It was a new personal record and with the sale of this last website, I’ve come a full circle from when I started in late 2005. I know it’s been two whole months since Part 2 but trust me, this one’s worth the wait. :)

So, our community continued growing at a rate of 50 to 60 members per day on average and it wasn’t long before we hit the 20,000 mark. Do note that these are ‘validated’ members, i.e. requires activation via email, hence all those fake bot registrations are discounted for.

We ran a contest to celebrate this occasion and Eset, makers of the popular NOD32 antivirus, sponsored us $1,000 worth of prizes …a testament to our clout on the Internet.

We also started to rank very high in search engine results for Windows Vista-related keywords and enjoyed premium, multi-links in Google’s results - a privilege accorded only to authority sites. I was particularly proud of this achievement because it was a validation of my SEO knowledge.

Unfortunately, I soon realized that the forum had ‘out-grown’ me and I didn’t have the necessary experience to take it further. I also wasn’t prepared to spend money on developing it and neither did I have the time, unless I was prepared to put my consultancy on the backburner.

So I approached Future PLC (UK), owners of the official Windows Vista magazine. After looking at our forum and the amount of custom content we had (we started a weekly podcasts too), they were very interested.

However, they were too cautious and offered to buy only 10% as a start and to be our sole advertising agent. They would split the revenue with us and had the option to buy the balance 90% within 12 months. I rejected the offer straightaway because I felt it favoured them far more.

Lee Dodd was the next candidate since he was a pro with forums. He was interested too, but as fate would have it, he’d just spent more than $100,000 buying a big Christian forum and was short of both time and money.

The last straw was when I found out that I was going to be a father. And so I listed the forum for sale at SitePoint on Monday, usually not my favourite place because you had to pay US$25 for a standard listing.

The forum was listed close to midnight and by morning, I got a bucket load of private messages and a couple of solid bids - the highest offer was $36,000. It was less than what the magazine would’ve offered but still a considerable amount.

The bad news was my forum members got wind of the sale and I had to close the deal quickly, and let the new owners announce their plans so as to minimize the anxiety. By 12pm, the forum was sold and paid for.

It was sold to iEntry, an Internet media company who pioneered email marketing. Those into online marketing would’ve probably come across them through WebProNews. They weren’t the highest bidder but were selected for their experience and resources (both financial and technical).

What bad time to have a conscience! I sacrificed more money so that my forum could be passed on to someone capable. Still, it wasn’t a bad sale considering that I’d only bought the forum for less than $1,200 and sold it for more than 27x a year later - excluding the monthly earnings. More importantly, it was a new personal record.

With that, I sold the last of my ‘established’ websites and will have to start on a clean slate next year - what a wild ride it has been for me. I wish the new owners of The Vista Forums all the best and that I’m confident they will take it to the next level.