Not everyone can build a successful startup. In fact, it’s quite rare for someone to come up with a startup idea that can be turned into a successful business. But what if you could buy a business from the select few that actually make it and turn it into an even bigger success?

If you’re planning on investing in a SaaS business or selling your existing business, there are several marketplaces you can use to securely sell or buy established businesses. In this post, we’ll show how to use those platforms as well as look at two other things to consider when looking to buy or sell a SaaS business.

Valuing A SaaS Business

When selling a website, whether it’s a blog or a SaaS business, first you need to figure out the ideal price to sell your business. This is normally done by calculating the yearly revenue generated by the business and multiplying that amount by two. You can use the same strategy to find out whether a business is worth its listed price.

In addition, keep in mind that the marketplace or the brokerage firm you use to buy or sell the website will often keep a percentage of the total amount as compensation. Be sure to factor that amount into the total price of the business.

Conduct A Background Check

Doing a background check of the website you’re going to buy is crucial to ensure all the details shown in the listing are accurate. Use online tools such as SEMrush, Moz Explorer and Alexa to check the amount of traffic the website receives and see how well it’s optimized for SEO. This will help you understand if you need to rely on marketing ads to maintain the level of traffic or if the marketing is essentially free from a well-optimized website. 

You will also want to check Linkedin to find the developer of the website and take a look at some of their code on GitHub if available.