Hostflippers.com - new project, feedback wanted!

[Sindre]

Hi everyone,

This weekend I launched a new project I've been working on for a few months:

https://hostflippers.com

It's a marketplace for buying and selling established hosting businesses. It's quite common for hosting companies and clients to change hands, e.g. larger companies buying up smaller ones. I wanted to create a platform that makes this process more streamlined for both the buyer and seller.

I appreciate all feedback, design critique, etc.

The site has been built with Nuxt (Vue.js), TailwindCSS and a backend API in Go. There's also a custom-built admin dashboard but you need to register (for free) to access it.

 

[SenseiSteve]

Kudos on your site. First impression though is too much white space.

 

[Sindre]

Thanks for your comment, @SenseiSteve. That's interesting as I used to struggle with putting enough whitespace in. Nowadays, it seems to be the general consensus that whitespace is a good thing. Maybe I went a bit overboard with it. Maybe it comes down to personal taste as well.

 

[justsimplehosting]

I think its a great idea, The website looks spot on.
Good colour scheme.
Nice use of whitespace.
I really like it.
Could do with some sort of image or background image at the top of the index where is says

The #1 place to buy and sell hosting businesses

​

 

[Ettevi]

Saw your site around quite a bit before seeing this post. Seems like a very niche site, but i like it!

Looking at the design, its small, quick to the point, and elegant at the same time. I would recommend adding a search bar somewhere on the homepage, rather than having to go to the "Business for Sale" link.

I see you have a valuation checker. Just out of curiosity, is it automated, or manual?

Keep up the good work. What are your marketing attempts? I think it can go fairly fast.
Maybe another niche idea would be to turn this into a platform to sell online-based businesses. I'm sure that would open the spectrum a little more but still keep you in a bit of a niche. This is with future growth of course.

Best of luck!

One thing that i would recommend, now looking at it again, would be a dark theme if possible.

 

[Sindre]

Thanks for your feedback!

Saw your site around quite a bit before seeing this post. Seems like a very niche site, but i like it!

Looking at the design, its small, quick to the point, and elegant at the same time. I would recommend adding a search bar somewhere on the homepage, rather than having to go to the "Business for Sale" link.

Do you mean an actual text search? Right now I'm trying to collect as many listings as possible in order to build up the marketplace, and I'm uncertain there will ever be that many listings to justify a search functionality, but some kind of filtering (e.g. by age, price, etc.) on the listings page could make sense.

I see you have a valuation checker. Just out of curiosity, is it automated, or manual?

It's fully automated. Based on the data you provide and various factors, we apply a mathematical model that provides the valuation based on a multiple of the monthly recurring revenue.

Keep up the good work. What are your marketing attempts? I think it can go fairly fast.
Maybe another niche idea would be to turn this into a platform to sell online-based businesses. I'm sure that would open the spectrum a little more but still keep you in a bit of a niche. This is with future growth of course.

As for marketing, I haven't done much yet besides being a member of different web hosting related forums. I'm also running some small scale FB ad campaigns targeting owners of web hosting companies.

So far the interest from buyers seems quite high, so we just need to build up the seller side. That's the hard part of launching a marketplace site where you need both sides for it to work.

I have thought about expanding the target market to generic online businesses, however, you already have some established players like Flippa and EmpireFlippers. That's why I thought targeting only hosting businesses at first since I have extensive background from this industry. It might very well be room for one more Flippa alternative, though, so that's something I'll look into if the hosting niche becomes too narrow.

Best of luck!

One thing that i would recommend, now looking at it again, would be a dark theme if possible.

Do you mean for the public home page or the dashboard? At least at this stage I don't think it's worth adding another theme just for the sake of it.

Thanks again!

 

[Artashes]

I am happy to see a Flippa-like place focused on just trading web hosting businesses.

I would, however, modify your wording. Saying you are the "#1 place to buy and sell" is misleading, at minimum. There are very well known marketplaces, brokerages, communities, where trading is active, so telling people something about yourself that's not true may not look good on you. Instead, I'd use phrasing like "The right place to buy and sell" and it changes the perception and the message entirely.

 

[Sindre]

I am happy to see a Flippa-like place focused on just trading web hosting businesses.

I would, however, modify your wording. Saying you are the "#1 place to buy and sell" is misleading, at minimum. There are very well known marketplaces, brokerages, communities, where trading is active, so telling people something about yourself that's not true may not look good on you. Instead, I'd use phrasing like "The right place to buy and sell" and it changes the perception and the message entirely.

Hi, thanks for your input. I understand your point, but I believe we've created the best platform tailored specifically for web hosting companies. I'm sure there are other alternatives, but could you please name a few other well-known marketplaces that specifically targets hosting businesses?

Though, to be honest, the main reason I went with this exact wording is that it fits perfectly within the bounds of the hero container. Anything longer and it wraps to 3 lines on particular screen sizes.