It's been great listening to Rob's story about HitTail on the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast [1]. I highly recommend this podcast for the coder/entrepreneurs out there. It will motivate you and keep you focused on starting small and growing from there.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/</a>
Here's the original story of the purchase and revamp: <a href="http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2012/01/25/the-inside-story-of-a-small-startup-acquisition-part-1/" rel="nofollow">http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2012/01/25/the-inside-story-of-...</a>
Congrats Rob! Enjoyed following his various posts and presentations about HitTail.<p>I suspect this is the listing for the sale on FE International:<p><a href="http://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/5262-saas-keyword-tool-9-years-old-73k-net-mo" rel="nofollow">http://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/5262-saas-keyword-t...</a><p>I'd also be curious if Google's recent updates ("not provided" keywords in analytics, etc.) have impacted the ability to make this an effective product in the long run.
Congratulations, Rob, it's nice to see counter-examples to the "it's all chance" worldview.<p>I looked at the FE International listings, and I have to ask of those who know about these things: What would lead somebody to sell a going-concern business for 2x earnings? There were several examples. I don't want to go straight to "scam!" but that seems too good to be true.
We just bought a SAAS business via FE International last month (<a href="http://talentdesk.com" rel="nofollow">http://talentdesk.com</a>). Process was incredibly smooth. I'm happy to answer questions privately if anyone has any on what it's like on the buyer side.
Hey Rob -<p>Financially speaking (and knowing what you know now) would you do it again? Will you be going through the trash to find your next treasure?<p>Congrats!
I've always enjoyed Rob's take on things. The things he's worked on seem like "a good goal" rather than something completely unobtainable, like most SV style startups seem to those of us who are not there and don't want to kill ourselves working on one. I highly recommend his book even though it's a bit long in the tooth at this point:<p><a href="http://amzn.to/1OuZPHs" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.to/1OuZPHs</a>
Congrats Rob!<p>Are you looking for your next adventure? I have spent 9 months building a startup, at large scale (60 servers, 4 million data points a minute) My email is in my profile, I would love to chat and get your thoughts and advice :)