[shazow]

There were so many unanswered questions in the Flippa posting and the HN "peanut gallery" that it makes me feel like 37signals was never looking for new buyers.

Perhaps they already had a buyer in mind and just needed some negotiation leverage or wanted some free publicity.

I imagine people who were genuinely interested in bidding for Sortfolio feel a bit cheated with this announcement coming out of the blue.

[dhh]

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 really no "bidding" after that point. It was quite simple: Give us $480K and the site is yours. The new buyer's did just that. End of story.

[richardv]

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 would be forthcoming.

Instead, all the "chinese whispers" of people throwing ideas around seems to have really got you disgruntled, when you only have yourself to blame, and then you take your arrogance out on people asking straight and to point questions.

Do I think you got the $480k asking price? shrugs

[dhh]

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.

[dangrossman]

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 listing, and nobody accepted any of the pending bids (and people did try to bid on that auction).

https://flippa.com/2739829-sortfolio-com-web-design-marketpl...

What was the point of a public auction if you were only going to answer questions to private bidders contacting you directly? And why list it at all when you were trying to sell outside Flippa, in violation of their listing terms? Assuming that you were acting in bad faith, abusing Flippa as a mere marketing tool for a private sale, would be uncharacteristic for 37S.

[jasonfried]

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.

[Flippa_com]

Shucks Jason ... now we're blushing! ;-) Happy to confirm all this. Great to hear you were able to find a qualified buyer.

Your comments on buyers needing to qualify themselves to get a response is right on. Professional buyers pitch themselves to sellers as much as the other way around.

[kvnn]

Did anyone who actually bid on the site take issue?

I'd think that anyone ready to spend $400k on a site would have the willingness to get in direct contact with the seller, and that this "Rise of the White Knights" episode on HN is not based in reality.

[j_s]

This is the most helpful information here. Perhaps the best take-away for everyone is learning what doing something so public without enough attention can easily lead to.

Success to you!

[dools]

Do I think you got the $480k asking price? shrugs

This is answered in the comments on the post.

[FuzzyDunlop]

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

[jaylevitt]

I think it's unfair to expect any of us on HN to understand this metaphor.

[prawn]

But you could respond to dates' questions just to be polite (in this case on Flippa) or head off further questions by inviting potential datees to contact you via email and deal with them there.

That's the only thing that irked me - having the property on Flippa but ignoring the questions submitted there. Other than that, the price was openly disclosed and the operators interacted on HN, etc.

[shazow]

That's a nice theory.

Would be nice if it was an actual update in the original thread instead of leaving us to speculate, though.

Edit: Thanks for this update at least. Congrats on the sale.

[wilschroter]

For as many sales that exist behind closed doors with b/s valuations, here's a few guys who used standard metrics (sales, gasp!) for valuing their company and made multiple attempts to sell it properly.

How about this? Nice job guys. Congrats on sticking to your guns and getting the price you felt was fair.

I would have sold for less.

[moe]

Count me in on that theory (another member from the peanut gallery!).

The whole story just sounded so contrived from the start and didn't play out much better.

I mean, we know 37signals and reality are not best friends, but just throwing away 220k/yr in nearly passive income if it doesn't sell for the desired price, seemed a little far out there to begin with...

With that kind of money at stake I'd have expected at least a little more enthusiasm in the flippa-auction from their end. No least given how much DHH likes to bash the VC-gambling - how does that jive with playing russian roulette on a product raking in that kind of money, for no plausible reason?

My pet theory is similar to yours; I think they simply had a buyer from the start, and offered to throw in some "37signals original flavor media spin" as a bonus.

Whichever the truth is, it obviously worked out for them.

[jasonfried]

So you know the truth, we didn't have a buyer from the start. We didn't know if anyone would buy it. We'd never met or heard of the eventual buyers.

We tried to sell Sortfolio a year earlier and nothing came through. We decided to try again this time with a deadline and a public price.

This deal materialized because the buyers were interested in what we were selling, we liked their enthusiasm for the product, and we reached an agreement. The deal came together towards the end of the deadline.

It would have been a lot easier and less stressful for all involved had we had the buyer up front. We of course would have taken the up front easy way had it presented itself.

[moe]

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.

[tptacek]

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 than rude. (It is in fact a cardinal example of what my spouse Erin would say makes disagreeing with me annoying).

It is on the other hand incredibly rude to respond to someone who just made a categorical statement about something material ("We did not have a buyer from the beginning of the sale of Sortfolio", for instance) with the words "I have trouble believing you". Unbelievably rude. I think it might even be more rude than directly saying "I think you're a liar", since it's so recklessly casual.

Noticing this, I quickly searched over my old comments, horrified that I might have made the same error, perhaps even repeatedly. It is the kind of obnoxiousness to which I am prone. I am very relieved that I was not quickly able to come up with a comment here where I casually called someone else a liar.

[moe]

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?

[leif]

Yes, you should.

It is not anyone's job to cure you of your misconceptions. "Prove it!" are the two most ignorant and wasteful words we have. When someone actually involved with a situation tries to assuage your irrational fears anyway, and all you have to say is "I don't believe you, even though I have nothing pertinent to offer except the speculation I rode in on," you're being stubborn, ignorant, and an ass. If you have something to add, some tangible counter, then by all means, offer it up for review. But otherwise, you should remain silent or gracious.

For the record, I disclaim any interest in this actual story, beyond the fact that people are getting so damn riled up about it. The metastory is riveting.

[katabatic]

> Should I refrain from posting at all when what I have to say boils down to "I don't believe your story"?

Yes, that's exactly what you should. That sort of comment contributes exactly nothing to the discussion.

[bmelton]

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.

[asto]

When the maintainers are uninterested in their website, it makes more sense to sell something when it's making revenues of 200k+ than wait till it's in shambles and worthless.

Also, you never know if they needed the sale proceeds to pay for something. Maybe some ambitious project that requires a high upfront capital cost.

Too many things that are unknown to us to just call them liars.

[jasonfried]

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.

[shazow]

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 of the negativity and speculation. I am grateful for these last few updates you guys have given and I hope you'll consider writing a more detailed report once the dust settles.

[jasonfried]

We were quite open about the whole thing. We posted revenues, the deadline, the selling price, etc. Here was the post where we announced the sale on our blog: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3172-sortfolio-going-once-goi...

A number of serious buyers got in touch, asked a variety of different questions, and we got them direct answers.

[jbigelow76]

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) ;)