If you're interested in buying and/or selling small projects, you can typically expect to pay more than $5k for something that's making any consistent amount of money.<p>You're also unlikely to find a great deal on a really special project on a marketplace. People who post on marketplaces like Flippa or MicroAcquire or SideProjectors (there're dozens of them) have either:<p>1. Realized the time it takes to maintain is not worth the revenues/profits<p>2. Realized the income is not sustainable and are trying to cash out at the end of a great run<p>3. Realized that some folks are willing to pay very high multiples and will list their projects at prices most (but not all) people will balk at.<p>If you're really interested in taking over a project that's profitable, network with people, do cold emailing, and find opportunities to take over projects that the owners are simply not interested in any more.<p>In other words, look for the elderly couple who is ready to move on from owning their profitable, outdated shop.
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?
All the HN comments here say "buying/selling <i>projects</i>", which I guess is because the website itself says "buying/selling tiny <i>projects</i>".<p>However this is very different to buying/selling <i>businesses</i> (i.e. going concern with books up to date), and the search interface doesn't let me specify that I want to buy something with at least one paying customer (i.e. a business).<p>I'd be interested in buying a going concern (even if it's going off a cliff), but not someone's weekend attempt to learn a new web platform whose only hits are from search engine indexing and people who got there by mistake.<p>Seems like all you'll be buying here are snippets of working code, which is not very valuable in and off itself.
Huh, if you open the dev console it says it was build with Bubble (<a href="https://bubble.io/" rel="nofollow">https://bubble.io/</a>) a no-code platform.
I have been seriously considering doing a tiny acquisition myself as a gambit to get back into tech after a very long period away.<p>Frankly, it's been hard to find something that seemed serious or at least real and somehow worthy of existing in the world (I get that this is my own internal value judgement). I left with the impression that this sort of thing is like the tech version of /r/CrackheadCraigslist.<p>Also, it didn't help that at least one of these sorts of sites demands users link to their LinkdIn account to even see the projects that are for sale. I think LinkdIn is creepy enough on its own and that really put me off.
The name made me think this was a Tiny Capital project; they like to acquire small (but more successful) companies.<p><a href="https://www.tinycapital.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.tinycapital.com/</a>
Assuming I wanted to buy a few of these, what's the best way to get the cash out at the end of it all? Create an LLC, have the LLC buy the sites, then just do dividends or something?<p>I'm kind of hazy on how to fund such an LLC to buy stuff in the first place - do most people structure the initial money as a loan so it's tax free?<p>I'd love to hear practically-speaking how to do this on a small scale.
I saw a really interesting acquisition on Twitter yesterday - a $400 MRR business sold for $27k on one of these platforms. Unrolled Twitter thread: <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1408088057140547592.html" rel="nofollow">https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1408088057140547592.html</a>
sounds like a fun project, but it shows empty on mobile (iOS) and desktop (Firefox). Also, having a search before a browser is a bit weird. I don't know what to search for, maybe if I could look at a few projects before I could have some ideas.
This makes little sense to me. Surely to be worth doing at all, the purchase of a "project" needs to have legal paperwork to ensure that the IP is secure, and so on. Legal fees to get that drafted and reviewed will be approaching $5k. It's like trying to sell a micro-house for $5k.
Weird that anyone would acquire anything for <$5K; I would have thought that sensibly taking on any kind of going concern or project would require too much in the way of legal expenses to make it worth it.<p>Maybe I have an exaggerated notion of this after having been part of an 8-figure exit to an S&P 100 company, but I would figure you take on anything like this you're potentially buying something with an imminent lawsuit, patent infringement problem, etc. unless you do due diligence, but that said due diligence would be ridiculously expensive relative to the $ involved.<p>Do they provide any help with this issue, or are they a no-legals as well as a no-code startup?
Here's a list I put together last year of similar sites, I just added Tiny Acquisitions to it. Disclaimer, haven't looked at this in a while, some may be inactive.<p>Marketplace
<a href="https://microacquire.com/" rel="nofollow">https://microacquire.com/</a> - SaaS
<a href="https://flippa.com/" rel="nofollow">https://flippa.com/</a>
<a href="https://empireflippers.com/" rel="nofollow">https://empireflippers.com/</a> - Focus on Amazon but also SaaS and other online businesses
<a href="https://exchangemarketplace.com/" rel="nofollow">https://exchangemarketplace.com/</a> - run by Shopify
<a href="https://latonas.com/" rel="nofollow">https://latonas.com/</a>
<a href="https://websiteproperties.com/" rel="nofollow">https://websiteproperties.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.sideprojectors.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sideprojectors.com/</a>
Investors.club
<a href="https://app.centurica.com/marketwatch" rel="nofollow">https://app.centurica.com/marketwatch</a>
<a href="https://tinyacquisitions.com/home" rel="nofollow">https://tinyacquisitions.com/home</a><p>Brokers:
<a href="https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/</a>
<a href="https://feinternational.com/" rel="nofollow">https://feinternational.com/</a>
<a href="https://digitalexits.com/" rel="nofollow">https://digitalexits.com/</a>
<a href="https://thefbabroker.com/" rel="nofollow">https://thefbabroker.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.websiteclosers.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.websiteclosers.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.globalwiredadvisors.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.globalwiredadvisors.com/</a>
<a href="https://helloexit.com/" rel="nofollow">https://helloexit.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.wearebarney.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wearebarney.com/</a>
<a href="https://acquisitionsdirect.com/" rel="nofollow">https://acquisitionsdirect.com/</a><p>Listings only:
<a href="https://www.bizbuysell.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bizbuysell.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.businessbroker.net/" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessbroker.net/</a>
<a href="https://dealstream.com/" rel="nofollow">https://dealstream.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.businessesforsale.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessesforsale.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.loopnet.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.loopnet.com/</a>
These are a little too tiny. There are projects I would pursue as a side project, but not in the 5k territory (it's just not worth the effort), and I would be very concerned that they were simply using small projects to push malware.
Is anyone at HN interested in selling a project for under 5k? I’m interested in the concept, node.js applications preferred.<p>Minimal amount of profit is also somewhat preferred.<p>My email is my username + varela @ the google mail.
If somebody is selling something it's because it's not making them money, and that's the end of it. Nobody would sell you a project for 5k that's generating 1k per month. People sell when either the writing is on the wall, or they can't finish the project and don't care anymore. Just expect that.
What this is good for is people with failed projects who want to just sell them off so they can save face and say their project was "acquired" and technically not be lying.<p>If they can go a step further and send out press releases about the acquisition automatically that would be great, but without revealing the sum of the acquisition.