Here is the general blue print for a successful website:
You find a cool idea or service that you want to use.
You build the service and solve the problem.
You lose interest now that you have solved the problem and want to solve other problems or create new websites.
People are still wanting to use the site but you no longer no how to help them because you have lost interest.
This has happened to us many times. We are awesome at building and launching new things but maintaining them sucks.
You basically have 3 options
1) Let the site die
2) Sell the site (rarely can you sell a site that is on the decline).
3) Bring in someone to manage the site for a revshare.
We have been very fortunate to be able to sell companies/sites that we lost interest in when they were at their peak but lately I have been bringing in people to manage sites for a revshare above and beyond current revenue.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 57 comments… read them below or add one }
the 3rd point seems attractive bt it will be quite tough to find a partner
I would have to say that is a good post,like always sell your website when you loose interest that way you would get someone else to take care of it!
Dinono.com
I would also say this is a good post. If I lost interest in a site I would also sell it because it you are not interested in it someone else would. Greg Ellison
Some say launch is the most difficult part of a site, but I agree with you here Shoe, maintaining a site after a while gets very difficult!
I agree. The tipping point generally doesn’t happen during the launch either. Maintaining is the work.
Fighters?
I Think The author of this post was really angry when he wrote this post!
Any thoughts on best way to put sites on the market? It’s easy enough to sell domains, but I don’t know of an easy way to sell on sites. We have one that still does very well in the search rankings (has done for years) but that we’re not actively updating or pushing.
I think if you start with the end in mind, you can always be successful. If you build a website/blog with intent on selling it one day, you cannot allow youself to lose interest until you reach your goal.
Businesses are built, cultivated, and bought and sold all the time. It is no different with websites, however it is tougher, especially if your site is in an oversaturated genre.
As for revenue sharing to manage/maintain a site, that is a great alternative, and if your passion comes back, you could always resume the command.
Good topic but thought you could do more with the article. I was expecting more when I read it. Perhaps give us some examples of the sites you have sold/abandonned etc , methods you have used to kill a site, find revshare partner etc and lessons learnt etc.
Hhmmmm…okay. So coin a great domain like http://www.nolongerlovedsites.com and then offer to list these kind of no longer interested-in sites for the owners. Auction them off. Take a small cut and help out some of those great ideas that are languishing, by moving them away from the founders to folks that want to run with same. Would work, I’d think and the fun of putting it all together would also be a gas!
Jim
yes – there is a market, or will be, because many of these ppl think they can do it with a little help. They fall for one delusion after the other lol
Just curious what is up with fighters.com, just checked it out last night (coincidence?)
He sold it, well that is what I was led to believe.
Fighters is something I really care about and really this article does not apply to it. Its still a huge passion of mine. Fighters was just a bad business decision for me to think I could handle something that massive and do all our other stuff.
I can talk more about it once its on its new course
Better examples would be Nextpimp (which we just brought in people to manage) or AucitonAds (which we sold)
I am sure you can talk much on it. The passion for the subject matter of the site seemed to be there.
I had gone to look at it so see how you were trying to monetize it.
It is hard to manage such a large site. I am sure there is much to learn from each venture. NextPimp and AuctionAds seemed to both be successful for you. I guess that is why we read the blog, to see all the case studies.
There is one other very viable option… Make the site run on its own… managed and policed by the users…
I’m fortunate enough to not run into this problem yet. I don’t start sites easily… those that I start involve topics I feel passionate about, and hopefully will never grow tired of.
It’s a very common problem, and one that every Web-Entrepreneur faces. Personally, I try to sell the site myself, because liabilities that come with a 3rd party management just aren’t worth it, but if I can find a reliable enough manager for a rev. share compensation, then that’s certainly a route worth taking.
Does that mean you’re losing money on them?
Bringing in someone to rejuvenate the site might be the first thing then if that didn’t work then tell the employees what is going to happen see if any of them want to buy it first otherwise sell it before you kill it off.
I hope to never lose interest of my site. The good thing to have associates is that you keep each other motivated.
I am at a cross roads with this issue right now. I sold off a few sites due to lack of time, but still have several.
I have some that have been sitting dormant, get moderate traffic, but need redesigned and fresh content. I am planning a re-launch of a few of them.
How do you structure your rev share? How do you find people that will stick with it (your post from last week). I obviously try to find people that are passionate about the subject but even they tend to fade off after a while.
Setting up a shaved ice stand is not being an entrepreneur, its being a handy man.
If you can’t build a business, have staying power, network, and create profit, you are not an entrepreneur.
Seems the net allows ‘tinkerers’ to set up their web ideas. But less than 1% of tinkerers are entrepreneurs, and 1% of these will be successful.
Sell it! Domain names are worth money.
That’s a really good idea. I have a ton of these adsense content sites that are stuck at $500-$700/month, but I don’t have the time or the desire to work on them any longer. If I could have someone that does the work for me, it would be kind of a nice deal for both of us.
It’s sucks when you hit that point with a site. You spend so much time, effort and love into it. And most of the time you just let it slowly die, like a boat with a leak you can’t be bothered to fix.
Right time for the post.
I was just trying to to think what I should do about a week ago with the sites, however, most of it is for lack of the time rather then lost interest.
The main purpose is to maintain my websites, and ofcourse create new ones and finish a dozen of unfinished ones that I have. 
With the average salary of 600/mo I think it will work out good.
I thought about it and now hired 3 people in my home country where my brother lives, who will be managing the crew.
I find it hard to sell a website for a fair price. Most people do not want to sell more than 12x monthly revenue – which sucks if you have a site that has not been monetized.
Your so right about that. We get so excited when we start something up, but maintaining it sucks! trust me im starting to get that feeling “of losing interest in my site”.
There’s another aspect of this – website morphing as your business changes and grows. My website is very different now than it was 5 years ago. VERY.
It wasn’t lack of love, but change in purpose. What do you do with your old sites you kept??? Data archive?
Great topic!!
Once you lose interest, why not keep the site updated with syndicated content? Leave the adsense/affiliate program running and then just leave the site on auto-pilot. What have you got to lose?
Sell it! Well, if there’s worthy traffic flowing to the website it could be worth selling for a bundle, or just keep it around to use for other projects.
If you can put it on autopilot and let it run collecting money from adsense or other advertising or use affiliates to promote it then that’s great.
Alternately sell it and get your money back and move on.
Interested to hear more about the revshare arrangement and how you do this so that it is win win. You make money and they make money.
I would build some traffic, PR and alexa ranking and the sell it , it would fetch a higher price
I guess you are right, those are the only 3 options. If it were me, what I would do is what ever is most financially beneficial to me. I mean if I lost interest and want to move on, I would ask myself how much does the site bring in … how much could I get if I sold it, and what is the cost of hiring someone to manage it. Whatever is more fiscally beneficial to me is the way I would go.
I guess people can do what they want.
I don’t think i would sell it especially if it has a signification for me. I am very attached of my things and i can hardly give up on something.
Giving website on Revenue Share is not an bad idea at all when your website is on verge of closing down. Recently i had outsourced around 10 websites to India SEO company on revenue share and i am surprised with the results that all of them have started making $10 on daily basis which means around $1500 on monthly basis & i have to give them only $300 for the work they were doing.
I can’t imagine loosing interest to my work
Indeed, I too think the same way.
When you have lots of websites, you will eventually loose interest in some of them.
Option 1: Used this option many times.
Option 2: Never used it, don’t think I ever will.
Option 3: I have a problem with trust so would not be able to trust someone to run the site on my behalf.
Option 3 is the best option because this way yous site will keep growing and you will be paying a part of your earning to someone while you not doing anything.
Option2 : Hire someone to write 10-20 killer post for a month and then after little promotion sell it.
More over I will rather convert blog into affiliate blog by writing about product once in a while.
best thing to do is make an excel of all the things you didn’t do with the site, and get excited about it aggain!
I have over 250 sites up and running moving 10 million+ uniques/day.
I have no idea how many of them are making/losing money. I just can’t bring myself to sell any of them.
They feel like members of my family.
–Chubbs
250!!! Sheeeeeeeeeet…how hard is that to manage!?!? I rather have one, really great one than 250 mediocre! Know what I mean!?
…but not to say that yours is mediocre or anything like that…don’t get me wrong…
I agree with Marijuana. I think all of my website like a family for me and I think asking people to take care of our website and give them a revenue share will be a great idea.
well I have got 31 sites I spend 6months to promote them now I spend my time to travel or play golf.
difficult to find some one to buy your site if you do not think it interesting.
Moreover it is difficult to find buyers in this market.
But at least you would have learned something from this experience
when working a lot of potential problems occur outside the allegations, I agree with your choice of solutions when the problem is and is not interested anymore to build a web that is, the time to make decisions with the right choice
when you make a site it happens to be a part of your life.If you dont able to maintain it properly then better to sell it and giving someoneelse a chance to make it even better
It happens to lose your interest, it comes in waves, you work for a while, you get all tired of it and then you lose your interest. Hopefully it will come up again after a while. But I do have websites that run on themselves now and bring money, websites that I would like to work on, but I don’t find it interesting to do it anymore, even if I still know what to do to grow them…
When I lose interest in a project I just save it for another day instead of selling it. It is hard to sell a website for fair value since because you have lost interest it will start to lose traffic and revenue. Bringing in somebody to manage is hard unless you can really trust them and letting it die is just a waste of potential.
I think third option will be much better choice instead of first two. If you have invested your time and devotion than you should let them die.
Just hire someone who is competent enough … make a deal with him/her so that he/she can do the work with heart and help the site to grow further.
I go for domain parking. If you had some traffic on it, you could make a few bucks.
Hi mate. I am still really new in blog and the entire aspects about this field. There are lods of jargons I still don’t understand. I’m not pretty sure I will be able to blogging half decent to yours. I will browse the whole blog maybe I will be able to grasp your blogging style a little.