MicroExits
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Selling

How to Write a Listing That Sells

MicroExits2 min read

A serious buyer looks at forty listings to make one offer. Yours gets about fifteen seconds to survive the cut, and it will be judged on how quickly it answers the questions they always ask.

Lead with the four numbers

Monthly revenue, monthly profit, asking price, age. Above the fold, no scrolling, no narrative first. A buyer who has to hunt for the profit figure assumes there's a reason it's hidden.

Answer 'why are you selling?' immediately

It's the first question every buyer asks and the one most listings dodge. Dodging it invites the worst possible interpretation. The honest answers are almost always fine:

  • "I'm focusing on my main business and this deserves attention I can't give it."

  • "I built it to solve my own problem and I don't have that problem any more."

  • "I'm better at building than at marketing, and it needs marketing now."

"Pursuing other opportunities" tells a buyer nothing and reads as evasion. Say the actual reason.

Be specific about what's included

List the assets explicitly: domain, code, customers, mailing list, social accounts, documentation, design files. And say clearly whether the payment account transfers — a buyer will find out anyway, and finding out from you is worth goodwill.

Name the problems yourself

Counter-intuitive but consistently true: listings that name their own weaknesses get better offers. Every buyer will find the 34% revenue concentration in diligence. Naming it first turns a discovery into a disclosure, and disclosures don't trigger retrades.

"Our largest customer is 34% of revenue — they've been with us three years and renewed in March, but you should price this in" is the sentence that makes a buyer trust everything else on the page.

Give the growth levers, don't sell them

Buyers want to know what they'd do next. But price the business on what it is: unshipped ideas are the buyer's upside, and pricing them as though they've happened is the fastest way to lose a sophisticated buyer.

"We've never run paid acquisition, never done SEO on the blog, and never raised prices in four years" is useful information. "With paid ads this could easily be $50k MRR" is a red flag.

The structure that works

  1. One line: what it does and for whom.

  2. The four numbers.

  3. Why you're selling.

  4. How it makes money and who the customers are.

  5. How customers find it — with the concentration stated.

  6. What running it actually takes, in hours per week.

  7. What's included, listed.

  8. The honest weaknesses.

  9. The untried levers.

  10. What handover support you'll give, as a number.

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