[dustinmoris]

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt...

Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limiting how the buyer can/wants to do with HIBP? If he didn't want to give away control then don't sell, find investment, find sponsors, find a business model which pays the bills and allows you to hire staff so you can scale it yourself. Decide what you want first :)

EDIT:

I think the increasing exposure and interest in HIBP has made Troy fantasize about a potentially nice cheque which a buyer could write him which could put him into early retirement, but then he realised two things along the process which made him change his mind on selling:

- HIBP is not really worth the amount that could retire a family (interest <> value, website hits <> value, etc.)

- The fan messages gave him a bad concience

In the end the whole thing was not worth it.

[MattSayar]

Troy is not primarily motivated by money anymore; he has plenty [1]. What's most important to him is that HIBP is run the way he wants it run, but with more resources than a single person can offer. He's willing to pay the "biggest bill in his life" in order to preserve that vision, which honestly just increases his reputation as a person you can trust. He can make those kinds of decisions because money is not the main issue.

[1] https://www.troyhunt.com/10-personal-finance-lessons-for-tec...

[michaelt]

> - HIBP is not really worth the amount that could retire a family

What do you think that amount is?

I mean, Australia's median household income is US$44,000 which you could achieve with US$1.1 million and an investment paying 4% above inflation.

I can easily imagine HIBP being valued that much by the right buyer - such as a company with an anti-credential-stuffing product.

Of course, someone hoping to retire and live a life of luxury would be a different matter.

[thejosh]

Considering that he already lives in a pretty nice place and makes a pretty decent income, not sure he would care about the final amount too much.

PS: check the ABS, it's different median last time I checked.

[mikorym]

I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here.

I have a perennial objection to the "Silicon Valley Way" where you try to build a scalable product or service and immediately look for funding (and later a buyer).

Normal companies just start. And try to be profitable quickly. I think this is probably the issue as well that Troy eventually found there. I think he should really be thinking: "What is my service and what is my product, and what is the 80-20 of where my product is worth the most."

And I don't mean dumb things like ads. I think he should be doing custom services for big companies that care about security.

[mikorym]

To give an example, he probably can help a lot of big companies just with their authentication policies. Accountants are ignorant about these things and maybe he could for example be asked about when to use a password and when to use some kind of token, how to setup access to EC2 or Azure virtual machines and things like that.

I know these in principle should be simple. But the man is a rock star and should be able to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic BS.

[dustinmoris]

> I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here

Agreed, and I also didn't mean to suggest that, but I am still surprised that Troy made of himself such a fool by hiring KPMG for really anything. He's a tiny one person business/sole trader, there is absolutely nothing which KPMG could do for him which another professional couldn't have done much more effective, cheaper and faster.

KPMG are most foremost sales people. They did what they are trained well to do, make him feel bigger than he is. "Why don't we introduce you to our <whatever we wanna rip you off with> team", "have a seat mr. hunt", "want a galss of this amazing champage whilst my sexy secretary calls for the big boss to talk to you?". LOL They totally got him. I'm sorry but that's really really foolish and I sort of lost a bit of respect for him there as soon as he mentioned KPMG ¯\_(ツ)_/¯