Sortfolio lives • Hacker News Board

Re: Sortfolio lives

#41

Post by jasonfried » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:10 AM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #37

dhh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitter? No. Offended? Sure. We share everything that's going on with the sale. Multiple write-ups. And yet still the default HN hive-mind behavior is to jump to a conspiracy theory!? Come on.

You didn't really share anything someone would need to valuate the site publicly. You (well, Jason) posted an auction with no information about costs or profit, traffic sources or subscriber turnover, handover or whether the billing info of the customers would transfer, etc. These are the most basic pieces of information you'd expect to see in any listing of a site for sale there. Nobody responded to questions on the…

For some backstory...

Flippa contacted us after we posted Sortfolio for sale on our blog (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3172-sortfolio-going-once-goi...). They asked us to list on Flippa too. So I said, sure, we'll list it on Flippa too. I couldn't include specific information the way I wanted to include it, so I didn't include everything in that listing. I got a few private inquiries, they didn't go anywhere, and they seemed lower quality than the leads we were getting from our blog. So we turned most of our attention to leads generated on our blog since they were of higher quality and better qualified (fielding qualified leads properly is time consuming).

Flippa may not have been a great fit for Sortfolio, or we may not have been a good fit for Flippa. I could have tried harder on Flippa, but I have limited time and when one source generates significantly better leads than another source, you have to make a decision where to spend most of your time.

The people behind Flippa were great - they were helpful and kind. I don't have anything bad to say about the experience. If nothing else, we didn't give it enough of our attention. Lesson learned.

I hope that was helpful.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#42

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:21 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #39

citricsquid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The average HN user certainly doesn't have that capacity. Come on.

Now that's disingenuous. :) I am pretty sure you know what was meant.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#43

Post by consultutah » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:30 AM UTC

Man. Is it jealousy or just blind hate?

When I first read their blog post I was quite interested. I mean, here was a profitable business built by a well known company.

The only really unanswered question was whether or not existing customers would need to re-enter their payment information. I asked the question and recieved a prompt response.

I'm sure I would have had more questions if I could have convinced my partners to pony up their share of cash. But in the end, the deal wasn't for us.

Congratulations on the sale and congratulations to the new buyers!

Re: Sortfolio lives

#44

Post by FuzzyDunlop » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:34 AM UTC

richardv wrote: post #20

dhh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another wild theory: The buyers contacted us directly, got the answers to the questions they sought, and closed the deal. Also, this is not out of the blue. We lost interest in considering all sorts of complicated deals a while back. So we told everyone that the price was $480K and that the deadline for closing a deal was July 1st: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3172-sortfolio-going-once-goi... So there was re…

Why are you always so bitter to people asking straight questions? If you didn't want people to draw their own conclusions then you should have acted responsibly and made some attempt to answer and respond to the questions posted on sale page. If you had no intention of providing this additional information because it was not worth your time, then you should have made it clear to people that no additional information…

Given several potential dates, you don't court them all equally.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#45

Post by Travis » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:35 AM UTC

Smudge wrote: post #4

That’s correct. Customers will not have to re-enter credit cards or do anything. This is pain free for customers. This is good. Sortfolio may not have been worth the $480,000 otherwise. I imagine that requiring customers to re-enter their info would cause an immediate drop in the number of paying customers.

I agree that it would affect the final number, and probably adjust short term revenue (and thus value). However, I also think it's a misplaced (but common) mindset that short term revenue determines valuation.

If Sortfolio provides significant value to its paying users (customers), they won't lose a great proportion of their revenue on CC re-entry. Those who don't re-enter billing info are the people no longer getting regular value from the product.

Folks, this is a huge success! It's a company that bootstrapped themselves (and get some credit for many other bootstrappers, myself included) and found an exit strategy that's a win for all parties: they make money. The buyer has a business that provides real world value to its customers. And the customers will continue to receive their value for dollars spent. (How many articles bemoan buyouts that are "bad for original customers/early adopters/etc."?)

Let's just take a moment and appreciate a successful exit. Everyone wins -- the founders, the buyers, AND the customers.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#46

Post by kondro » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:39 AM UTC

I don't know why everyone thinks the company was overvalued. $480k seemed like a steal to me and if we weren't in the process of purchasing another business when I saw this deal come across the Internet, we would've submitted an offer too.

Re: Sortfolio lives

#47

Post by mikescar » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:45 AM UTC

taylort wrote: post #23

mnicole wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I was being called out as a liar after being very public about a business deal, I would lose my sense of tact also.

Seriously, how much of the hate is from folks that will never have this opportunity, wouldn't do it the same way even if they did, and just want to complain?

Re: Sortfolio lives

#48

Post by moe » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 12:52 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #38

moe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I still have trouble believing you. Partly because I don't believe the premise of just not giving a shit about $220k in passive income. And partly because this all snaps together way too snug. Short of the fortuitous hero riding into the sunset as the exit-credits scroll by. On his Louis Vuitton designer-pony. But it doesn't matter what I believe. You're the guys with the sportscars.

At grave risk of sounding even more patronizing than I usually do, let me try to help you with something: HN people spend a lot of time arguing with each other, often about nonsense or trivia (hey, myself included). In those arguments, it is very normal to say "I have trouble believing X is true" or "I have a hard time believing Y". And while it's not the most polite way to express disagreement, it's more annoying th…

Thanks for your comment.

Honestly, I just wrote what I had on my mind that moment, without much meta-thinking. You are probably right, in hindsight should at least have phrased it less direct.

However, without disregarding your concern: Should I refrain from posting at all when what I have to say boils down to "I don't believe your story"?

Would you also have reacted to a politely phrased comment saying the same thing?

Re: Sortfolio lives

#49

Post by jbigelow76 » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 1:09 AM UTC

shazow wrote: post #24

jasonfried wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

While we may say we want to learn the from the process, the vast majority really just want to see what was done and then tell everybody how they would have done it differently (and implicitly more correctly) ;)

Re: Sortfolio lives

#50

Post by bmelton » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 2:17 AM UTC

moe wrote: post #48

tptacek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At grave risk of sounding even more patronizing than I usually do, let me try to help you with something: HN people spend a lot of time arguing with each other, often about nonsense or trivia (hey, myself included). In those arguments, it is very normal to say "I have trouble believing X is true" or "I have a hard time believing Y". And while it's not the most polite way to express disagreement, it's more annoying th…

Thanks for your comment. Honestly, I just wrote what I had on my mind that moment, without much meta-thinking. You are probably right, in hindsight should at least have phrased it less direct. However, without disregarding your concern: Should I refrain from posting at all when what I have to say boils down to "I don't believe your story"? Would you also have reacted to a politely phrased comment saying the same thin…

I think the easiest tack is to stop assuming that people are liars until they've exhibited behavior that would cast them as such.

Not everybody here is the biggest fan of DHH or the 37Signals crew. That's perfectly fine. I don't know anybody here that would consider anything they've done as untruthful or as deliberately misleading. At the most critical extreme, you could maybe consider some of their sales copy as overzealous, but that's a far cry from outright dishonesty.

That said, you're of course welcome to say whatever you feel. However, I agree with Thomas that it is bad form. Different wording may well have helped the situation.

Finally, sometimes we post what's on our mind. I know that I'm guilty of it, and there are a ton of posts that I'd love to take back, either because I reacted inappropriately or made myself look stupid. Happens to the best of us.