For Sale By Owner (2002)

After years of no steady income I decided to put the site up for sale. Traffic was steady, but not climbing. My competitors were merging and growing. I had returned to corporate america and didn't have the time/money to keep the site going without any revenue.

I listed it on bizbuysell.com. Asking price of 50k. Initially there was a lot of interest, but with no revenue, it was not going to sell at that price. It may have been worth it to me, since I put so many years of hard work and sweat into it, but to any one else, revenue is the bottom line. I finally found a potential buyer at the bargain price of 15k. But at this point I just wanted out. I had invested so much for so little return. I thought this would be a way to at least walk away with something to show for my hard work.

Well the buyer didn't have the full 15k to pay up front. He wanted to pay me in three 5k installments. Well that sounded like too much trouble to me. And I was begining to have second thoughts on giving away my years of work. That's when I decided on a new plan. I would revamp the site to run on its own. A kind of self-maintained entity. Remove the services that required human intervention. Turn it into an open community run site. I could keep the site, still provide a helpful service (the community), and not have to spend as much time on it. This would turn out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Next up.... The Emergence of Adsense.