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Ep. 118 - How to Build a Side Hustle by Buying a Mini-business or a Pre-made Website

Thriving The Future Podcast
Thriving The Future Podcast
Episode • Feb 11, 2024 • 19m

You're looking for a side hustle. What if you could buy a mini business that already has a website created for you?

Flippa is an auction site to buy websites. It is similar to eBay - everything is an auction.

There are two types of sites on Flippa: 

  • Startup site: This site does not have any traffic, or very little. It does not have any significant income.  
  • Established site: This has been running for some period of time. It usually has some traffic to the site and it may or may not have monthly revenue or income.  

Mindset:

  • Do you want to own the business?  
  • Do you want to flip the business? Like build it up a little bit, improve it a little bit, and then flip it?
  • Or do you want to use a domain name for something else?  

Monetization:

Usually through AdSense ads or affiliate sales - Amazon, or your fave affiliate or partner. May also sell e-books, courses, training, or services.

AI:

Would you, in good conscience, spin up a side hustle website with AI content just so you can make bank with affiliate marketing?

The pros and cons of using AI.

  • Most sites have some AI content.
  • "Google favors content written in a way that illustrates first-hand knowledge of a topic" - John McCoy.

Real world examples:

All Garden Advice:

Startup site (no traffic or revenue) - Garden blog site with great graphics.

And another Startup Garden site - Garden Guide with a nice layout that sells e-books.

Some of the problems that I ran into: 

  • Read the fine print!  
  • Do you really own the content and the website assets? Do you get those assets with the purchase? Do you “own” them or is it just a license? Can you use those assets somewhere else?
  • Will the seller clone the website with a different domain name and resell the same content (competing with you)? And how many other sites have this same layout and content? - this is a common occurrence. 

Established site - ask yourself:

  • Can I do better than this?
  • Can I write content better than this?
  • Can I create a better looking site? (or spin up a similar site in this niche)?

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/flippa-sidehustle

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