Build or Buy a Website?

I like building websites and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years. However, lately I’ve been wondering whether building is the best strategy especially when the website buying/selling market is growing so fast and is more and more vibrant. It takes a lot of time and money to create a good website and most of the time it’s not the next big thing I’m pursuing, it’s the proven models that have been done and tried. Therefore, it is likely that the kind of a website I’m building is somewhere on sale. In fact, it’s more than likely since I use Flippa to find proven website ideas.

The reason I don’t buy websites outright and instead choose to use their ideas is because they are usually overpriced and it is cheaper to build one than to buy. However, there’s the flip (no pun intended) side of the coin and it’s the time it takes to get a website make money. Usually it takes months. Often a website won’t takes off at all and most of the time will not make as much as you’ve anticipated.

Nevertheless, as the buying/selling market grows, there are more and more websites to choose from at reasonable prices, which all of a sudden makes building a website an afterthought. I especially like the idea of finding neglected websites that with a little bit of work can have their profits increased, and buying them at bargain prices. I am actually bidding on one such website at Flippa right now and unless an insane bid war takes place I’m expecting to acquire it.

These are rare opportunities, though, and usually we deal with overpriced sites, where it would take over 2 years (1 year if you’re lucky) for them to pay off after the purchase, provided nothing goes wrong and unless you find great opportunities to improve them.

So to end my musings, I would say it still makes a lot of sense to build websites and be patient while they’re slowly growing (or not), but it makes a lot of sense to keep an eye on Flippa and other marketplaces for possible opportunities to acquire already established sites.