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Sortfolio lives

37signals.com

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Re: Sortfolio lives

#21

Post by citricsquid »

jasonfried wrote: post #17
citricsquid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh, you are aware the majority of negativity and questioning about the asking price was because you did not at any point answer whether or not billing information (and subscriptions) would be kept, even when people on the Flippa auction requested this information? If you'd said from the start this was the case you'd have got many more bids, on HN alone I saw many comments from people stating they would bid if this wa…

Anyone who was a qualified buyer, and asked privately, got the answer. Lots of people asked privately. We even put serious buyers in touch with our credit card processing company so they could get additional questions answered directly.

The comment implied that the average HN user doesn't have the capacity to understand how business works, but the information the buyers had is not what the public had, that's a bit... disingenuous.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#22

Post by moe »

shazow wrote: post #10

There were so many unanswered questions in the Flippa posting and the HN "peanut gallery" that it makes me feel like 37signals was never looking for new buyers. Perhaps they already had a buyer in mind and just needed some negotiation leverage or wanted some free publicity. I imagine people who were genuinely interested in bidding for Sortfolio feel a bit cheated with this announcement coming out of the blue.

Count me in on that theory (another member from the peanut gallery!).

The whole story just sounded so contrived from the start and didn't play out much better.

I mean, we know 37signals and reality are not best friends, but just throwing away 220k/yr in nearly passive income if it doesn't sell for the desired price, seemed a little far out there to begin with...

With that kind of money at stake I'd have expected at least a little more enthusiasm in the flippa-auction from their end. No least given how much DHH likes to bash the VC-gambling - how does that jive with playing russian roulette on a product raking in that kind of money, for no plausible reason?

My pet theory is similar to yours; I think they simply had a buyer from the start, and offered to throw in some "37signals original flavor media spin" as a bonus.

Whichever the truth is, it obviously worked out for them.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#23

Post by taylort »

mnicole wrote: post #18
larrys wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what I said to get a response like that. There is nothing wrong with what I proposed as a reason and it certainly doesn't rise to the level of "played the world for a fool." in any way. "We thought the site was worth at least 2x the previous year's take. And if we didn't get that, it wasn't worth our time to deal with the transaction." "it wasn't worth our time to deal with the transaction." Your attit…

Don't take it too harshly, the site is the equivalent of the web design listings on CraigsList without the extra clicks.

And DHH is not exactly known for his tact.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#24

Post by shazow »

jasonfried wrote: post #15
shazow wrote: post #10

There were so many unanswered questions in the Flippa posting and the HN "peanut gallery" that it makes me feel like 37signals was never looking for new buyers. Perhaps they already had a buyer in mind and just needed some negotiation leverage or wanted some free publicity. I imagine people who were genuinely interested in bidding for Sortfolio feel a bit cheated with this announcement coming out of the blue.

FYI, I responded to select private Flippa messages from buyers I considered to be qualified. If someone was serious about spending $480,000, they should have gotten in touch privately and demonstrated that they were serious, qualified buyers. Everyone had an equal chance to buy Sortfolio - one party stepped up and got it done.

I'm glad to hear about your attentive private responses.

HN has this culture of entrepreneurial voyeurism. When a unique scenario like Sortfolio gets posted, we like to watch how it unfolds and learn from the process. When dozens of interesting questions piled on without any response from you guys, I was disappointed.

Clearly you're well within your rights to do what you did, but I hope this sheds some light on some of the negativity and speculation. I am grateful for these last few updates you guys have given and I hope you'll consider writing a more detailed report once the dust settles.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#25

Post by larrys »

jasonfried wrote: post #17
citricsquid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh, you are aware the majority of negativity and questioning about the asking price was because you did not at any point answer whether or not billing information (and subscriptions) would be kept, even when people on the Flippa auction requested this information? If you'd said from the start this was the case you'd have got many more bids, on HN alone I saw many comments from people stating they would bid if this wa…

Anyone who was a qualified buyer, and asked privately, got the answer. Lots of people asked privately. We even put serious buyers in touch with our credit card processing company so they could get additional questions answered directly.

"Anyone who was a qualified buyer"

What criteria did you use to determine a "qualified" buyer?

As someone who frequently deals in transactions over the web for large dollar amounts it is not always clear who is qualified and who isn't. Especially if you aren't doing a high volume of transactions so you don't have a pattern established. One recent transaction we handled for someone started off with an insulting offer of $1000 (from a gmail type account in China (qq.com) and ended up at $38,000 USD)

Re: Sortfolio lives

#26

Post by floydprice »

I really don't understand the negativity around here for this, is it really that hard to believe that somebody paid good money for a profitable business? Now clearly 27 Signals have moved slightly from the original flippa terms, they are not imposing that customers re-ender details which I imagine was a show stopper for any potential buyer.

The subtext to some of the comments here suggesting that its all made up, is really odd! Why would 37 Signals even need to waste ours or their time making this up? They run Basecamp!! they really don't need to impress us with selling a relatively small business! its completely beneath them!

Instead of poking holes in this story, we really should be celebrating it. Building a business of this size is not that hard, a few hundred customers and a solid model and by solid model i mean, Charging for your product is all it takes. If this doesn't serve as inspiration to us all then i don't know what will.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#28

Post by stevebenjamins »

Oh man. What's with all the conspiracy nonsense? 37 Signals have been nothing but transparent through this entire process. Hopefully these HN comments are not an accurate sample of what most people are thinking.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#29

Post by ascendant »

larrys wrote: post #14
dhh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you got us figured out. We had an offer, sat on it, invented this story to see if we could get more, and played the world for a fool. BUT YOU BUSTED US. OH NOOOOES! Or, of course, the simpler explanation: We thought the site was worth at least 2x the previous year's take. And if we didn't get that, it wasn't worth our time to deal with the transaction.

I have no idea what I said to get a response like that. There is nothing wrong with what I proposed as a reason and it certainly doesn't rise to the level of "played the world for a fool." in any way. "We thought the site was worth at least 2x the previous year's take. And if we didn't get that, it wasn't worth our time to deal with the transaction." "it wasn't worth our time to deal with the transaction." Your attit…

He's a multi-millionaire and was able to do it while acting this way. Therefore his previous experience is that acting like that will continue making him exceedingly wealthy. Getting angry about it won't do any good, you might as well just ignore him. I'm trying to say this in the most neutral, scientific way possible.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#30

Post by jasonfried »

moe wrote: post #22
shazow wrote: post #10

There were so many unanswered questions in the Flippa posting and the HN "peanut gallery" that it makes me feel like 37signals was never looking for new buyers. Perhaps they already had a buyer in mind and just needed some negotiation leverage or wanted some free publicity. I imagine people who were genuinely interested in bidding for Sortfolio feel a bit cheated with this announcement coming out of the blue.

Count me in on that theory (another member from the peanut gallery!). The whole story just sounded so contrived from the start and didn't play out much better. I mean, we know 37signals and reality are not best friends, but just throwing away 220k/yr in nearly passive income if it doesn't sell for the desired price, seemed a little far out there to begin with... With that kind of money at stake I'd have expected at l…

So you know the truth, we didn't have a buyer from the start. We didn't know if anyone would buy it. We'd never met or heard of the eventual buyers.

We tried to sell Sortfolio a year earlier and nothing came through. We decided to try again this time with a deadline and a public price.

This deal materialized because the buyers were interested in what we were selling, we liked their enthusiasm for the product, and we reached an agreement. The deal came together towards the end of the deadline.

It would have been a lot easier and less stressful for all involved had we had the buyer up front. We of course would have taken the up front easy way had it presented itself.

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