Ask HN: Can I sell my early stage startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can I sell my early stage startup?

7 pointssu4sale10 comments

I have an early stage start up. It's a subscription model business. All the software/website is fully operational and customer ready.

A sudden change in my health has made it necessary for me to either sell or shut down. I've spent the last year of my life building this company. Money is not much of an issue, I simply want to hand over the business to someone excited and capable. If I can recoup some of what it cost me to build this company, that's merely a bonus.

Is there a market for this? I would have been thrilled if someone dumped a primed and ready startup into my lap, but perhaps I am alone with that thought.

A fair amount of knowledge in our business domain is necessary, but any intelligent hacker can pick up the basics within a few months.

What are my options?

View on HN

options:

1) shut it down.

2) sell it. yes, you can sell it, although it will be difficult and/or won't sell for nearly as much as it would if it were fully established with paying customers.

3) find a partner and offer them a majority stake to take it over completely. you retain some reasonable stake in the company and act in an advisory role as much as you're capable of. or not, but realize that if you're totally hands off, you shouldn't expect to keep a big chunk of it.

4) keep working on it when you have the opportunity.

i mean, completely dependent upon what it is, i'd be interested in #2 or #3.

Firstly, sorry to hear about your health.

I'd approach similar, established companies that would be interested in acquiring your tech, or could use it in some form. As a last resort you could also consider splitting it up and selling it off in parts, assuming it's modular enough to do so.

You should go some way to getting a good amount of your investment back.

Good luck.

Can you send me more info? davidsmit at google's email service. I might be interested.

You can try listing it for sale on Flippa. Although if its not making money, I'm not sure you'll get much for it.

If the business is promising I'm sure it'll get picked up.

in YC parlance we are ramen profitable, but i don't think flippa is really what i am looking for.

I think we need more info about the site, care to post the URL?

why not? usually you can sell for a nice multiple of monthly revenue on flippa. you can also try ebay, but you'd have to get the word out a lot more.

I am interested. And would like more information. My email is in my profile.

What's the business domain ?

Sell it here on HN

Reply on news.ycombinator.com