Introducing Demogan Business Listings

Published: on 21/5/08 | Comments (0)

About six years ago, Lynne and I came up with a plan that would achieve two of our biggest goals in life in one go, firstly, Lynne had always wanted her own cafe, secondly, we had both decided that once the kids were old enough, we would sell up and move to the Canary Islands and start a new life.

Well, we bought an empty shop, converted it to a cafe and for 5 years both worked our butts off, Lynne running the cafe and myself working freelance developing software, web sites and web applications from the garage out back that we converted into an office.

All seemed well. the cafe did great, my freelance work just kept coming untill, the day came to sell up.

Don't know if you have ever tried to sell a business in the UK, but it's a bit of a minefield, the Business transfer Agents we tried came in two varieties, not very good, and worse.

No feedback from potential buyers (No feedback at all in most cases) and potential buyers visiting who were looking for leasehold shops where as we were selling a freehold, and so on and so on..

In the end we actually found a buyer by putting up a web site for the business in the form of a viewing paper and investing in a little pay per click advertising, which brought a fantastic response and real genuine buyers.

So, one day, Lynne suggested that me being a web application developer and all that, we should create a site to help businesses to sell, and potential buyers to buy and thus was born the concept of Demogan Business Listings.

The first version went live about a month ago, and was developed in a matter of just four weeks, and to date we have had a fantastic response, with new buyers registering every day and a gradual portfolio of businesses for sale building up on the site, so much so that we have just had to move the site to a new faster server and are now in the process of a major new release incorporating all the feedback we have received.

The site is completely free to both buyers and sellers (so if you know anyone looking to buy or sell a business in the UK, send this on to them) and was developed using the CakePHP framework, and over the coming months I will be using it as a bit of a case study with regular updates as the site grows, and sharing some of the techniques and lessons learned as the site develops.