Is Flipping Content Platforms the New Get Rich Quick Hype?
Is it legit?
Did you know you can sell a domain? Probably.
Did you know you can sell a website? Not a design, but a full-fetched site with content? Most likely.
Did you know you can sell your social media accounts, like Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok? You did? Great.
But did you know you can sell your newsletter? I didn’t. And I have a few questions. So, I thought about it.
Flipping digital stuff
Selling profitable assets isn’t a new thing. It’s a darn old business model. Even in terms of digital assets like accounts and platforms, it’s not a brand-new idea. This has been done for years. Domains being one of the oldest markets in that regard.
What feels rather new, however, is the fact that people are now only starting up business, platforms, and accounts for the sake of selling them later.
I’ll give you an example.
Website flipping
On sites like Flippa, anyone can easily sell their blog. In fact, Flippa is the number 1 spot for selling blogs online. You can also sell domains, Shopify stores, Amazon FBA stores, and much more on Flippa.
What you need is a working blog (in our case) with a domain, some content, and preferably a modern design. You put it up on Flippa, set an asking price, and wait for a sale. Flippa takes a cut of the money at the end. Simple strategy.
You might think this is for people who had successful blogs over years and are now stepping away from that business for one reason or another. That’s true. It’s one group of sellers.
But there’s more. A growing group of savvy creators are only establishing blogs to sell them later.
Here’s how.
You create a simple blog design from an all-in-one platform which requires no coding, no technical skills, and not much overhead. Preferably for free or little money. You buy a domain for it. You make it SEO-ready.
Then, you add content. You pick a niche and write posts for it. Either from scratch or by repurposing posts you’ve already written somewhere else. Finally, you put that site up for sale.
Sounds complicated? It is if you write unique content for everything. But if you automate a little more or even use an AI-based writing system to come up with schemes for posts, it gets much easier.
Then, you have to factor in the earnings. Sites on Flippa sell for thousands of dollars in many cases. Tens of thousands or even over a hundred thousand isn’t out of the questions. These can be sites less than 1 year old. You can even sell new sites (a few months of age) for a few hundred dollars.
A decade ago, I sold a tech blog. My first real blog, actually. It must have been about 1 year old at that point. I didn’t sell it through a site like Flippa, but rather privately. It made around $600. I was freaking happy with that back then. Today, I think I could have gotten a lot more than that.
Another example.
Flipping social media accounts
Fameswap is a site where you can sell your social media accounts. Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.
I looked into the site when I thought about selling my YouTube channels. They make a little monthly side income, much of which is passive, but I would give them away for a reasonable price.
Here’s the problem, though. In contrast to blogs on Flippa, selling social media accounts is tough. You need a considerable audience to get the big bucks. You might sell hot accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers for a good amount of money. Take a look here:
I think it’s hard to get those sold, though.
I’ve listed my YouTube channels on another site for $2500 and $500 respectively and there’s not much going on. Additionally, I see channels or accounts with over ten thousand subscribers only going for a couple of hundred bucks.
Flipping newsletters
Lastly, there’s flipping newsletters. I recently learned about this. In theory, you could make 10K or 20K selling a successful newsletter. The platform I’ve heard about is called Duuce.
It’s a marketplace to sell and buy newsletters. If you look at the numbers there, the earnings vary extensively. Below you see prices from $1500 to $17,000 for list sizes of 1,100 or up to 480,000 entries.
If you have a growing newsletter that you don’t longer need or want to grow, you could try selling it, instead of just “ending” it.
Here’s the problem.
Issues I see
Is this even legal?
Can you sell a newsletter? Isn’t this like selling the people who signed up for it to someone else who may or may not do something completely different with this newsletter, or exploit the personal data (email, names, etc.) for entirely different purposes?
I’m not sure, but it sounds a little weird. You might have to check the terms of your newsletter platform for further information.
Also, starting and growing a newsletter in the first place isn’t an easy task. It takes time. It won’t be a get rich quick method. If you already have a large email list, however, it might be worth a try, if you figured out the legal aspects.
The bottom line
You can sell anything online. I didn’t know that a few years ago, but I’m starting to grasp the full potential of pretty much any niche and any project you might have. Side hustles are nothing new. It’s basically monetizing your hobbies. And in this day and age, you can monetize any hobby.
Would I go for the get rich quick schemes? Probably not.
Some are legit, others are crap. Most importantly, though, I wouldn’t pick something I didn’t like just for the money. I’d rather try to monetize a real interest of mine. To have fun doing it.
Either way, there’s money to be made online. You can make thousands by setting up new content platforms and selling them a few months later if that’s your jam.
Then again, if you put in the time and effort (and enjoy the process of creating said content), you could probably make more money by continuing to grow that business yourself, rather than selling it.