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Tiny Acquisitions

tinyacquisitions.com

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Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#101

Post by hinkley »

propter_hoc wrote: post #67
welder wrote: post #37

Similar marketplaces: https://flippa.com/ https://microacquire.com/

A friend of mine is doing this as his day job through MicroAcquire. He's bought a few businesses so far and is writing a blog about his experience: https://microangel.so/ So far, it looks like he's having fun but putting in a lot of work. He seems to be doing a lot of little code updates and fixes when apis change or other little things break.

I feel like the trick must be if you can amortize some of the maintenance costs across multiple projects.

Maintaining DNS records and SSL keys is not 3x as hard for 3 domains as for one. Probably neither are taxes. Or keeping on top of security fixes for projects using the same tech stacks.

There’s a couple groups out there who do something like this for public sector projects, sort of taking over the devops aspects and keeping the lights on. And in that case creating project generators could be feasible as well, because it’s easier to run a project that’s built the way you prefer them to be built.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#102

Post by hinkley »

snypher wrote: post #96
alasdair_ wrote: post #88

Assuming I wanted to buy a few of these, what's the best way to get the cash out at the end of it all? Create an LLC, have the LLC buy the sites, then just do dividends or something? I'm kind of hazy on how to fund such an LLC to buy stuff in the first place - do most people structure the initial money as a loan so it's tax free? I'd love to hear practically-speaking how to do this on a small scale.

I'm hoping experts will arrive to tell me why I'm wrong - but I think you just buy stock in your LLC at whatever price, or you can loan the LLC the money at whatever terms.

You could pay yourself a salary, but right now capital gains are still more tax efficient.

I have often wondered how providing yourself insurance and a dollar salary works out financially.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#104

Post by tekstar »

amoghs wrote: post #100
alex_g wrote: post #68

If you're interested in buying and/or selling small projects, you can typically expect to pay more than $5k for something that's making any consistent amount of money. You're also unlikely to find a great deal on a really special project on a marketplace. People who post on marketplaces like Flippa or MicroAcquire or SideProjectors (there're dozens of them) have either: 1. Realized the time it takes to maintain is no…

A part of me feels that with any acquisition ever. If it's really that good, why're you selling? I think there's some element of passion (like you said), though also just around the skill set needed to really take the business somewhere.

I have a niche iOS app that makes between $200-400 monthly. I would sell it to someone who would continue to grow it because I would rather build new things than continue to add content to the app.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#105

Post by joshuaengler »

If somebody is selling something it's because it's not making them money, and that's the end of it. Nobody would sell you a project for 5k that's generating 1k per month. People sell when either the writing is on the wall, or they can't finish the project and don't care anymore. Just expect that.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#106

Post by andi999 »

tekstar wrote: post #104
amoghs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A part of me feels that with any acquisition ever. If it's really that good, why're you selling? I think there's some element of passion (like you said), though also just around the skill set needed to really take the business somewhere.

I have a niche iOS app that makes between $200-400 monthly. I would sell it to someone who would continue to grow it because I would rather build new things than continue to add content to the app.

So what is the valuation? 3000 per year equals for 10 years 30k? (am not going to buy though)

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#107

Post by beachy »

iaw wrote: post #85
alex_g wrote: post #68

If you're interested in buying and/or selling small projects, you can typically expect to pay more than $5k for something that's making any consistent amount of money. You're also unlikely to find a great deal on a really special project on a marketplace. People who post on marketplaces like Flippa or MicroAcquire or SideProjectors (there're dozens of them) have either: 1. Realized the time it takes to maintain is no…

Just to echo this, I recently had a lovely conversation with a guy building a business he knew would be irrelevant in 10 years with the goal of selling in 3 years to someone who didn't realize that. I will never buy a business, real estate is a much safer bet.

> a guy building a business he knew would be irrelevant in 10 years

To be fair, almost any software based business could be irrelevant in 10 years.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#108

Post by prawn »

propter_hoc wrote: post #67
welder wrote: post #37

Similar marketplaces: https://flippa.com/ https://microacquire.com/

A friend of mine is doing this as his day job through MicroAcquire. He's bought a few businesses so far and is writing a blog about his experience: https://microangel.so/ So far, it looks like he's having fun but putting in a lot of work. He seems to be doing a lot of little code updates and fixes when apis change or other little things break.

Putting in a lot of work to your own projects without answering to a boss or freelance clients wouldn't be too grim.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#109

Post by beachy »

joshuaengler wrote: post #105

If somebody is selling something it's because it's not making them money, and that's the end of it. Nobody would sell you a project for 5k that's generating 1k per month. People sell when either the writing is on the wall, or they can't finish the project and don't care anymore. Just expect that.

Not at all. Plenty of people get to the point where:

- they've just had enough and can't be bothered

- they know the business needs investment of money and/or time to go to the next level

- they've identified some more lucrative business elsewhere and want to concentrate on that.

Re: Tiny Acquisitions

#110

Post by prawn »

dboreham wrote: post #51

This makes little sense to me. Surely to be worth doing at all, the purchase of a "project" needs to have legal paperwork to ensure that the IP is secure, and so on. Legal fees to get that drafted and reviewed will be approaching $5k. It's like trying to sell a micro-house for $5k.

I assume at that pricepoint, there's little scope for extensive due diligence. Take the seller at their word and fly under the radar. I've started many small projects over the years in which a lawyer/accountant has had zero involvement. If I were buying at that level, I would expect little more than some code review and historical analytics/revenue info.
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