Readit NewsA strategic buyer might buy it for the potential, but also at that size they can likely copy it quickly and with a bit of marketing scale it up.
It's mostly seen as a jumping board for them to quickly get going, compared to finding idea, building it, getting some SEO footing, etc. That's just my anecdotal experience btw.
I didn't have any particular expectation per se, any x arr with the potential baked in is fine. But the most conversations I've had are bog-standard x months of profit and people looking to acquire it as an asset, which makes sense for them, but doesn't for me as I mentioned before the risk is pretty low in keeping it myself.
If you would be interested you can email me on my mail in bio and we can discuss.
Also, the whole selling process was a huge turnoff for me as the offers were at most 3x arr and lots of tirekickers when I posted on acquire.
It's pretty awesome that you've got something making $1600/mo without any proper marketing. It seems insane to me to abandon that effort for something else. Not to mention, if your next project takes off, you'll probably find yourself in the same situation again.
I would double down on this one. You'll likely have a lot of learning to do, but it's gonna be a good education and possibly very profitable.
But then, only when I received good feedback I thought to proceed with it.
I won't deny, the new thing is definitely appealing because it's new. But you make a good point about finding myself in the same place again.
I've had some good options presented here and I'm leaning towards focusing on rosterbird and try to get a growth engine going and then, maybe, once it's sustainable, I can try new things if I still wanted to.
I would agree that most people would take some job flexibility/autonomy in lieu of part of their bigco salary, but my guess is that this particular Xoogler would be making well more than $236k (including stock) if he had stayed at Google.
EDIT: that doesn't mean he should have stayed at Google, just that his market salary would very likely soak up all of the profits this year. If he can keep up the growth (and ramp down his hours), then it would be clearer that the enterprise could throw of cash even after paying for all the labor.
> I would agree that most people would take some job flexibility/autonomy in lieu of part of their bigco salary
This is one of the point the author has repeatedly stressed the importance of and I very much agree as well. The chance to chart your own journey and the excitement a business could bring is anyday more valuable than the predictable path of employment for many (including myself)
> I don’t draw a salary, so the total amount I earned from TinyPilot in 2023 was $236k.
and
> Result: I worked 35-40 hours per week, a reduction from previous years, and traveled more than any previous year.
This is a person who is effectively full-time CEO of this business and whose market salary is likely at least $236k. If they sold the business, the new owners would have to pay someone else to put in those 35 hours.
Maybe the new owner could employ a less-skilled manager and pay them less, or maybe there's still lots of potential growth or room to cut costs, but that's all quite speculative: right now the business has a profit, and therefore a valuation, closer to zero.
Valuation of business isn't necessarily determined by profits (perhaps for commodity businesses), It's just one of the metric. This is a business that has strong operations, product, assets, and IP, honestly quite surprised with this take.
Also, a nit fwiw, you automatically assumed the entire profit of the business is the market salary for the person running this business
Wholeheartedly concur. I'm yet another datapoint for this statement. I picked up programming, picked up a tech stack, found jobs, and launched profitable sideprojects, all with the help of this site.