Ask HN: Do you have a side project that you would like to sell?

[skdjksjdksjdk]

Many HNers have side projects that make small amount of money or have a userbase. If you would like to sell your webapp/mobile app, please specify. Don't forget to add contact information

Note to moderators: Can we please make this a recurring question like whoishiring thread?

[20years]

Small ecommerce site selling fidget spinners. It's sold $4k worth of fidget spinners in the past 2 months.

Hosting costs $10/mo Shipping & support take about 5 to 10 hours total per month.

I started this with my 13 year old son over the summer as a way of teaching him how to launch a website, advertise it and sell products through the site.

Now that school will be starting up again here soon, we will not have the time to put into it. I have a few other sites/SaaS products that take up most of my time and he is going to be busy with school so I am looking to offload the site.

Email: bizdiscussions at gmail dot com

[muzani]

Sounds like it would be worth a lot less when the fidget spinner fad dies out.

[nodesocket]

Are you using Shopify? Drop shipping?

[20years]

Custom Woocommerce implementation on Wordpress. Custom plugins for automating things such as shipping labels, packing slips, etc. Hosted on DigitalOcean.

No drop shipping. We spend about 20 to 30 minutes per week packing and shipping inventory from our garage.

[robtaylor]

How do you generate relevant traffic out of interest?

[20years]

Search engines, social media, videos, content, etc. A variety of different ways.

[espitia]

Sort of related:

I launched an app a few years ago and sold it for $8.5k. I wish more people knew that exits don't always mean $1m. There's a big market for small project.

link to the project: http://www.germanespitia.com/habit-streaks

[20years]

Cool story. Congrats on this accomplishment especially considering you only started learning how to program in 2014. Most people have a hard time even shipping a product. You did that and made money on it. Awesome!

[coreymaass]

Say it again! I learned this lesson a few years ago while talking to a guy who'd had a few "exits" totaling $200k or less. It blew my mind. Wait, you can sell for less than millions?! It led me to sell an app for $7k instead of letting it die a slow death desperately hoping for millions to fall out of the sky. Great perspective shift for me.

[bettertomorrow]

This is great... thanks for sharing! what are you working on currently?

[muzani]

lol, I would have been happy to pay twice as much for that, as you had organic growth and paying customers. The ROI is pretty good even if you do nothing. But you did very well, congrats.

[statictype]

Nice. What strategies did you use for organic growth of your website?

[manuelflara]

http://founderpact.com It's not making any revenue so any offer will be considered. It's a tool for helping inexperienced founders avoid common mistakes when starting a business with someone, both legally and in terms of making sure you're on the same page. Did it after getting very burned on a business venture because of this. Got retweeted by some TechCrunch writer and also got to the frontpage (I think) of ProductHunt a while back. But I never got the time to get the product to where I wanted it to be (pay a $49 fee to get a good legally binding agreement based on the data you provided that you can just download, print and sign, and avoid problems and lawyer fees) nor market it properly (I also think it would be great to partner up with people who organize hackatons etc). Built in Rails, hosted in DigitalOcean. Email in profile

[africajam]

I recently got offered $10,000 for my open source real estate website builder (PropertyWebBuilder) on condition I close down the project. Turned it down but still not entirely sure if it was the right decision.

[deedubaya]

Thanks for your contribution to open source <3

[ckuhl]

   Can we please make this a recurring question

Wouldn't it be worth doing a trial period of manual posts first, to gauge the amount of interest?

[dsacco]

Agreed, and can we please not make this a thing, actually? Because it happens regularly already and in my opinion it's pretty noisy. We have questions like:

"What is your pain point?"

"What do you wish existed?"

"What problem in your industry would you pay to solve?"

"What is your side project?"

"How much do you earn from your side project each month?"

It just seems obsessive. There is sometimes a fair amount of participation but I don't really understand what people are getting out of it.

Has anyone who has ever asked about industry pain points on Hacker News ever successfully built and launched a solution? Has anyone who has ever asked about side projects for sale ever bought one or aided in one being purchased by bringing attention to another commenter?

Maybe making it a regular thing would help in that it each iteration only turn up once per n days, but otherwise I feel like these questions come up enough already.

[thenomad]

This is radically different to the above questions (which you may not find personally useful, but to the more bootstrap/entrepreneurially minded HNers are often pretty helpful or interesting.)

They are general information/discussion posts.

This post's a direct service connecting HNers with assets to HNers who want to buy them. Assuming there are a reasonable number of both, and the replies in the thread so far suggest there are, it's useful to have it recur for the same reason that "Who's Hiring?" is useful.

As for your question on whether anyone's ever bought a side project from a thread like this - the comments on this thread alone suggest there's a fair bit of interest in purchasing side projects, at least.

[vanderreeah]

I agree there are many similar threads but this one seems different insofar as it's explicitly asking for contributions from people who want to sell / off-load their side-projects.

[Hydraulix989]

This same thread pops up on here more or less every month.

[muzani]

I do like this thread. It's sort of a nice shopping spree and it's surprising there isn't already a startup that does this.

[nodesocket]

Fielding serious offers for my startup http://commando.io. Looking for 3-4x ARR.

Commando.io is a web based SSH platform for running commands on servers. The commands (recipes) are centrally stored and versioned and there is a complete execution history. There is an API, CLI, and iOS app for running commands on servers on the go as well.

If interested see HN profile for my contact info.

[AdamGibbins]

This looks like a less featured version of Rundeck, does anything set it apart?

[electriclove]

What are your current revenues/costs?

[21throwaways]

What do side-projects typically sell for?

My own is 8 months old. It averages $3K/month in revenue with costs of $100/month. Mine is a plugin not SAAS. I've had 100 sales so far, currently around 5-10 sales/month. I offer 30-day no-questions-asked refunds, but no-one has requested one yet. I've never had a visa chargeback, either.

My own probably requires at least 3 software updates/year to maintain the revenue level. E.g., a small feature added or a couple bugfixes. Customers always buy annual licenses, and annual maintenance extensions to the license are half price.

[kweks]

Depending on the age of the site, its uniqueness and competition barrier to entry, typically between 1.5 - 3.5x

I've just gone through the process via dealflowbrokerage.com - good experience so far.

[iends]

To clarify, 1.5x - 3x ARR?

[peacemaker]

I have a wordpress plugins business that earns maybe a couple hundred a month without touching it at all. I know it's not a lot but I sold a similar business a few years back that regularly made $1200-$1500 a month and the products were not as good. The only difference is I'm working so hard on other stuff this hasn't had the time it deserves. Someone with the time and motivation to add a couple of new features and actually advertize it a bit (I've never done any advertizing at all) would make a decent, passive income.

I also own another business that makes about $1500 a month (50/50 adsense & product sales) but does require a few hours a week of effort. I've only just started improving this and expect it to hit $3k a month within 6 months. I'm not seriously considering selling unless I get a really good offer but you never know!

[trcollinson]

What exactly is a really good offer? I'm not personally interested. But every time one of these threads comes up someone invariably comes along with a "business" that makes a tiny about of money but they want to sell it for a "really good" offer. A couple hundreds a month. Let's say that comes to $4000 in profit a year. What do you want? A 10x multiplier? So $40,000? Does your plugin business have enough value to justify this? I doubt it. How about $12,000? A 3x multiplier. Can you justify that kind of value? It might be hard.

I've messaged people before who are making a couple hundred in revenue a month and then ask for $1,000,000. I doubt you're one of those people. But seriously, keep your expectations in line with the reality of your business.

[peacemaker]

Well at $3k a month (which it will hit most definitely) most standard valuations would put the price at around $60k or so. Now add on top the fact that I'm not actively looking to sell it, you'd have to make a quite substantial offer above that to make it "really good".

Certainly nowhere near $1,000,000 :) I keep my eye on businesses for sale and have bought and sold a fair few so I have a good idea of what they cost.

[vanderreeah]

His comment about a "really good offer" applied to the (potential) $3k per month, not to the couple of hundred per month.

[peacemaker]

Exactly, the one that makes a couple hundred is different because I'm actively trying to sell it and therefore will sell for a reasonable market price.

[dancameron]

TBH that's not how valuations work, simce projections higher than current sales are not reliable (unless there are special circumstances).

you have any questions on how an acquisition for your plugins would work?

[peacemaker]

I guess things are basically worth what people are willing to pay so there is no way one way that valuations work.

Any questions? Not really, I've sold and bought businesses in the past so it's pretty straightforward now.

[threesixandnine]

Would you say the same for Tesla?

[vram22]

>50/50 adsense & product sales

In your experience, what level of traffic translates into how much adsense income? Any thumb rule you've noticed?

[dancameron]

I was gonna send you a message but you're online form doesn't work. Send me an email ama at sproutapps . co

[peacemaker]

Hey, my email is in my profile. Wasn't aware the contact form didnt work will have to fix that!

[jmbmxer]

My little Chrome extension https://unshorten.link has had a growing user base for several years now. Like a few others in this thread, my strengths don't necessarily lie in advertising or marketing. I'd be open to bringing on a partner who has experience monetizing and marketing projects like this or even selling outright to the right buyer.

[throwaway171717]

I have a portfolio of Wordpress themes on Themeforest, it started as a side project and I still don't dedicate much time to it but it makes around $10,000-$12,000 per month in revenue. The only expenses are hosting (150$/m) and support person ($700/month).

[sah2ed]

Although you used a throwaway, you forgot to include contact info. Assuming you want to sell the side project that is.

[throwaway171717]

Added to profile. Thanks

[helen842000]

I'd be interested to know how many themes you have!

[throwaway171717]

12 themes, but 5 of them account for the majority of sales

[penpapersw]

We have made several iOS apps which have been very well reviewed and sell consistently, but we're not terribly good at marketing. We're open to an offer if someone wants to purchase them and market them to the right audiences.

Apps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/nikki-degutis/id119686...

Contact: email in profile

[ballenf]

Cool looking bubble and paint apps. I would seriously consider buying if the iTunes listing had a video preview.

By buying I mean pay the $0.99, not buy the rights to app from you. ;)

Like a couple of the reviews, my kids are obsessed with bubbles and love colorful paint apps.

[penpapersw]

They do have a video preview if you look at it from within the app store on a mobile device. Check it out, I'm sure your kids would like it :)

[erdle]

sales data?

[penpapersw]

Currently probably $5 per day total from all our Apple apps. Like I said, I'm terrible at marketing. I've tried and I've failed.

[sklink]

http://trybtg.com/ Currently has about 100 DAU, high engagement (avg. 10 sessions per week per user). Users tend to stick around and the feedback is all positive.

The desktop software is the iteration that found fit with our users. You'd need Dota to try it, or you can watch the demo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_plCQi6PE

I have a set of paid features ready to launch, but I don't have resulting revenue numbers yet of course.

Even after the paid feature release I don't believe I can give it a proper change without more resources, mainly man power.

Not that I necessarily need to sell it. If someone were interested enough to partner up and fill the gaps I haven't been able to address I would be back on it. Guess I should be looking for a HN post that matches projects with people looking to join a project.

[kahlonel]

Hey I'm a 4.2k player and a developer. I like your app's interface more than dotapicker.com. I noticed both had same suggestions for a given set of heroes. Is the source of data for both of these apps same?

[sklink]

Thanks! They are different sources, I use OpenDota's open source software to gather matches and dump them into Google's BigQuery for processing using our own algorithms we've created. The algorithms are run against 15 to 30 million matches depending on how deep in the patch is.

My guess is we've landed on similar algorithms to DotaPicker, it's usually the set of matches we're using that makes the difference so I'm surprised the suggestions were the same.

Feel free to add me on Steam if you'd like: http://steamcommunity.com/id/sklink

[thenomad]

Are you partitioning the matches by MMR, or just doing global suggestions?

I ask because this always seems the biggest weakness of all the existing picking tools. A 1k player and a 5k player throwing the same lineup into a picking tool should ideally get dramatically different suggestions, both because of their own skill and the skill of their teammates.

[sklink]

There is no access to MMR from the Steam API. Best we have is Normal, High, and Very High skill splits and the problem then becomes having a large enough sample size to have accurate results.

114 heroes that all influence each other when they play together so if you're looking at matchups for two heroes that don't get played frequently the accuracy is already limited.

That said, my strength is in front end, not statistics. Getting a Normal and High split might be fine as is.

[thenomad]

True, but the OpenDOTA API does give access to estimated MMR stats for many games, which are pretty accurate. So you could use those if you wanted to.

That would limit the available match pool, granted. It depends on how many thousand games you need to make predictions, I suppose. I was able to pull some interesting data a while back from the 2k pool but I wasn't trying to solve as hard a problem as a global hero picker.

[ceyhunkazel]

http://www.jeviz.com which I used to make around $500/month from amazon affiliation with very few (around 30) daily users. Amazon has terminated my affiliation. I think it has more potentials and you can migrate to another domain with your associates tag and promote it. Its a readable Django web app.

[thisisit]

I am wondering - isn't there a good chance something like this might happen to the other site/domain too? It is just a matter of time before they find out what the new site/domain is up to.

Though what I find surprising is there are various Amazon price trackers which seem to be operating well. Shouldn't they be using the same url format as yours?

I could be wrong to suggest it but why not make it open source? It helps people wanting to self-host and not run into issues later.

[albertgoeswoof]

Why did amazon terminate your affiliation?

[ceyhunkazel]

I suspect that main reason is related with payment method. I am non-us associate. I have started with gift card payment it well good then I have changed to cheque payment method. I have waited long but no payment I have received. I have called amazon they said me there is problem and they will send it again. I have waited long when I contact them they said me it is already on the way then few weeks later they terminated my account and these cheques never come to me although they said they are on the way. I have wrote a story about the process without mention of payment issue https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket-...

[assafmo]

Sounds unfair and probably happened to other small businesses.

I'd love to read a blog post about your experience with amazon affiliates, and I also think it'll help with getting those cheques amazon owes you.

[ceyhunkazel]

Thanks for the feedback. Sadly Amazon strongly stated they will not pay it back as I wrote it about here https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket-...

[impostervt]

I wouldn't mind selling one of my side projects, Water Marquee - https://www.watermarquee.com. It lets users watermark their photos. I started it about 5 years ago when I was getting back into development. It brings in around $1,200/month, though that's been growing lately. A year ago it was more like $500/month. It's been going up in search result rankings, I assume because I've tried to be more active on the blog (though it's paid-for content). There are around 1,000 visitors/day.

My email is my profile. The site is written in Node.js/angular 1.x. I haven't had to change the code in several months, so it's pretty much "done" as far as I'm concerned, and I'd rather spend my time on other projects.

[sinhpham]

Your email is not visible in your profile

[impostervt]

john . titus @ gmail

[desfan]

Line: Android/iOS game.

Has a big userbase on Android, but nearly as much on iOS. Made around 3k$/month for a couple of months a year ago, now it's close to nothing as I stopped developing it, don't really now why. The whole thing is made with LibGDX for Android, using the (now defunct) RoboVM for iOS.

Link: http://2121.io/

Email me at nuno @ domain in link above if interested

[spking]

SendCatch.com

I recently picked up this nifty little app from the original developer (https://www.sendcatch.com/), and then immediately got swamped with my main product. It is not currently monetized.

I use it to instantly move larger files between my laptops and phones. Node/Mongo. Costs $5/mo on DigitalOcean. Open to offers! Email in profile.

[stanmancan]

Probably good to mention how much it's making, even if it's $0?

[spking]

Thanks and good point, updated.

[wilhempujar]

https://pricemoji.com/ an GraphQL/Node.js API that turns product prices into emojis.

No revenue, just a side project really. But considering the feedback I'm often getting, it seems to have great potential...

Originally, my challenge was to find a way to turn abstract product prices into more familiar, visual representations of their worth. Imagine paying your Netflix subscription in Bananas for example :)

A Financial Times journalist dubbed it a way to "take us back to a barter economy, where we price things in emoji beer rather than dollars".

Been featured on Product Hunt at producthunt.com/posts/pricemoji as well.

Would be curious to hear for your proposal for such an app? I was thinking $15K or something.

Contact information in profile

[glenscott1]

I built https://freelancedevleads.com/ with the aim of promoting it to developers looking for freelance work and also creating revenue by offering paid posts. Holds little interest for me right now, and I haven't touched it for months. Happy to listen to offers - email in profile.

[trevmckendrick]

Hi, I'd love to chat but your email is not in your profile :)

[glenscott1]

fixed :)

[bettertomorrow]

Ive got http://www.pedalr.com - a marketplace for people who love bikes.

It's been completely refactored, has a decent mailing list and list of followers. I'd be interested in selling it or linking up w the right cofounder w some energy to help me relaunch, test, learn, and grow the product.

Contact me for a look behind the landing page.

[alexgandy]

Just a note; you SSL cert is either expired or invalid. So when I visit the link you posted, and get redirected to the https version, I'm greated with a big chrome warning page.

[bettertomorrow]

updated. Please LMK if you have any other questions.

[bettertomorrow]

thanks for the heads up.

[TomTasche]

Android app with big userbase and huge potential but stalling revenue due to lack of development: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.tomtasche.r...

[quickpost]

I've got a SaaS system that generates a small physical newsletter that I've been running for the past 3 years. Averaging consistent $600 / month profit w/ no marketing. I've always intended to grow it (and think $2k / mo profit would be easy to achieve), but haven't put in the marketing effort as I've been busy with other businesses. It takes about 1 day a month of work, but that could easily be outsourced.

Open to selling for 1x to 2x ARR, since I've been neglecting it a bit. Email for more details.

[cmer]

What's the url?

[gtheme_io]

I have a side project GTheme.io[1] selling Ghost.org premium themes. 11 of the themes are designed by myself. Tonnes of growth potential as Ghost 1.0 just released.

As my focus shifted, I plan sell it.

[sportsdataguy]

http://www.mysportsfeeds.com

A sports data service for developers and small-medium sized businesses. Tonnes of growth potential.

[tomascot]

Nice. How do you verify input?

[IgorPartola]

OT question: how much money can you make off doing something like Bootstrap or Wordpress themes? Is that a thing that is still a viable business?

[litzer]

https://github.com/alixander/Ceruleum

I had built this with the intention to sell it on the app store but ended up not wanting to bother with marketing and signing up. But idk, maybe it can garner some buys as a paid developer tool app.

[sillysaurus3]

This looks useful! Thanks.

[trevmckendrick]

I sold my Bible app company a few years ago, and it was mostly a PITA (e.g. took 7 months for a relatively small deal)

Now I acquire small SaaS businesses at CapitalAcademy.org and make it a point of making the process as painless as possible.

If you have any interest in selling or just want to learn about the acquisition process feel free to say hi, [e-mail]

[nl5874]

We are open for offers to both transfer.sh (file sharing with curl) and SlackArchive.io (archiving +700 teams, data will be of interest for machine learning and NLP startups.). Both are side projects that grew far too big. Mail me at [e-mail] for more info.

[sghiassy]

I built 'h34t' - shows a realtime heatmap of where people are in the city (search iTunes Store for it).

Snapchat just paid $300 million for the same functionality. They could've bought it from me for a lot less ;)

[gesman]

Your app shows that nothing happening neither in San Jose nor in SF? iPhone 7+.

Maybe that forced Snapchat to spend more money? :)

[sghiassy]

The filter is set to show activity in the last month only - slide the filter to all and you'll see activity.

The app has gone a bit into hibernation lately, so the activity has waned.

Thx for checking it out though!

[skdjksjdksjdk]

How do you do it?

[sghiassy]

Not sure what you mean by the question?

I built the full stack by hand. The iOS is Obj-C and the backend is NodeJS/MySQL.

Basically, the MySQL DB has checkin data (provided by users or from social media networks) pivoted on metadata (male, female, age) and then passed to a custom visualization algorithm on the mobile device.

Happy to answer any other questions.

[fiftyacorn]

I built a site last year - www.gpsheatmap.com. The site lets you generate heatmaps from your gps routes for cycling or running

I never got round to marketing it so Im open to offers

[kfriede]

https://fastandes.com

It's a product search engine that ranks products from Reddit comments and posts.

Any offers welcome!

[teagee]

Interested in learning more. How can I get in touch?

[kfriede]

Shoot me an email, [e-mail]

[pvsukale3]

hakrlog.com

sample blog - pvsukale.hakrlog.com

Markdown blogging for hackers. Everyone gets a unique subdomain and they can write and publish with a simple interface. A native nested comments section, No ads, No monthly charges. People can follow authors for weekly emails and RSS. It is in beta, no current users though. If anyone wants to support development / buy the project contact email :- pvsukale at gmail dot com .

Developed using Rails. ( I am a last year CS student)

[arthurwinter]

My 2c, no technical user would ever want to host their blog on a 3rd part platform when it's so easy to self-host. The exception are platform with network effects (e.g. Medium). Why should I post on your platform when I don't know if in 30 days it will still be online? And given the lack of focus on grammar and spellchecking on the landing page, why should I assume what's in the backend is better?

[sanchayan]

I would like to sell my app 1600 Pennsylvania for raising funds for politicians . It has chat + geolocation + poll features

[superplussed]

I have a domain: fooker.com. Brandable, awesome. Don't need it. Wanna sell it.

[paxpelus]

I have the domain 5vs5.com in case anyone is interested