61–70 of 98 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Believe it. Sortfolio isn't right for us anymore. Our attention is elsewhere. If we can sell it for a fair price (we consider $480,000 fair), then we'll sell it. If not, we'll close it down and move on. There's nothing condescending about that.
You're right. Disingenuous would have been a better choice.
The bottom line when evaluating whether to purchase this or not would involve doing due diligence and contacting the paying customers at the very least to determine how satisfied they are with being listed there. The site is using auto-renewal billing and having someone not cancel is not the same as someone finding value in the service. Also even though they would like to get $480,000 they should also invite any offe…
"If nobody bids at $480,000 they will have to try to sell it at a lower price and it will seem like a fire sale." It's not being sold for a lower price. It's $480,000 by July 1 or we close it down.
> We’ve put next to no effort into it over the last year…
You get points for honesty, sir, but this is akin to saying "Screw you, our dear 170 miserable paying customers. We have done nothing to make your money worth it, thanks for being suckers for our brand anyway. Oh, and I feel no shame admitting this publicly!"
How would you feel if you were (or are) one of the 170? Are they getting their money's worth?
If it passively generates $200k /yr with no maintenance, what reason is there to sell?
If they aren't focused on it, it is a distraction and can potentially tarnish the brand. Plus, they aren't going to sell for nothing, so they get immediate capital they can invest in areas where they expect a higher rate of return.
I'm assuming in their favor that they really believe $480k would be fair deal - which means they've simply lost touch with reality and can no longer discern how much of their revenue stems from the brand and how much from actual product value.
The rational move would be to hire an admin for $100k (remember we're in alternate reality), tell him to keep the site up, go about his life and not call. And collect the remaining $100k until the product fizzles out.
Btw, I'd volunteer to take that admin-role when your sale fails. $100k may not mean much to 37signals anymore. For me it would be a lot of money. I promise to not call you ever, you can just forget that site after you handed it over. I will guarantee 100% uptime (yes 100%, via anycast, at my expense, included with the 100k).
I am a little shocked by the audacity of this post. > We’ve put next to no effort into it over the last year… You get points for honesty, sir, but this is akin to saying "Screw you, our dear 170 miserable paying customers. We have done nothing to make your money worth it, thanks for being suckers for our brand anyway. Oh, and I feel no shame admitting this publicly!" How would you feel if you were (or are) one of the…
If the site works and is providing those 170 people what they want then what exactly is wrong with that? If its not providing them what they want why are they still paying $99 per month for it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I provided traffic/revenue figures to anyone who asked. If you're a serious buyer, and you have other questions, please contact me directly at jason@37signals...
Do you have (and are willing to share) the credit card information on file for each customer? Or is the new Sortfolio owner expected to contact or otherwise prompt existing customers to re-enter their payment information?
"As a paying customer, I’m so happy to hear you’ve put “no effort into it in the last year. I can confirm this by the total absence of leads from Sortfolio, despite the health of our other initiatives.
Account cancelled."
I'd be worried about the requirement to switch billing. I'm not sure there's a clean way to switch a customer from one billing system to another without requiring user intervention. In general, recurring billing is a scam by its opt-out nature. If you aren't on top of your accounting, tiny charges slip by. When you spot them, you may be too lazy to immediately cancel it, so you forget. It isn't enough to know how man…
The reason why the site is being sold is missing from the sell pitch. "We have no more time to take care of it..." so why are you guys saying it's generating 20k$ a month without you doing anything?
You're right, this makes no sense.
37s is just trying for the hard sell. By adding a ticking time-bomb element to the sale (buy it at our price or it's gone forever!) they're hoping to pressure a buyer into coughing up a lot of money for it.