Have you considered hiring a software developer? Some one extremely technical most likely can deliver on any business model you conceive of.
It's the opposite situation here - I have the technical and business skills but am looking to buy the idea.
Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
111–120 of 171 posts
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#112Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#113Why buy another company (as opposing to focusing on your existing business)?
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#114I'm selling Zilyo https://zilyo.com/ for around 200k USD, which is a meta search for vacation rentals, big competiton in this space and it's currently the inudustry leader in terms of product quality and # of features and data. Many of its competition has raised millions and today it's running on it's own with a monthly burn rate of 30$. It does around 12,000$ a year. You can reach me at hamed@zilyo.com
It also hosts one of the most active and fastest growing APIs in mashape, to leverage vacation rental data for developers and other businesses. Currently it hosts around 250 API consumers (most of them are businsess leeching it for free, so great oppurtunity in the B2B side of things) https://www.mashape.com/zilyo/zilyo/
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#115Take a look at http://exitround.com
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's counting the founder's salary as profit. In these small businesses? founders usually have to do a good bit of work. what do they say? you are buying yourself a job? if you're making 33.3% of $50k-$500K per year... the very top end of that is close to what you'd get working for someone else, and usually you don't have to put down a half million to get those jobs. So, while I don't think I'd sell you my company fo…
"you are buying yourself a job?" Bingo. And the prospect of growing the business to a point where it can sustain a team and be less reliant on you. If the business can run without any input from the founder a) why would they sell it? and b) if they did they would sell at a much greater multiple.
People might need to sell companies because of:
1) sudden financial hardship like hospital bills
2) a divorce court judge ordered it
3) a non-founding owner has no emotional attachment and wants to switch to another investment.
Online companies that produce passive or near-passive income are bound to become obsolete quickly. The internet moves quickly in a lot of niches. The potential lifespan of the business affects the multiple.
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#117Most businesses are for sale if the price is right.
I've sold an app before where I just got a phone call from an interested party (without it being listed for sale anywhere), agreed on a price and just a few weeks later the transfer was complete.
If anyone wants to buy candyjapan.com for 4x profit, feel free to contact.
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#118We're selling one called Flutter - http://flutter-app.com We're about to close it down, its got customers and MRR
Also FYI to anyone trying this out -- this app gives you no warning or prompt before following hundreds of accounts on your behalf. I went through the FTUE and the first thing I saw was "You followed of Tweeter's [sic] today".
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#119Love this thread. I've been looking to find answer to this question. I used to get more quality results from Flippa when I wanted to buy sites, back when they were Sitepoint. Now it's more or less for newbies to drop their money. For sales, Flippa offers a brokerage service as well. They don't charge, unless the site is sold. I've got an extension for a CMS that stably makes 6-figures profit for past 3 years. Last ye…
I'd be super interested to hear the story behind said extension. Sounds really impressive.
Re: Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
#120I'm planning to refocus my mobile app business, and while I had planned on just continuing on cashing the checks from my other apps, lately I've considered the idea of selling them and really concentrating 100% on the main one.
A few questions: 1. What kind of cost do the popular escrow services charge? I assume it's percentage based, only on successful sale?
2. Do places like FEI sell apps, or just websites?
3. If not, any recommendations on places to sell an app or bundle of apps?