From Forum Thread to $140M in Transactions: How Flippa Created the Marketplace for Websites

Matt Mickiewicz started his first business at 14.

That's not a typo. In the late 1990s, while other teenagers were playing video games, Matt was building webmaster-resources.com. It eventually became SitePoint—one of the most influential web development communities of the 2000s.

Here's what happened next: As SitePoint's forums grew, members started asking to buy and sell websites from each other. It was informal at first—just threads in the marketplace section. But the demand kept growing.

In 2009, Matt and his co-founder Mark Harbottle spun that forum marketplace into its own platform: Flippa.

Today, Flippa has facilitated over $140 million in website transactions, with the largest single sale hitting $35 million. It processes 12,000 deals annually and serves 600,000+ buyers and investors worldwide.

From forum threads to the eBay of online businesses.

Matt and Mark realized they were sitting on something bigger: a market for digital assets.

In 2009, they extracted the marketplace into its own platform: Flippa.com. The idea was simple—eBay for websites. Sellers list their sites with traffic stats, revenue data, and asking prices. Buyers browse, bid, and purchase.

What started as an internal forum feature became a standalone business.

What The Numbers Tell Us

Category-Defining Position: Flippa ranks #1 for "websites for sale," "online business for sale," and related terms. They've become synonymous with the category they created.

Strong Brand Searches: "Flippa" itself drives 16,000 monthly searches. Brand awareness creates a moat competitors struggle to overcome.

Network Effects at Work: More sellers attract more buyers. More buyers attract more sellers. The marketplace becomes more liquid and valuable over time.

Why This Model Works

Built-In Audience from SitePoint: Flippa didn't start from zero. It launched to SitePoint's massive web developer community—people who already wanted to buy and sell websites.

Trust Through Verification: High-value transactions (Flippa's largest was $35M) require trust. Verification, escrow, and due diligence features made these possible.

Expanding Asset Types: What started with websites expanded to domains, apps, SaaS businesses, and ecommerce stores. Each category attracted new buyers and sellers.

The Content Flywheel

Every Listing is a Page: Each listing is a unique page that can rank for specific searches related to that business type. Active marketplace = continuous fresh content.

Own the Category Keywords: By launching early in the "website trading" space, Flippa became synonymous with it. "Let's list it on Flippa" is how people talk about selling websites.

First-Mover Advantage: When Flippa launched in 2009, there wasn't a dedicated marketplace for online businesses. They defined the category.

Here's what Flippa taught me: The best business ideas often emerge from what your community is already trying to do.

Matt Mickiewicz didn't decide to create a website marketplace in a vacuum. He watched SitePoint members trying to trade websites in forum threads. The demand was obvious—they just needed a better platform.

Flippa extracted that forum activity into a dedicated marketplace. Fifteen years later, it's facilitated over $140 million in transactions.

The core insight: Look at what communities are already doing informally. What trades are happening in forum threads? What requests keep appearing? Those informal activities might be your next business.

What's happening in your community that deserves its own platform?