Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#11

Post by ftwinnovations » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 11:46 AM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #6

I recently removed an app from the store; it had only a few thousand users, and made no significant revenue. It felt good to not have to worry about it anymore. So my suggestion is: Shut it down. Write a short goodbye email to your customers explaining why you are shutting down, then remove it from the App Stores and turn off your servers. A side project will always take some space in your mind and distract you. If y…

I want to back this up. Just shut it down, and move on. You learned a lot, and maybe next time you will make something that can actually make money and work full time on. Probably not. You'll most likely make something else that fails. That's ok. After that, maybe you'll make something else that can actually make money. Probably not. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, you may or may not succeed. But each time will be more successful, less confusing, and more enjoyable. I know because I've been there, and now I'm very successful. It's worth it.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#12

Post by 0tello » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 11:55 AM UTC

dimillian wrote: post #8

jakobegger wrote: post #6

I recently removed an app from the store; it had only a few thousand users, and made no significant revenue. It felt good to not have to worry about it anymore. So my suggestion is: Shut it down. Write a short goodbye email to your customers explaining why you are shutting down, then remove it from the App Stores and turn off your servers. A side project will always take some space in your mind and distract you. If y…

Our service/app is generating 0, we could generate some revenus through ads but this is not our goal. We also have a ton of ideas for a V2, which can make some revenues, but as we said, w don't have time for it. Removing it is kinda heart breaking, because we still got feedbacks and tweet from people who use it daily.

Either find time and give the v2 a try or shut it down. it is that simple. Just make a decision. Nobody can make this decision for you. I would try to sell it only if there is something to sell, otherwise it will be waste of time. Do you have significant userbase, some interesting data, and etc? If yes, poke your competitors first.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#13

Post by neotek » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 12:05 PM UTC

sideproject wrote: post #10

Hello. I maintain a site called "SideProjectors". Would love to help you out if you want to give it a try. https://www.sideprojectors.com

Great site, but the "sell my project" and "find a cofounder" buttons at the top of the page give me a full PHP (well, Whoops-formatted) error listing with stack trace and offending lines of source code. You probably shouldn't have error reporting turned on in production!

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#14

Post by yitchelle » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 12:31 PM UTC

0tello wrote: post #12

dimillian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our service/app is generating 0, we could generate some revenus through ads but this is not our goal. We also have a ton of ideas for a V2, which can make some revenues, but as we said, w don't have time for it. Removing it is kinda heart breaking, because we still got feedbacks and tweet from people who use it daily.

Either find time and give the v2 a try or shut it down. it is that simple. Just make a decision. Nobody can make this decision for you. I would try to sell it only if there is something to sell, otherwise it will be waste of time. Do you have significant userbase, some interesting data, and etc? If yes, poke your competitors first.

Could you not just abandon it and leave it on the app store? Obviously, leave caveat on the app description that this app is abandon and no support will be provided. In this manner, at least if someone wants to use it, they can.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#15

Post by shrikrishna » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 12:35 PM UTC

Put it on Assembly (https://assembly.com). A great place where your project will continue to be developed by other interested contributors, and you will keep getting a share of the revenue generated

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#16

Post by s_kilk » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

neotek wrote: post #13

sideproject wrote: post #10

Hello. I maintain a site called "SideProjectors". Would love to help you out if you want to give it a try. https://www.sideprojectors.com

Great site, but the "sell my project" and "find a cofounder" buttons at the top of the page give me a full PHP (well, Whoops-formatted) error listing with stack trace and offending lines of source code. You probably shouldn't have error reporting turned on in production!

Same for me. If you login/register first using the buttons on the left then it works fine.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#17

Post by _Max13 » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

bonn1 wrote: post #5

Put it on https://flippa.com/ You can get some decent money if you have significant reach—how many MAUs/DAUs do you have?

Thanks, this sound a good idea.

- DAU: 110 (Base on the last 31 days)

- MAU: 537 (based on the last 12 months)

We're pretty sure that it's because of the lack of evolution. We used to have better numbers...

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#18

Post by johnward » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 1:37 PM UTC

_Max13 wrote: post #4

mobiplayer wrote: post #2

Sit together, give it a last effort and sell it. I'm sure somebody would love to buy it :)

This is also something we were thinking about. But... How and where to find someone interested?

I tried this with one of my projects. I ended up getting offers for a few hundred dollars on flippa. I decided to keep it but now it's always in the back of my mind. I think I might just have to shut it down so I can move on.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#19

Post by mobiplayer » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

_Max13 wrote: post #4

mobiplayer wrote: post #2

Sit together, give it a last effort and sell it. I'm sure somebody would love to buy it :)

This is also something we were thinking about. But... How and where to find someone interested?

Never tried it myself, but you may want to attend local enterpreneurship meetups, networking events and similar. If you have a passion for your product and it is working (you said it's growing in users, which is nice) I'm pretty sure you can sell it face to face.

Re: Ask HN: No time to maintain our project, what do to?

#20

Post by antaviana » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

_Max13 wrote: post #17

bonn1 wrote: post #5

Put it on https://flippa.com/ You can get some decent money if you have significant reach—how many MAUs/DAUs do you have?

Thanks, this sound a good idea. - DAU: 110 (Base on the last 31 days) - MAU: 537 (based on the last 12 months) We're pretty sure that it's because of the lack of evolution. We used to have better numbers...

No offense, but being a consumer-oriented project, with these counts after 2 years, IMHO you need to shut it down. Anything else would be most likely more costly in effort trying to sell it than any cash it will bring.