Is this sellable?

Introductions
#1

Hello, Apologies for my first post being a request for help :slight_smile:

About me: Business skills 0/10. Coding skills 8/10. Degree Com Sci, 20 years xp in online business applications.

Over a period of 6 years I developed a combination of an online store aimed at a couple of the more difficult ecommerce sectors (fashion and fractional sales) and a data transfer service for ecommerce. Over 10,000 hours, hey, I don’t watch TV, you know how many hours are in a day and I enjoyed the challenge.

Some months after a soft launch I collapse, 2 brain aneurysms explode in my head, 12 days in an ICU, 3 months rehab. 1,000 km walking and now 3,500km bike riding I am really happy and generally really healthy, except for probably never working as a commercial programmer again (scary headaches if I spend too much time sitting, thinking).

So there is a very well done code base languishing and all I really want is some few $$ to buy 3 e-bikes to explore the beautiful forests of S.E. Queensland with my two teenagers. To me experiences are what matters in life and that view has only been concreted by recent experience on my literal death bed (I was revived a couple of times).

I created a forsale page and have been exploring google adwords to try and drive traffic to it so far without success. I guess people just don’t wake up in the morning going “what complex failed startup can I buy today”.

Thoughts?

Here is the forsale page www.ecomexodus.com/forsale

Thanks for any advice in advance
Shane :slight_smile:

1 Like
#2

Just to clarify, I have created an adwords campaign with keywords such as “buy SAAS business”, “Buy startup” which so far have gotten absolutely zero impressions so am open to suggestions as to if there is a possible audience and how to reach them.

#3

Do you have any recurring revenue from this business? If so, you should contact a broker for selling websites, such as https://feinternational.com/. They’ll help you decide on a fair price and they’ll also help you find a buyer.

If you have zero revenue, or close to it, you’ll have a hard time selling this, I’m afraid.

It seems unfair, but potential buyers don’t value products by the amount of work it took to build the product. They value products by current sales.

#4

No recurring revenue any more, it was grossing ~2k/month. Thanks for the link, interesting.

But it seems to me that valuing an application by it’s sales only is a bit of a day trader way of looking at things, rather than since this is an application rather than a website it has a functional or productivity value. I’ve worked in a couple of companies where there are 6 or more people working just on transferring people to the system being sold.

In that context 3 ebikes in trade ( :slight_smile: :slight_smile: ) or ~$10k USD would be a bargain for the increased productivity and accuracy. I guess cold calling prospective large ecommerce design houses may be the only possibility.

#5

You were grossing ~2k/month at $49 each? Assuming you’re getting a fraction of the ecommerce migration business, there are that many businesses changing ecommerce platforms every month?!

Given that there’s likely a need for human intervention in many/most migrations, it would seem manual assistance costs would cut deeply into any profits at that rate.

I’d have to agree with @SteveMcLeod that it’d be hard to find a buyer, and it is absolutely true that the value of any software product to a potential new owner lies exclusively in its ability to generate revenue in some manner.

#6

Thanks for your time gentlemen :slight_smile: I now have a partner coming on board so with some help it will be back in action and on the rise shortly.
As to the number of migrations per month there is no definitive number but from working in the space for over a decade I would guess that the lifetime of an ecommerce installation to be around 4-8 years and there are >2,000,000 sites with ecommerce functionality so I was probably only handling a tiny fraction.
It’s an automated service so apart from no-one reading the directions (lol) and requiring instruction there wasn’t any intervention required. Some short instructional videos are coming since we guess that people may be more receptive to them.

#7

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. If you want to sell the business then I agree with Steve - approach a broker such as FEInternational. I think Google Ads will be a waste of money. Also don’t ask for too little, or no-one will take you seriously.