Digital agency puts itself up for sale

My money is on one of the arms of the now defunct bluefreeway as they try to sell off bits of the company to pay down debt.

total guess, happy to be right or wrong.

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my money is on Spin – in Prahran melb – or an arm of the now asx delisted bluefreeway.

just a punt though, don’t hold me to it.

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soz for multiple posts – system didn’t tick over properly the first time.

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good to see our ad getting attention and good guessing. we are approaching 100 responses from the ad which has run in the AFR and The Australian. Will keep u posted on how we go

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all you could just start your own instead….

Bluefreeway or related entities if we’re taking bets.

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sorry, or you could…

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Funny – I wouldn’t have known about it if you hadn’t posted about it here.

What’s the big secret?

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I thought the Tourism Queensland “The Best Job in the World” campaign also proved that newspaper ads still work.

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But I do find it funny that this “red hot digital agency” has resorted to a good old fashioned newspaper ad to get the message out.

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Lynchy makes a good point and we hadn’t thought about that angel, Yes, it is funny that we who live and breathe the web never even considered the web for our need.

I think that the results speak for themselves with the initial expressions of interest coming from a diverse range of companies. We have major global ad agencies, big national web players, some of the SI’s, magazine publishers, and a load of equity/capital types.

All up we are spending less than 5k on the advertising and, now that I think about it, I am not sure how I could have spent that on the web and reached the people we have.

So, it just goes to show that generalisations on what media works are pretty useless.

will keep you all posted, after all, surely this is the web in action – spread the word to anyone that you think might be a good fit.

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hey simon, glad to see you post here, we have you on our list of people to contact if you do not see our ad. email us if you have some interest, it would be great to have Razor Group as the new owners of our agency

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Everyone loves a mystery!

I should run ads like this announcing mystery things for sale just to get a rise out of people.

I look forward to finding out the agency and how the sale went

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Got to love the fact that the vendor is using a gmail account in their ad.

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I’ll give them a dollar-fifty. There are agencies worth that much, right? 😉

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LOL
Your quote:
“Yes, it is funny that we who live and breathe the web never even considered the web for our need.” If it really is a fire sale to pay off debts, sounds like you were dying and drowning the web, not living and breathing.

srlsy, I might be able to find a few stimulus packages to band together to buy your “red-hot digital agency”

I would have thought a few free ads on sites like Digital Minstry and, yes really, a few posts on Twitter and it would have spread for free, like this.

Doesn’t sound like you _really_ understand digital…

I look forward to finding out the agency and how the sale went, too.

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Perhaps it’s being kept a mystery because the vendors know nobody would give them the time of day otherwise.

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Maybe it’s SOAP and Ash is bluffing ;>)

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I’ll split it with you Stephen, heck, we could buy it for a few Akoha cards! 🙂

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@Joe – sorted. Which cards d’you think will get the purchase through? Would we have to use the cool new TED ones? 😉

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Not sure about the BlueFreeway kids – might not want to get stung twice. I’d suggest looking to a Digital Agency that hasn’t sold yet and wants to cash out. I’d look for an agency that has a decent client list that is being squeezed for profit in the economic downturn and wants to sell while the books are still good.

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Nah, the “buy a coffee” card should be enough. I have a few so maybe two or three, near a Campos would really make ’em drool. pretty sweet!

But surely now is a good time for smaller digital agencies to nab a few larger clients from the big agencies.

Not uncommon.

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Hyro?

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Possible back-channel talk in the twitterverse about this and I am v Surprised. Say it ain’t so boys! I smell a prank.

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TOPIA!

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Hey Stephen, maybe you could be worth a dollar-fifty one day when you get yourself a few more clients. Not sure why you are so against what we are doing.

Anyways, things are progressing nicely my friends. Thanks (NOT) for all your encouragement 🙂

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@Vendors I was taking the piss. Sensitivity not required.

I know and respect many people doing great agency work. I even work with some of them as clients and colleagues.

1-man shows like mine can only manage 1-3 clients at once.

It’ll be interesting to see who you are.

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gmail? that definately doesnt give off the best impression. Such a firesale they let their domain lapse?

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Yo Tom, I assure you we have a domain, indeed we have quite a portfolio of domains that we are not including in the sale. Actually, using Gmail for this process has made me realise that it is really quite a wonderful tool. We are now tracking aboyt 30 active conversations and another 50 or so NDA processes, and they way Gmail puts it in conversation threads is bloody handy.

Funnily folks, we have received interest from one of the guesses, so that would rule them out.

There seems to be a lot of chatter about us wanting to stay nameless, I am keen to know what you folks would do.

PS, our debts are pretty small so the suggestion we are selling to cover these is off the mark. We actually think that this might be a good time to sell.

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Yo Tom, I assure you we have a domain, indeed we have quite a portfolio of domains that we are not including in the sale. Actually, using Gmail for this process has made me realise that it is really quite a wonderful tool. We are now tracking about 30 active conversations and another 50 or so NDA processes, and they way Gmail puts it in conversation threads is bloody handy.

Funnily folks, we have received interest from one of the guesses, so that would rule them out.

There seems to be a lot of chatter about us wanting to stay nameless, I am keen to know what you folks would do.

PS, our debts are pretty small so the suggestion we are selling to cover these is off the mark. We actually think that this might be a good time to sell.

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oops, sorry for double post 🙂

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Hey Vendors – tragically I’ve lined the cat basket with yesterday’s AFR and am too squeamish to pick through the turds to find the ad. Can you post the email address please?

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ah you and your squeamishness Simon 🙂

email us at rha4sale@gmail.com

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> Funnily folks, we have received interest from one of the guesses,
> so that would rule them out.

Hyro?

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Just an update if anyone is interested. We are about to send out information to 67 companies. The NDA process has shown an interesting story. A few individuals really objected to an NDA but the bigger players just did it. I am not sure what that says about things.

So, will keep you posted for no other reason than that some here might be interested in the progress.

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NDA = too many lawyers involved.

I fundamentally object to NDAs and often refuse to sign them. Pragmatically, sometime I have to.

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The conversation around the sale is interesting, and I have nothing against using print media, It just feels odd that a red h(n)ot agency who lives and breathes online would completely pass on marketing the sale online, in a medium it proposes to know well.

They can’t be idiots, They don’t sound it, (bar the touchiness around some of the teasing banter in here) so I am _VERY_ interested in their reasoning behind not marketing the sale online as well as in print.

It really does feel odd, that. Seeing how much interest conversations like this are granting it free exposure, and how selling to another online agency would be an obvious channel.

Keep us informed please? I do want to find out who and definitely, why!

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Hey Joe, yes they are very good points. I suppose that we felt that the people we wanted to reach, being the directors of a wide range of types of companies, would see us in the AFR. We also went in the Australian IT just to make sure we got some exposure in the sorts of targets you are right to say that online might also reach.

I certainly hope we are not idiots but as previous post says, we really did have a blind spot. A bit like the plumber with the leaky tap, I have to admit.

As things go, this blog seems to have been pretty organic web at work. We have a few interested parties that found us here. Also a couple of twitter folks including one really big player in the adverting space, so that made me smile and feel warm and fuzzy that twitter did its magic.

Hey Simon, yep, NDA is an issue. Can only report our experience. We got 67 so far that have just agreed to a pretty standard NDA. In our digital defence, we did do it all online and under great advice to the legality. Was a bit of a process that put some work on interested parties but worked out well and quick as.

We have about another dozen still waiting to come back in and the rest told us to go shove it, in various levels of politeness. One nice man told me that I was obviously a fraud because I wanted an NDA. Not sure about his logic. I don’t think we are a fraud.

So, have started to send out initial identifying info, had one tell us that they were no longer interested – a manufacturing style biz and a big agency looking in different markets.

So, 65 to go and we will see how we progress.

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oops, should read post before sending, we have had two not interested 🙁

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I think its Bullseye they are struggling

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Sounds like Nyree Corby’s babble.

Calling your business “the topia project” should have been hint enough.

You go bust, your business model is wrong, or you just can’t cut it. Why would someone buy something that was a dud, and broke at any price.

A coffee card would be too much to pay.

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