I read the Technosailor no-sale-happened post with a bit of interest. We had taken a quick look, but had decided to pass (more on that later).

We’ve been involved with selling blog resources (but never blogs) and also been involved in acquiring blogs ourselves. And while Jacob does all the heavylifting in finding great bloggers and so forth, there is one condition I have always placed on any purchase involving a blog:

If the blogger does not come with it, we don’t want it

Jacob picked up Blogging Pro and ForeverGeek before we merged. And the lesson he got there was that half the value is in the blogger. What I like about blogs is that it is filled with personality – when I read it, I am subjected (to use that word) to a certain style of english. There are thousands of blogs regurgitating the same information over and over. I like my regurgitated news with a certain flair

So back to Technosailor – things he did wrong:

1. Care that people said he was asking too much. Almost all sites I have sold I have had people complain that the starting bid was too high (nevermind the actual BIN). Every single one has hit the BIN. People always whine and complain … don’t forget, they don’t care about you. They just want the best deal possible.
2. Use of the word potential. Any time I look at a sale and I see ‘lots of potential‘ I immediately hit BACK. Every website has potential. To me it says – “I haven’t done much with this site, but if you work your ass off, you may be richly rewarded. If not well – you didn’t unlock its potential”
3. He was Aaron Brazell. Lets be honest – he is basically the IT/server guy at b5 media. His audience is interested in how Digg is nothing compared to Grey’s Anatomy. The new buyer couldn’t emulate that. If it does have so much potential, why doesn’t b5 push it more?

Aaron’s writings are interesting. His blog is pretty good. But a buyer would have such an uphill battle that unless the blog was highly niche-based (ala Blog Herald), acquiring it at a high multiple just doesn’t make sense.