The owner of Australian technology website MacTalk has taken the unusual step of selling his business via online auction website flippa.com after failing to get a mainstream publisher interested in the business.
Anthony Agius, who started the site around six years ago and now gets 1.5 million page views per month is hoping to attract offers above $125,000 but admits he is looking for a quick sale.
“The website allows for auctions but it’s going to be sold to the first person who offers the $125,000,” Aguis says.
“As soon as I can see the money in my account the site is the buyer’s to do with as they please”.
He first thought of selling a few months ago and began contacting publishers and digital media agencies but got little response.
“I contacted ACP Magazines, CBS Interactive, Haymarket Media, Nextmedia, Future Publishing, ITwire and IDG but none of them got back to me,” Agius says.
Aguis got his first response yesterday.
“I was contacted by Niche & Allure just last night, so I’ll soon sit down with them and hear what they have to say,” he says.
Agius admits he didn’t have any idea how he could sell his website.
“I don’t consider myself a businessman. I didn’t go into this with a plan to grow the site and sell it for a profit, so I wasn’t sure how to go about it,” he says.
“I didn’t know how you sell something like this. So I did a Google search and found flippa.com and now it’s up for sale there.”
Agius is looking forward to moving on with his life and says the new owners will have full control of the site from day one.
“I have put a lot of effort into this so of course I want it to continue to do well but I won’t be interfering with it,” he says.
“If I was buying a business I wouldn’t want the old owners telling me what to do so I won’t be doing that to them.”
The site attracts around 1.5 million page impressions per month, resulting in more than $90,000 in revenue last year.
Agius says it’s cheap to run with main costs including around $1800 per month for contributors, $100 per weekly podcast and the site is hosted free of charge.
“Some might consider that successful, some may not,” Agius says.
“For me it’s certainly enough to live off and I really enjoy working from my living room in my underwear rather than going to a real job every day.”
He said he wanted to sell the site rather than simply hand it over to someone because “after such a significant financial, emotional and personal investment I’m not going to walk away without some sort of redundancy package”.
Agius says as well as the established revenue and website traffic the most important asset the new owners will get is his network of contributors.
“I currently have about 30 people contributing content and helping out with the site on a weekly basis,” he says.
“Most only do two to five hours per week, they love technology and really enjoy researching and writing about it hence they’re happy to do it for little or no pay.
“If the site stays similar to what is, stays Australian and doesn’t become some sort of content farm I’m very confident all the contributors will stay on.”
Agius, who previously worked as an IT administrator at RMIT University, says he’s not sure what he wants to do next.
“I like what I have been doing. I might start another site or I might not,” he says.
He says he loves technology and will look at different avenues to pursue.
“Despite spending all my time recently on Macs and Apple products I’m intrigued by lots of different areas of technology so maybe I’ll start writing about some other areas,” he says.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
