Q1 2015 was an active quarter for FE International, with slightly stronger buyer demand (versus the end of 2014), a number of new and interesting marketing milestones achieved as well as the commencement of several new side projects. For the quarter ending March 31st 2015, FE International sold 15 businesses totalling $2.25m in value at an average listing price on the small cap side of $30K and an average price on the mid/large cap side of $330K.
Across the market, buying demand increased in the small cap space in Q1 with 7 out of 9 listings sold in under a week and 4 of those at asking price. We also saw slightly higher levels of interest in the mid/large cap space, with our average time to offer for the period falling to 24 days (vs 37 days in Q4 2015). This was in part due to the addition of nearly 900 new buyers to our investor network during the period (our highest quarter ever) with a strong intake of first time buyers across the cap scale.
We continue to focus on buyer education as a strategic imperative and we posted some flagship content this quarter with new insights on how to buy a website with finance, what to do after you’ve bought an online business and how to avoid website buying deal killers – all of which seemed to be well received.
Our popular guide to buying on online business has now picked up 1,200 subscribers in the 6 months’ since its launch in October. We will be launching an updated version towards the end of Q2 featuring some of the blog hits from Q1 and a lot of interesting new content focused on how to find the best businesses in the market place, due diligence and what to do post sale to maximize value.
We’ve started to engage further in buyside brokerage as more and more buyers inquire with us about buying businesses using an experienced adviser. So far the trials have received very positive client feedback and it is something we may consider formalizing into a fully marketed service in the medium term.
On the marketing side, Thomas and Amar have been active in the marketplace and beyond. Thomas is now a featured weekly contributor on Entrepreneur.com and many of his articles so far have been popular hits with his most recent post garnering some 15K likes on Facebook. It’s also been a useful platform to bring some attention to FE International and the space in general from various authority outlets such as TIME.
The conference season is also now in full swing and Thomas begins his roadshow by attending MicroConf in Las Vegas in a few days and will be presenting at UnGagged in London in mid-May, so be sure to get in touch with him if you’re attending and want to set up a time to chat. Next week, Thomas is hosting a webinar with SEO mogul James Agate on how to “Sell Your Website For More” on 16th April which is well worth signing up for to maximize the value of your business from an SEO perspective.
Looking ahead to this new quarter we have $750K of businesses pending sale in April and expect higher overall sale volume for Q2. On the listing side, we anticipate Q2 to be similar to Q1 in terms of composition of sites with a number of SaaS listings in the $200-500K range and a lot of affiliate and content sites in the small cap space. This bodes well for both buyers and sellers as it seems these spaces are the hot areas of interest right now. If you’re keen on buying this quarter, be sure to jump on listings as they come up.