Slots Guide for sale?

[Casino-Matt]

This month Slots Guide http://slots-guide.eu celebrates it's 2nd birthday and in that short time it has grown leaps and bounds.
A couple of affiliate managers have nick-named it "The new Wizard of Odds" which is probably the biggest compliment I can get in this industry. There's nothing else quite like SG out there!

The past few months have been spent doing a website redesign, implementing some Geo-targeting with the Flytonic plugin and launched the fledgling forum at the end of last month (November). There is still one major task on the todo list which I'd recommend as a priority which is to populate the Flytonic casino review system. But aside from that exponential growth is ready to go.

Why am I putting this up for potential sale?

1) I have been offered a very good government job,

2) I have had 4 large companies already inquiring about buying the site, 2 of them however only purchase sites earning €50k plus per month which we are no where near yet but it says a lot about the potential of the site that these companies are sniffing around already.

Income over the past 6 months despite the focus heavily on the redesign etc = €22k

Ahrefs Rank = 1,349,117
Domain Rating = 49
URL Rating = 31

All traffic is organic.

Hosting is WordPress on Vidahost UK. Hosting costs = £199 semi annually, next due 30/05/2017

What's included?

1) Domain, content, etc. I can transfer hosting package over to new owner for seemless transition. Domain is paid up till: Next Due Date: 08/October/2020

2) All affiliate accounts

3) Facebook page ownership: 152 real followers

4) Twitter account: 691 real followers

What's the price?

Now this is where it gets tough for me. The general market value of an affiliate site if 5 or 6 times annual revenue. Based on the last 6 months that makes it €220,000 - €242,000
Slots Guide however is not a run of the mill website and the potential has not nearly been reached yet.
Advice I've been given ranges from €250,000 right up to €2,000,000

Obviously having had interest from a couple of the "big boys" in this industry I've now had a few weeks to really think about what price would tempt me to sell considering all the factors (giving the tax man his chunk, taking the government job, etc, etc) so I have a minimum sale price in mind but really I'm hoping the market will set a fair price for me through a small bidding war!

Contact me and lets talk:

email or Skype me: info @ slots-guide.eu

Cheers all,

Matt

 

[FruityJelena]

OMG big news! Don't know how to feel about this to be honest!

Slots-guide is very dear affiliate to me and I always saw a big potential in it, from the very start. So I'm glad that I was right and that the value of it is only growing. There are some priceless texts and guides, from the person (you, Matt) anyone can rely on - both people working with him and Slots-guide visitors and followers. That's why these are both happy and sad news - you are heart and soul of the website, but I sincerely hope you'll make a great deal with a new person, who will work the way that website did so far - with highly quality content, precise casino reviews, clean and nice design, promoting only proven operators and being always there for players with help and great tips.

So, wish you luck and success!

 

[TheGooner]

At revenue of 3.5K to 4K per month you will need a very keen buyer (possibly from outside the industry) to get anywhere near the lower end of your estimate.

Most fledgling affiliate sites trade for far less than 5-6x annual revenue, that's a price for fully fledged businesses with brand, USP, and proven profits (not potential)

You should talk further with the "4 large companies" to get a real price and take the best offer.

 

[inspiration]

it is .eu domain with a hyphen not a branded .com which is not great when you have to sell.

how many depositing players etc if 1 player accounts for all the revenue then you can not assume these high end numbers.

with an ever increasing saturation of the gambling market and the loss of main payment processors the future does not look that bright IMO.

If you get 80% of your asking price from those 4 sharks I would take it without hesitation.

 

[casinobonusguy]

I was really keen on your site until i seen the price , honestly if you have guys paying anywhere close to 5-6x then everything i own is for sale and ill pay you a finders fee

 

[inspiration]

Shit you first LOL

 

[Biti]

I like the site, it's a great source of information, but I think it will be difficult to sell if for the amounts that are mentioned here. It's a website with plenty quality content, which means that a buyer will need somebody approximative full time working on it. Hence, the costs will be higher than the revenue. I would not be able to find someone being able to with this premium content for about € 3.500 a month. To be honest, if you would charge your own hours, the website would not make any profit. It has a lot of quality content, but revenues are quite low considering the amount of content.

The only way to sell it should be to accept a price way lower than what is mentioned here in this thread and work like a specialist for the buyer, who will optimise the website in terms of generating revenue. Or look for a partner specialised in SEO, conversion, etc. Or somebody investing in it and use the money for a better domain, SEO, etc.

I think that's the way to go. Selling it will be difficult, especially because with this sort of posts, everybody will take this kind of messages on a discussion board as a sign that you are willing to sell your website. That's price reducing. Same thing for the .eu-domain. With a .com or .co.uk domain, it would have made already way more money. If somebody would offer € 250.000, I would take it without any hesitation.

 

[LandofOz]

I agree with TheGooner, and think your best bet would be to talk to the 4 large companies to get the best offer.

 

[abc]

If people are paying 5-6 times annual income for affiliate accounts i have a few for sale.

 

[Biti]

Affiliate accounts plus websites.

But anyway, pass them if they want to pay 6 times the rev and I'll give 10 % finders fee!

 

[Casino-Matt]

Thanks for all the replies. Hopefully this is an interesting discussion for everyone not just myself.

I guess at the moment I am facing the same dilemma that most affiliates face at one point or another. The choice of full time job or full time affiliate or both.

I never intended for affiliation to be my full time career but SG has grown so much and it's clear there's much more potential than currently showing. If I was working in the corporate world then it would be a no brainer of a decision. But when you can fight crime and make a real difference the decision is much harder.

I'm in no rush to sell, I just have a lot of thinking ahead of me. If the market value of the site isn't close to how I see it then it's not even worth considering anyway.

 

[slotplayer]

I'd want to re-coop the investment within two years as the gaming industry is somewhat volatile to say the least, so 1.5-2 times earnings.

 

[Biti]

1,5 - 2 times is truly a dumping prince in my opinion. But, the thing with gambling sites is. If it has some volume, it has value. If it has no volume, it has not. The bigger sharks in this industry are usually not interested in websites making a few k a month.

 

[inspiration]

Flip the content to a brand or better keyword .com domain like www.newonlinecasino.com or some funky name and you will do better next time you want to sell it.

 

[TheGooner]

1,5 - 2 times is truly a dumping prince in my opinion.

Have you ever bought or sold any website for a higher value though though Biti?

Most realistic estimates will be a small multiple of the annual profits, plus any assets that the business holds.

Sometimes large online businesses can be valued according to the number of users (eyeballs) if they are very popular but not profitable yet ... but usually this valuation is used for major players / brands and large scale projects that have spent money in order to grow fast - eg. Twitter / ebay / Amazon etc.

A price of somewhere between 1-3 times EARNINGS (profits) is pretty common for small businesses that have not grown massively in scale and are not unique.
This would equate to approximately 1-2 times REVENUE for most small owner operators.

The discussion about "potential" and "exponential growth" are all in the eyes of the vendor and not real yet - and may never become real. Most business transactions are based on facts. Gaming affiliation and dot coms were booming in 2000 - 2006 ... but now are a mature market with established metrics and some regulatory issues.

See : http://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-to-value-a-business/ as a good explanatory guide to valuing businesses..

 

[Biti]

Nope, but I have been involved in serious negotiations. Like I said, it's about volume. 4 times the revenue is reasonable when we're talking about a site making over 50k a month. Depending on many factors it can be even more than 4 times the revenue. I got serious offers of every big shark in this industry. I know a bit how they calculate their price. An offer of 1 - 2 time the revenue I wouldn't even consider. By the way, the initial offer of those companies was way more than 2 times the revenue.

But... not having this volume, it's difficult to sell it because there's also something like costs that bigger companies that buy do have and a one-man-band doesn't charge. In this case, you could say the revenue is for example 50k a year, but a full-time employee working on it will cost at least the same amount. Also, the acquiring process is a bit time consuming sometimes. They really do not spend their time in negotiating for a business that has a high emotional value for the vendor and basically no value for the buyer if it's a company calculating with profit instead of revenue. For somebody that wants to focus full-time on a website that is established already, it's an option, but I would always prefer a .com-domain instead of a .eu-domain and a domain without a -. Also, usually this kind of buyers do not pay XXX.XXX for websites.

Considering the work that's in this website and the quality content, selling it for 66k - 88k would be dumping. Even if for a buyer technically it has not more value than that. With this sort offers, better try to build it a bit more, even if that means that you're going to have to spend some hours in the evening after the government job.

Thus, it's perhaps not worth more for a company that has no emotional connection with the website and looks at data, not at potential, growth, hope, etc. but from a vendor perspective it's still a dumping price that people would just take if they are really fed up with their work as affiliate, desperate for the money, etc. In any other case, I should move this website to a .com-domain and make the design lean and mean. I agree with you technically 1, 2 or 3 times the earnings may be the price, but from a vendor perspective it's dumping in my opinion and I would consider other options.

 

[TheGooner]

Nope, but I have been involved in serious negotiations.
I got serious offers of every big shark in this industry. I know a bit how they calculate their price.

Then please don't keep quiet - please share what you know - and how you think that they calculated their value.
If you have past experience then I'd like to learn from it. Are you able to post specific prices and valuations and how you think it was calculated?

By the way, the initial offer of those companies was way more than 2 times the revenue.

Was it because it had a lot of eyeballs each month ?

 

[Biti]

I know some things and I am not unwilling to share knowledge of course, but it really depends on many factors at most companies and I think most of the factors you already know. The difference between 4 times the revenue or 5 times the revenue, is € 600k if you're making € 50k a month and is not just provoked by negotiation skills of the vendor. I am talking about this kind of websites, I suppose websites like Ask Gamblers, Wizard of Odds, etc are another kettle of fish. This is about websites making money, but also websites you probably never heard about, because it simply are not industry-wide recognised brands. They buy a lot of this stuff. One of the bigger companies just issued a three-year-bond of 50 million euro. With this money, they will make some acquisitions. I am also sure a lot of calculation is done behind the screen and I have no idea or I am not sure. I must also say calculating the price of a gambling affiliate business, is another thing than buying a webdesign-studio. I buy travel websites for 10 times the monthly revenue for example.

First of all, it depends on what will be the construction of the deal:
- selling the website 100% immediately effect
- an earn-out depending on how the website will perform. Having potential is great, but they count €, pounds or dollars.
- taking cash, taking share or taking it somewhere between 100% cash and 100% shares
- selling the website, but be an employee at the buyers' company to maintain the website or do your trick at more of their website, etc.

Secondly, it depends on the (type of) revenue:
- revenue share will give them revenues in the future, while a CPA is already paid. Same thing for a flat fee. I got the impression that some buyers also do care about which brands you're having your revenues with. Most of them have their favourite brands.
- how many ndp's is your website(s) doing a month. Most of those companies work with CPA, hybrid and/or flat fee, so they typically are looking for websites that are generating a lot of ndp's.
- from which market does it come. Most of those companies do have to catch some money from time to time at stock markets. Regulated markets or markets with a regulation perspective on the short term are working for them, black markets usually not.
- the deals you're having. For them, that's about potential. If you're making 10k a month with a 25% effective RS-deal, there's some potential for them, because they can negotiate usually better deals.

Thirdly, it's about the risk and the cost of maintaining a website:
- if your position is reached with spammy links, there's a bigger risk. With an earn-out this risk can be shared a bit, but also earn-outs are having some triggers that are not necessarily in favour of the buyer.
- the amount of money you're paying for your links. It says something about the strength of the website and the costs to maintain the rankings.
- the cost of maintaining the website. Maintaining a simple bonus website can be done by whatever content writer. Writing some premium quality stuff, cannot be done by their average employee. These companies are not one-man-bands working from a room, but people that are having employees, offices, etc.
- is it 1 website or a network
- i guess they also look what it costs them to make the website the way they want it. There's a difference between a clean coded website with detailled documentation or that fits their wishes or some spaghetti coded stuff.
- generating revenues with a PPC campaign gives another profit than generating revenue with an inventive long-tail keyword strategy.

But also, for example, good rankings at good keywords are worth something for them. And of course, they're experienced and skilled negotiators. They try to find out how 'desperate' you are to sell. Many times people aren't even desperate to sell or didn't even think too much about it, but smelling the money it is more difficult. They know how to play this game. They know you just have a few options to sell your website. Just a few companies in this industry are willing to buy affiliate websites for these amounts of money.

At the website of this topic, they won't even make an offer. They'll think about it, if it makes in a month what it made this whole year. Small websites are just interesting if they're part of a bigger network. I think for a gambling website, price ranges are from 3 up to 5 times the revenue, but also it depends a lot on what you define as revenue. Is it the last month, the last 3 months, the last year? It's all open for negotiation.

Other things I have already mentioned, but are important in this case:
- the .eu domain. It simply will cost them more to rank a .eu domain than a .com domain.
- the type of content. Most of their content writers are like content writers you'll find everywhere on the net, not people that know all ins and outs of a random number generator, hit frequency, variance, etc.

 

[TheGooner]

Appreciate your post Biti !

 

[slotplayer]

1,5 - 2 times is truly a dumping prince in my opinion. But, the thing with gambling sites is. If it has some volume, it has value. If it has no volume, it has not. The bigger sharks in this industry are usually not interested in websites making a few k a month.

I'm in the USA which makes it difficult to get paid sometimes. I had to factor that when coming up with the valuation figure.