I think a lot of us know the struggle of working tirelessly to grow our business only to realise it doesn’t get much less labour-intensive with time. The prospect of selling the business to take a step back and realise future earnings today can sound appealing. To some the sole objective is to get acquired while to others it is a last resort. But announcing a sale is daunting and finding the right buyer can be an expensive year-long process. And even if you manage to find a buyer, the concern with selling 100% of one’s ownership is foregoing all future upsides in the business, which suddenly can make the asking price seem too low. That’s when you want more offers to compare with and even more options for carving up the ownership.
That’s why I built a free, private marketplace that allows owners of internet startups to anonymously list ALL or PART of their ownership for sale to receive offers without any commitments to sell! This can be a great way to exit fully or onboard new co-owners to help grow the business. It’s called BitsForDigits (www.bitsfordigits.com) and is completely free and dedicated sellers of online businesses. In short it allows owners to privately list from 1-100% ownership for sale to get approached with offers from vetted buyers without any middlemen. The platform makes money by charging buyers a subscription to contact owners, which means sellers pay no commission or listing fees - nothing at all in fact.
My aim with building this platform is to help business owners like us leverage our ownership to cash-out all or some of the chips on the table. Right now I’m looking for a little input on how you guys go about calculating the price / valuation of your e-com Shopify store so that I can better help sellers on the marketplace. So please feel free to give some feedback here - it would be much appreciated! 