Tell HN: Cherrypeel.com is up for sale | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Cherrypeel.com is up for sale

cherrypeel.com

40 pointsstern21 comments

Unfortunately, this site is basically worthless as it stands. You just don't get enough traffic to make any money on ads, and you aren't going to find a team of hackers to take over your code. Heck, my blog about random stuff in my hometown used to get more visits than CherryPeel does.

Let's imagine a scenario where someone says "y'all did a lot of good work - here's a couple thousand bucks, because I think I can make a go of this."

Who is this person going to be? A hacker isn't going to take over your code, and no business person can analyze this and come up with a deal that would be anything but insulting. And the same goes for a company - they can't offer you enough for it to be worth it to you, and if they want this, they will just build it themselves.

You should just keep this as your hobby site. Maybe it will take off someday - either way, I'm sure you learned a lot, and it was time well spent. It's a neat site and I've told my musician friends about it a couple of times.

I'd be happy to hear if there are further suggestions on how to create an audience for an auction.

Sitepoint website sales.

Also, this is not good: Our traffic has hit up to 75,500 monthly visitors, averages 40,000 but currently is at 6,000.

A potential buyer wanting to know what your traffic "was" or "once was" isn't something that should necessarily come up. I'd tell buyers your traffic is 6,000 uniques, and leave it at that. If they ask about the past use the 75K number then (and only to highlight the potential of the site, not what it 'once was'). The way it's phrased now looks like the site is heading south.

I know. Should I take it out or leave it in for full disclosure?

Definitely leave it in. Any serious buyer would ask for this info early along in the process anyway.

Leave it in for full disclosure.

A buyer would like to know that, with some media events, you can drive a spike of 75k visitors. A buyer might have some new ideas about how to keep them coming back.

More importantly, in one place you say the 75,500 figure is uniques and in another you say its page views. Which is it?

I should be uniques. I've changed it.

Thanks for spotting it!

Leave it in for full disclosure.

It is nicely done. If I may ask, what does it cost to run each month? What was your business plan for making money from the site?

I would try to sell it directly to a likely buyer. It seems like a music school, a foundation, or independent label might be interested in purchasing this as a platform.

On AWS it costs less than $200 a month to run.

Cherrypeel’s revenue was planned to come from a variety of sources;

-Selling music through iTunes,

-A for fee service to help bands get their songs listed on iTunes and other online music stores (Tunecore.com),

-Selling advertising space,

-Receiving sponsorship of specific events and competitions on Cherrypeel,

-Selling ‘sponsored artist’ spots to artist to help them self-promote,

-Future premium pay services for artists/record labels and content providers.

Wow, your bounce rate is amazingly low. That is a sign to me that your site is high in value. Too bad I don't have the funds.

Good luck with the auction.

My advice is that you leave the information, any serious buyer will search "cherrypeel" and eventually stumble upon this thread, if you change your mind and take it off, it will make a bad impression.

I've never sold a web site, but i know for sure that incomplete information (and even worse, there would be evidence of it) only sparks mistrust.

Good luck.

For some unknown reason, our company Websense (crap) filter blocks the site as "Questionable or Illegal"...

Thoughts on eBay vs Sitepoint?

"apart" -> "a part"

cost?

Whatever someone is willing to pay.

Do you have a ballpark figure? Is your decision to sell based on the work load or is it financial?

Thanks!

We don't have the time to dedicate to it. If someone has the ability to attract traffic to the site, I believe there is lots of potential to scale.

I am sure I'll be setting a reserve for the auction but until I figure out what the market is willing to pay for the site, I can't give you a ballpark.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com