are extremely loyal to us and give us excellent referrals. Because of this, who our clients end up with is of major importance and I will NOT turn our clients over to just anyone. I keep the business and hire someone to run it before I would turn them over to just anyone (and if a qualified buyer is not found, that is what I may do)! So, before I will consider ANY offers, the company making the offer MUST meet the following minimum criteria:
[*]MUST offer Personalized service (likes to get to know the clients on a less formal basis)
[*]MUST provide support during business hours and must offer a phone number for support! (USA Based would be recommended)
[*]MUST be an ADULT over the age of 18 (no "kiddie-designers" or "kiddie-hosts")
[*]MUST have a Minimum of 2 years experience in the website design and hosting business and strong XHTML/CSS skills would be preferred as we stress using XHTML/CSS as a selling point for our services.
[*]MUST use DirectAdmin control panel for hosting and be very familiar with it.
[*]MUST guarantee to honor and not to increase or change any current client hosting plans or prices for a minimum of 1 year.
[*]MUST believe in going above and beyond for clients.
[*]MUST agree to keep clients on their existing servers for at least 3 months (this means keeping the existing servers that long).
If you do not meet ALL of the above criteria, do not bother to inquire as I will be verifying everything!
Expected Price:
Who our clients end up is very important. I have consulted with several business brokers on how to price the business and all have said market value is 2 to 3 times the yearly Gross income. With that said the starting figure for offers at $100,000K which is less than 2 years gross income. I will only consider offers by a company that meets the minimum criteria I have given. I am not looking to get rich from the sale of our website design hosting business, only to find someone who is serious enough to invest a fair price and to get back a fraction of what I have invested in the business over the past 6 years.
If an agreement is made, I will be expecting fast payment (in full) of the agreed price and a fast transition for us and our clients to prevent and/or ease any fears the clients may have once the deal is publicly announced to them. Those who do not have the means to provide this should not respond or make offers. If an agreement is made, payment will be in the form of guaranteed funds (wire transfer only) and payment in full must be received before anything is turned over to the buyer. No "payment plans" or "revenue share" offers will be accepted so don't even ask.
Lastly, once a final deal is agreed on, the buyer must agree to at least 3 months from the agreement date of hosting at no charge for moving our own private domains and sites off the server to a new one.
Final notes:
1. I reserve the right to back out of any deal that I do not feel is in the best interests of our clients.
2. I reserve the right to refuse any offer made by anyone who does not meet the minimum requirements above.
3. THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THE FUNDS TO MAKE A LEGITIMATE CASH OFFER DO NOT BOTHER RESPONDING! SUCH RESPONSES WILL BE REPORTED TO WMT MODERATORS!
With all of the above said, I will now consider offers. All inquiries are to be made via PM here on WHT only. By requesting further information or making an offer, you are agreeing to non-disclosure. If you do not agree, do not inquire!
|
