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Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

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Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#121

Post by clairity »

andersource wrote: post #108
clairity wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

think of negotiations as a price discovery mechanism (auctions as another example) with severe information asymmetries. the point of the process is to learn what each side values and what exactly is on offer (and can be potentially offered) and how much value each side places on those things. price is used as the primary signal of value, and you learn about value as prices and information is exchanged in an iterated…

Thanks! Yeah that's my idea, I guess what surprised me is the ranges involved. In the few times I had to negotiate (always as a "seller" as in salary negotiation), I would state around 110% of my minimum, and I was really prepared to walk away if the offer was below that. That worked but I guess it conditioned me to treat buyers' offers as 90% of their maximum while in reality it doesn't make sense for them to start…

yes, i should have mentioned trust earlier, as that’s even more important than information in negotiations. two parties who don’t know each other will start with relatively low trust, so highly divergent bids are a signal of that. as information is shared, and assuming trust signals trend positive, the bids converge. also, you want to know early if the other party is a sucker or unreasonable, and to weed out lemons. all that’s a direct consequence of our intuitive sense of fairness and value.

salary negotiations are a little fraught because they’re low trust and information-asymmetrical to start but because jobs are a longer term relationship, you don’t want to trigger distrust. one of the reasons employers like to keep salaries/comp private is that it gives them an significant information advantage in negotiations. they know every comp package they’re paying and that they’ve offered, as well as comp packages at various other companies and industry average info that they subscribe to. it’s often prohibitively expensive for each worker to gather similar data, which creates a real disadvantage.

in light of that, i’d suggest starting at 110% of what you’d consider a reasonable maximum, not minimum, and have 3 justifications ready (based on value you’ve generated for other companies, your overall experience level, specific skills/relationships/resources you bring to bear, public salary/comp information, etc.) to counter the obvious first objections (usually on experience or comparative comp data). anchoring high, but not unreasonably so, and then negotiating with justification should get you a higher comp package while not triggering distrust. you’ll also learn some important bits about the company which may give you reason to forego the offer (happened to me a couple times actually).

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#122

Post by jraby3 »

SamBam wrote: post #120
leodriesch wrote: post #5

This is very interesting. I only really heard about these billion dollar aquisitions like Slack, I didn't know that there is an online marketplace for buying startups in the range of a few thousand dollars. That's awesome!

Everything I've seen around here has been from the seller's perspective. Has anyone here bought a tiny startup/project like that? If not, is there some demographic not represented on HN who is buying these?

I’ve purchased several websites on empireflippers.com in the $10-30k range. Happy to answer any questions.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#123

Post by bendtb »

admissionsguy wrote: post #8

> Giving your project to a stranger on the internet is risky, so we used escrow.com to make the transfer. I sold a website on Flippa once. The buyer put the money on Escrow.com, I transferred everything over, and they went AWOL. What I found out is that there is no straightforward way to obtain the funds when it happens. Apparently there is no way at all except via the court system. Which would mean the only real pro…

The way you deal with this in international trade is by putting up a irrevocable letter of credit, which against documentary proof (I.e. proof of quality and shipment) will release the sums. This have worked for millennia.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#124

Post by notJim »

ismayilzadan wrote: post #2

Any advice on actually finding the idea that is worth doing? I have a notion page with 20+ tiny ideas, but I still don't find any of them encouraging enough to spend time on. How to overcome this very first step?

I have a theory that once you get something out there, it establishes you as a person who can ship stuff independently. Even if it's not a success, it'll introduce you to people who may help you discover better ideas. If you can build a bit of a brand, some people will follow you around and help promote your projects just because they like you.

I haven't tested this yet, because I haven't shipped my 90%-complete project from 2 years ago yet…

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#125

Post by twobitshifter »

Aken wrote: post #96
twobitshifter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This negotiation as written was just moving down by the same amount offered by the buyer, is that what the book would recommend as a technique? It gave a gain of $750 over splitting the difference from the start.

> This negotiation as written was just moving down by the same amount offered by the buyer Huh, didn't even notice. Thanks for pointing that out!

If you continued to play it out with computers you’d run into Zeno’s paradox. At some point the buyer stopped going to lower increase amount,s but it could happen in which case I guess you’d end up in the middle and quibbling over pennies.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#126

Post by jjeaff »

SamBam wrote: post #102
giarc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, an agent is motivated to close the deal not necessarily get the highest price. If the agent gets 10% cut, they get $750 or $1050. Is $300 worth potentially souring the deal?

That's a common complaint about seller's agents in real estate. Unsure what the solution is. A seller can, of course, say that they refuse to sell for under $X, though that could potentially still be leaving money on the table if the buyer might have been willing to offer $X+Y.

I think one better way to handle commissions for home sales is to have no commission for the first $x of the price. X being a price that it would be very easy to sell at, a price low enough that the property would just immediately sell without much effort because it is too low. Then apply a much larger commission percentage to the amount it sells for above that "easy sale" price. That way, the seller and the agent actually have more closely aligned incentives and thus motivation for the agent to try and get that last $5k, or whatever.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#127

Post by lobocinza »

x4e wrote: post #68
JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a smart contract help avoid this kind of situation?

Yes, if you had an oracle [1] that was able to provide information on whether the transaction had completed. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_oracle

In the end its the same problem. A human has to verify.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#128

Post by estaseuropano »

SamBam wrote: post #118
twobitshifter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This negotiation as written was just moving down by the same amount offered by the buyer, is that what the book would recommend as a technique? It gave a gain of $750 over splitting the difference from the start.

I haven't read the book, but, in general, it's not a good move to split the difference from the start, because there is usually at least one more round of back-and-forth. So once you've split the difference, you're already going to end up closer to the other person's initial bid. e.g. "I want 10,000" -> "I'll offer 5000" -> "Let's spilt the difference and say 7500" -> "How about 6000?" -> ... now you're already betwe…

Great book, would recommend. Not surr how often it has been useful for me still it is a very pleasant read. The main idea is to not give in so easily and to find mutual wins, e.g. he gives the example that he could help the other party get an article in a magazine - barely related to the deal, cost nothing for him, but was worth a lot to the other party.

Re: Selling Tiny Internet Projects for Fun and Profit

#130

Post by n4bz0r »

jraby3 wrote: post #122
SamBam wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything I've seen around here has been from the seller's perspective. Has anyone here bought a tiny startup/project like that? If not, is there some demographic not represented on HN who is buying these?

I’ve purchased several websites on empireflippers.com in the $10-30k range. Happy to answer any questions.

What kind of projects are these?

I'd say that $10-30k range is blogs with high search positions and established affiliate partnerships, but that's just my uneducated guess.

BTW: empireflippers.com seems to be down right now, possibly due to all the hype caused by HN audience.

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