71–80 of 98 posts
I don't see what is actually of value in this deal for someone to merit a 480K purchase: 1. Site code - Sure you are getting a head start since you don't need to build from scratch but the site doesn't do anything special that can't be duplicated. 2. Brand Name - I think it's more about 37signals being behind this rather than Sortfolio being an awesome product. I don't know how many customers are going to actually us…
1) 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?
2) I think it would be useful to know how much traffic / new signups come from other 37s sites vs SEO or links from other sites.
3) I am very curious if there is more information they'd be willing to release. For example, how many of those $99 customers are happy, how many have garnered business they can confirm came from Sortfolio, etc.
4) "If we can sell it for a fair price (we consider $480,000 fair), then we'll sell it. " What thought process did you use to arrive at an asking price equal to roughly 28x monthly revenue?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I don't see how this could be done if they are PCI compliant.
They're already losing customers. Here's a customer's comment from their blog: "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 don't believe for a moment he will shut down $200,000 profit with little maintenance. It's condescending to suggest "I want it to go to a nice home but I'll close it down if I don't get x." If you're willing to entertain such thought then you do not truly value the user.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair point, 37signals may also expect the whole thing to organically fizzle out within a few years (updated). Let's constrict the time frame to 3 years from purchase and continue the abandonment assumption. Assuming 2% annual cash flow growth we cannot sustain more than an 11% initial crash before yield falls below 10%. With -5% annual cash flow growth this number drops to 4%. The investment is probably not reasonabl…
I think a smart businessperson could blow it up much bigger. Open it up to a variety of different industries. Wedding planners, photographers, florists, interior designers, architects, etc. Think big.
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…
That feels a little heavy handed and like you are projecting of your own values onto the situation to me. The 170 customers are paying right? 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?
I bet that one single "update your billing information" email detailing what the $99 was for, followed by culling everyone who hadn't updated their information within 30 days would result in an 80%+ drop-off in the revenue of Sortfolio. Not even disclosure that the service was for sale and hadn't been updated in a year - simply a "hey, you're paying $99/mo for Sortfolio. Please click here to confirm you want to continue doing so."
37signals are running the same scam as AOL dial-up here - they're relying on people who have forgotten to hit an "unsubscribe" button rather than providing real value. Personally, I had a lot of respect for 37signals going into this blog post, but I think that's pretty darn slimy.