Happier Abroad Forum Community

To guys who are in the know or even just have some ideas, what do you think:

1. Is the market value of Winston's HA website if he were to sell it and no longer participate (what would it likely go for on Flippa or other marketplace)?

2. Same question as number 1 above except that Winston would continue to fully participate and lend his name and personality.

3. Same question as number 2 above plus he throws in the paranormal website as bonus.

These questions are a prelude to more general queries on how to value and invest in already established and cash generating websites.

Please offer up your analysis and/or opinion on this topic.

I think that is a ridiculous consideration, for obvious reasons.

1. This site is priceless. It's rare to be able to do something you love and believe in, and make money from it at the same time. You can't put a price tag on that. Plus, if this site is generating residual passive income (and who knows what it will grow to in the future or what its potential is) and reaching out to new people everyday, then how can you assess a price on something that is constantly producing value and growing? It's not like a product on a shelf. You can sell a product or service, but not a movement or revolution.

2. Second, if this site's ownership were to transfer to someone else, who knows what would happen to the content here and this forum? The new owner could make a ton of changes that you guys would not like, impose strict PC moderators who do not allow much free speech, which would anger a lot of you. Etc.

Why risk ruining a working formula that is helpful, inspirational, and stands for truth? That would be totally foolish.

Ladislav proposed the same thing long ago. I thought that was foolish, for the same reasons above. Some people just don't see the big picture but make rash unwise decisions instead.

Btw, this site is not technically a franchise. It's a unique site and movement. So you got that wrong too.

Winston wrote:I think that is a ridiculous consideration, for obvious reasons.

1. This site is priceless. It's rare to be able to do something you love and believe in, and make money from it at the same time. You can't put a price tag on that. Plus, if this site is generating residual passive income (and who knows what it will grow to in the future or what its potential is) and reaching out to new people everyday, then how can you assess a price on something that is constantly producing value and growing? It's not like a product on a shelf. You can sell a product or service, but not a movement or revolution.

2. Second, if this site's ownership were to transfer to someone else, who knows what would happen to the content here and this forum? The new owner could make a ton of changes that you guys would not like, impose strict PC moderators who do not allow much free speech, which would anger a lot of you. Etc.

Why risk ruining a working formula that is helpful, inspirational, and stands for truth? That would be totally foolish.

Ladislav proposed the same thing long ago. I thought that was foolish, for the same reasons above. Some people just don't see the big picture but make rash unwise decisions instead.

Btw, this site is not technically a franchise. It's a unique site and movement. So you got that wrong too.

1. Don't have a hissy fit. The site seems priceless TO U cus much of it is designed around yr ego and personality. But is it really? If a big player, company, or wealthy individual for whatever reason wanted to take-over yr. site and offered u crazy money - say US$1 mn or even much more, wld. u not accept it? Is there no offer you can't refuse?

2. Yr. point about not being able to value a website with growing residual passive income with an uncertain future is totally wrong. Many publicly traded assets as well as private enterprises fit that very description. In the case of publicly traded assets, the masses make aggregate assumptions about future cashflows, interest rates, etc. and market price gets determined by their buy and sell decisions every second of trading. In the case of private assets (your site fits this) value can be first estimated by projecting the LT future income and expense streams and then discounting those cashflows at an appropriate interest rate based on market risk assessment of comparable websites (implied discount rate from current transaction prices). Then to see what the market will actually bear, you can list it with with various sites and brokers where websites are commonly sold to see what the best offer you get is.

Almost everything has a value to some people. Heck, you could probably even sell your mother if u tried hard enough, lol.

3. Yes, if the site's ownership were to transfer to someone else, who knows what would happen? There is no certainty in business my friend. If a firm or individual wanted to buy your site, they might have any of various reasons. Perhaps they just hate the noise yr. website is making and just wanna shut it down. Perhaps they are confident that they could improve it from a biz perspective and/or monetize it more effectively (like buying a poorly managed firm for bargain price, improving it, then either milking it for more cashflow or re-selling it a tremendous mark-up). Why did Google buy Youtube? Why did Microsoft wanna buy Yahoo? Did those deals offer any certainty?

4. Why risk ruining a working formula that is helpful, inspirational, and stands for truth since that would be totally foolish according to u? Umm, to profit personally Sherlock! Wouldn't u be willing to sell-out on these principals for a price? If not, then I have new respect for you as you're more principled than I imagined.

5. I don't get your point about Lad. Do u mean he proposed u sell the site? If so, I think he was premature as u mentioned it was quite sometime ago. You'll get a lot more for an established biz with a clear long term cashflow history which shows consistent growth. Perhaps the best time to sell is when the growth rate is highest and it looks like there is not limit.

BTW, here's another take on the big picture. If u wanna enjoy max success with Chinese women in general, your income and net worth are critical factors, especially as u get older. Don't imagine otherwise. If u wanna be a playboy and not just settle with one girl, financial success is key. Under many of the big payout scenarios (those which u could not remain active on the site) it would boil down to a choice - benefiting yourself vs. benefiting others. Aren't u a self proclaimed selfish bastard, lol?

6. Winston, u do have yr. own franchise and just don't realize it.

7. I had good reasons for making the OP which I will get into as long as others first post their serious opinions regarding my questions.

Well according to this, my site is worth $14,000. lol I don't know how they arrived at that figure though.

http://www.freewebsitereport.org/www.happierabroad.com

Winston wrote:Well according to this, my site is worth $14,000. lol I don't know how they arrived at that figure though.

http://www.freewebsitereport.org/www.happierabroad.com

Hmm, that's interesting and in line with my preliminary suspicions. That valuation is just slightly over 1 years worth of current cashflow (assuming no growth) and your site has potential to be virtually automatic.

It seems the market factors in a huge risk factor (extremely high discount rate) for websites. Perhaps some of the ones for sale (if u are capable of eliminating the scams and ones with serious issues) are great bargains. I hope others will chime in on my OP Qs.

Since assorted nut-jobs have been given free reign, I imagine that the site's value to a third party will fall fast if this style of management continues.

Almost all fresh content is generated on the forum. Winston hasn't gone anywhere new in many years so his direct experience and personal stuff is totally stale. Now that the site is becoming contaminated, its getting quite tedious and boring.

Hope Winston can at least make it to China soon. If he doesn't and if the forum continues in the current direction, HA may just slowly fade out.

Rock wrote:Since assorted nut-jobs have been given free reign, I imagine that the site's value to a third party will fall fast if this style of management continues.

Almost all fresh content is generated on the forum. Winston hasn't gone anywhere new in many years so his direct experience and personal stuff is totally stale. Now that the site is becoming contaminated, its getting quite tedious and boring.

Hope Winston can at least make it to China soon. If he doesn't and if the forum continues in the current direction, HA may just slowly fade out.

I told Winston pretty much the same thing through various PMs but he didn't agree with a purge of the obvious (to me anyways) trolls and the more problem posters and this is pretty much what I said would happen. It was a lot of work policing the crackpots but now that Winston isn't going to do anything at all concerning bans then it'll probably be all downhill from here on out.

I get the impression that maybe Winston is tired of the forum or he wants a gonzo 4 chan style free for all forum where people post pics and make random stream of consciousness commentary on stuff like life, alternative living, etc..

What is Winston's franchise worth?

Less every time Konradzsky posts....

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:I think that is a ridiculous consideration, for obvious reasons.

1. This site is priceless. It's rare to be able to do something you love and believe in, and make money from it at the same time. You can't put a price tag on that. Plus, if this site is generating residual passive income (and who knows what it will grow to in the future or what its potential is) and reaching out to new people everyday, then how can you assess a price on something that is constantly producing value and growing? It's not like a product on a shelf. You can sell a product or service, but not a movement or revolution.

2. Second, if this site's ownership were to transfer to someone else, who knows what would happen to the content here and this forum? The new owner could make a ton of changes that you guys would not like, impose strict PC moderators who do not allow much free speech, which would anger a lot of you. Etc.

Why risk ruining a working formula that is helpful, inspirational, and stands for truth? That would be totally foolish.

Ladislav proposed the same thing long ago. I thought that was foolish, for the same reasons above. Some people just don't see the big picture but make rash unwise decisions instead.

Btw, this site is not technically a franchise. It's a unique site and movement. So you got that wrong too.

1. Don't have a hissy fit. The site seems priceless TO U cus much of it is designed around yr ego and personality. But is it really? If a big player, company, or wealthy individual for whatever reason wanted to take-over yr. site and offered u crazy money - say US$1 mn or even much more, wld. u not accept it? Is there no offer you can't refuse?

2. Yr. point about not being able to value a website with growing residual passive income with an uncertain future is totally wrong. Many publicly traded assets as well as private enterprises fit that very description. In the case of publicly traded assets, the masses make aggregate assumptions about future cashflows, interest rates, etc. and market price gets determined by their buy and sell decisions every second of trading. In the case of private assets (your site fits this) value can be first estimated by projecting the LT future income and expense streams and then discounting those cashflows at an appropriate interest rate based on market risk assessment of comparable websites (implied discount rate from current transaction prices). Then to see what the market will actually bear, you can list it with with various sites and brokers where websites are commonly sold to see what the best offer you get is.

Almost everything has a value to some people. Heck, you could probably even sell your mother if u tried hard enough, lol.

3. Yes, if the site's ownership were to transfer to someone else, who knows what would happen? There is no certainty in business my friend. If a firm or individual wanted to buy your site, they might have any of various reasons. Perhaps they just hate the noise yr. website is making and just wanna shut it down. Perhaps they are confident that they could improve it from a biz perspective and/or monetize it more effectively (like buying a poorly managed firm for bargain price, improving it, then either milking it for more cashflow or re-selling it a tremendous mark-up). Why did Google buy Youtube? Why did Microsoft wanna buy Yahoo? Did those deals offer any certainty?

4. Why risk ruining a working formula that is helpful, inspirational, and stands for truth since that would be totally foolish according to u? Umm, to profit personally Sherlock! Wouldn't u be willing to sell-out on these principals for a price? If not, then I have new respect for you as you're more principled than I imagined.

5. I don't get your point about Lad. Do u mean he proposed u sell the site? If so, I think he was premature as u mentioned it was quite sometime ago. You'll get a lot more for an established biz with a clear long term cashflow history which shows consistent growth. Perhaps the best time to sell is when the growth rate is highest and it looks like there is not limit.

BTW, here's another take on the big picture. If u wanna enjoy max success with Chinese women in general, your income and net worth are critical factors, especially as u get older. Don't imagine otherwise. If u wanna be a playboy and not just settle with one girl, financial success is key. Under many of the big payout scenarios (those which u could not remain active on the site) it would boil down to a choice - benefiting yourself vs. benefiting others. Aren't u a self proclaimed selfish bastard, lol?

6. Winston, u do have yr. own franchise and just don't realize it.

7. I had good reasons for making the OP which I will get into as long as others first post their serious opinions regarding my questions.

LOL if the offer was a million dollars, I might possibly take it. But you know that will never happen. So it's a moot point.

In any case, I'm not interested in selling it, especially at the estimated market rate above, for the reasons mentioned.

I'm not having a hissy fit. I'm just saying your idea is not logical.

I do have some principles, but they aren't written in stone. I just have different principles than most people. And so do you. Don't forget, you share my views about marriage and children too.

Technically, a franchise is like opening a McDonald's. It's not a unique business. So I don't see what this has to do with a franchise. lol

I didn't understand what you meant in this paragraph:

BTW, here's another take on the big picture. If u wanna enjoy max success with Chinese women in general, your income and net worth are critical factors, especially as u get older. Don't imagine otherwise. If u wanna be a playboy and not just settle with one girl, financial success is key. Under many of the big payout scenarios (those which u could not remain active on the site) it would boil down to a choice - benefiting yourself vs. benefiting others. Aren't u a self proclaimed selfish bastard, lol?

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:Well according to this, my site is worth $14,000. lol I don't know how they arrived at that figure though.

http://www.freewebsitereport.org/www.happierabroad.com

Hmm, that's interesting and in line with my preliminary suspicions. That valuation is just slightly over 1 years worth of current cashflow (assuming no growth) and your site has potential to be virtually automatic.

It seems the market factors in a huge risk factor (extremely high discount rate) for websites. Perhaps some of the ones for sale (if u are capable of eliminating the scams and ones with serious issues) are great bargains. I hope others will chime in on my OP Qs.

Yeah but that report guessed my income wrong. It estimated my income at $20 a day, when it's more like $30 a day. So perhaps this site is worth more than that?

I have no idea how that site estimates a site's worth though. It is probably speculative in nature around a big ball park range.

Rock wrote:Since assorted nut-jobs have been given free reign, I imagine that the site's value to a third party will fall fast if this style of management continues.

Almost all fresh content is generated on the forum. Winston hasn't gone anywhere new in many years so his direct experience and personal stuff is totally stale. Now that the site is becoming contaminated, its getting quite tedious and boring.

Hope Winston can at least make it to China soon. If he doesn't and if the forum continues in the current direction, HA may just slowly fade out.

You and Repatriate are blowing things out of proportion again. You remind me of that saying, "In every generation, people see the present as worse than it is, and the past as better than it was" which is true because people have been doing that for thousands of years.

I am not giving trolls free reign here. I gave Konrad a chance and warning, out of niceness and courtesy. But he blew it again. So he will be banned. Simple as that.

Why are you magnifying this problem? There is only one troll right now, Konradzsky. The others are not a problem. It's not hard to deal with one troll. Only one guy is a problem, not a group.

Repatriate went too far. Even you said you agreed with that. His trigger finger was way too loose and he was too eager to delete posts. I show compassion and give people chances. So I am nicer, but only to a certain point. It appears that Konradzsky has crossed the line again. But Repatriate was in error to ban GuitarGuy, martinmay, maker55, etc. That was not necessary, as you say.

As The Arab said, wise people don't abuse their power. They only use it when necessary. I would agree.

It is not true that all fresh content is generated in the forum. I have added many new essays and articles the past few months.

As long as there's fresh content in the forum, people will come. That's why this movement is a group movement, not just me. All the pressure should not be on me or any one person. I'm simply a guide and platform.

You are wrong about something. This forum's traffic is not dependent on my traveling to new places. Even though I haven't gone anywhere new, the forum traffic has still been increasing. That's because of a number of things, including my SEO efforts and the content generation here. Me traveling more does not bring in more traffic. More traffic comes from a combination of other factors - SEO, increased content generated by everyone, word of mouth, cross promotions, hit pieces like the ones from Jezebel, etc.

No website article about SEO says that you have to travel more to increase your site's traffic. LOL You also forget that people come to this forum not to post about me, but to post about THEMSELVES, and to ask questions, rant, share experiences, etc. They don't come to discuss me. That's another error you made.

How come sometimes you make factual errors just to play devil's advocate? I don't understand that. It's not logical. For instance, when you debated me about dressing professionally (and lost I might add), you said that the reason CNN news anchors dress professionally is because their bosses tell them to. But anyone who graduated high school knows that's not true. And even you are smart enough to know that that's not the reason, so why did you say it? Did you make a false statement deliberately? The reason is because when you are seen by the public in your job, you are supposed to dress professionally. It's basic professional etiquette. Without it, you lose respect and are taken less seriously. Duh. If you owned a company, would you let your receptionist wear jeans and t-shirts with rock band names on it, so that your clients all lose respect for you? Your boss doesn't have to tell you that, because your high school teacher was supposed to have explained that to you when you were 17 or 18. Everyone knows this. So how come you didn't?! WTF?! Yet you made a factual error just to play devil's advocate. Why? Isn't accuracy important to you? If so, why do you deliberately make false statements just to play devil's advocate. What is the logic and rationale for doing that? It's very strange.

I explained this in detail to Xiongmao in the other thread, which I PMed to you. He was totally PWNED.

Repatriate wrote:

Rock wrote:Since assorted nut-jobs have been given free reign, I imagine that the site's value to a third party will fall fast if this style of management continues.

Almost all fresh content is generated on the forum. Winston hasn't gone anywhere new in many years so his direct experience and personal stuff is totally stale. Now that the site is becoming contaminated, its getting quite tedious and boring.

Hope Winston can at least make it to China soon. If he doesn't and if the forum continues in the current direction, HA may just slowly fade out.

I told Winston pretty much the same thing through various PMs but he didn't agree with a purge of the obvious (to me anyways) trolls and the more problem posters and this is pretty much what I said would happen. It was a lot of work policing the crackpots but now that Winston isn't going to do anything at all concerning bans then it'll probably be all downhill from here on out.

I get the impression that maybe Winston is tired of the forum or he wants a gonzo 4 chan style free for all forum where people post pics and make random stream of consciousness commentary on stuff like life, alternative living, etc..

I thank you for your work and policing. But the troll problem is just one guy - Konradzsky, not a whole group of people. It is easy to deal with him. You overestimated the problem. That was your mistake. In the process, a few innocent posters were banned. Better to just ban someone first, then decide what to do with his posts later, so that the ban can be undone.

Winston wrote:

Rock wrote:

Winston wrote:Well according to this, my site is worth $14,000. lol I don't know how they arrived at that figure though.

http://www.freewebsitereport.org/www.happierabroad.com

Hmm, that's interesting and in line with my preliminary suspicions. That valuation is just slightly over 1 years worth of current cashflow (assuming no growth) and your site has potential to be virtually automatic.

It seems the market factors in a huge risk factor (extremely high discount rate) for websites. Perhaps some of the ones for sale (if u are capable of eliminating the scams and ones with serious issues) are great bargains. I hope others will chime in on my OP Qs.

Yeah but that report guessed my income wrong. It estimated my income at $20 a day, when it's more like $30 a day. So perhaps this site is worth more than that?

I have no idea how that site estimates a site's worth though. It is probably speculative in nature around a big ball park range.

There are active markets for buying and selling websites which provide enough transactional history for rough valuation models to be derived from. Current monthly income is going to be a key metric for most of these. Traffic details are important as well. There are many other factors which may be a consideration depending on the model and methodology will vary greatly between the different categories of sites and their income sources.