[Nalta]

I'm curious if there's a market for people who want to buy small projects like this. I imagine there's a lot of projects that are already on GitHub with a small following with owners that would like to cash out, but I'm not sure there's a market of buyers looking to pick up repos?

[sen]

I’m a buyer in this range. I’ve bought various small online tools that either weren’t monetised or weren’t monetised well, then I just put a small amount of effort into tidying it up a bit. Zero goals to “go big”, each just brings in a bit of pocket money.

If you compare the typical big-money SV-style startup sales to be like people building/flipping properly, this would be the equivalent of fixing up and flipping cheap cars or furniture. It’s a fun side hobby that makes you some extra spending money, not something to make you rich.

[jventura]

May I ask what kind of small online tools are you refering to? And how are you monetising them? I'm exploring some ideas for pocket money as well..

[IgorPartola]

Depending on what it is, I would certainly be a buyer. There are a lot of niche projects that I know nothing about but I am good at picking up on a topic and making projects successful once I find the niche and get into it. $5k seems right and if it’s a thing that can be profitable then yeah it seems like a good investment amount.

[jlawer]

There is a bunch of small tools that exist online (base64 encoders, hash functions, SPF rule generators, etc). Most of these wouldn't make much money, maybe enough to cover hosting.

I could imagine someone basically picking these up and collectively monetizing with ads, or other methods. Likely not suitable for a massive business, but likely able to sustain a sole operator or even a small team if operated frugally.

[_manifold]

> Most of these wouldn't make much money, maybe enough to cover hosting.

Do you have any personal experience or any other sources that estimate this kind of thing? I'm legitimately curious, I've often wondered what kind of revenue these types of things pull in. Obviously if they're not running ads and don't have any explicit monetization then it would be very little. But I always wonder about the ones that do.

[867-5309]

I'd imagine hosting would not be resource-heavy so <$2/mo, that's why sites like these don't really need ads as the cost of hosting is negligible. is there any way of generating revenue other than plastering a load of ads onto a website? because doing so would cost a great number of users

[_manifold]

I would assume they would be inexpensive to host as well. That's a given. I'm more interested in how much money they can make.

Simply running ads doesn't really seem like an issue as long as you're not making the site unusable. I'd be more concerned about the fact that the average user in need of a base64 converter is arguably more likely to be using an adblocker.

[867-5309]

those on the first page of search engine results are more likely to command a higher price. I wonder how much time it would take to reconcile the investment with ads, and likely a reduced userbase. probably years

[Scoundreller]

> because doing so would cost a great number of users

Would it? Like, Google isn’t going to boot you for running AdSense on your site.

I’m guessing the money is made off search engine visitors rather than recurring visitors that would figure out how to do it by command line.

[867-5309]

I meant visitors would be deterred by the sudden infestation of ads, not that page ranking would decrease. if anything it would probably increase

also, how would a search engine visit make money?

[Scoundreller]

Most Sites shows ads through Google AdSense. Most web searches are through Google. Makes sense for them to try and send you to properties where they might make some more money off of you.

[bemmu]

I bought a subscription box business once because I was In the same business and figured I could cross-promote it and already had the experience to run another one.

In the end I shut it, because I realized that with a newborn in the house I didn’t actually have the time/energy to run another one. Also prev. owner had priced it such that it was impossible to source legit good quality products.

I did run it for a bit and just about got the investment back (it only cost $3k) before shutting it down.

[unknown_error]

Malware/adware authors would love to buy those.

[duxup]

Aren't those guys more interested in something with an existing / large-ish user base?

[AussieWog93]

There are plenty of popular projects with a market value under $5k - many Chrome extensions fit this bill.

[ljoshua]

Are you referring to open source projects, or just commercial projects that have been developed in the open?