Ask HN: is there a marketplace for code bases, startups, etc.? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: is there a marketplace for code bases, startups, etc.?

5 pointsapi9 comments

Let's say you have a nearly turn-key startup ready to go with an interesting and working product, but something might be about to happen in your life that would mean you'd no longer be as interested in seeing it through.

Is there a marketplace for such things anywhere? Is there a place where entrepreneurs who have money and are looking for another thing to try might purchase such things and take them over, and where makers could sell them?

(Imagine the idea already has some level of market validation in the form of existing but inferior competitors.)

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Generally such businesses get sold directly by the owner approaching interested parties (companies in the same space, competitors, etc.).

If they end up on a public market it generally means that no-one in that space was interested in it, which is a huge negative flag (i.e. strong indication it's a dud) which drives the price down so much it's often not worthwhile doing the sale (i.e. handling the legal, accounting cost and processed aren't worthwhile).

I'd thought about that, and wasn't sure if approaching a potential competitor would look like an ultimatum and just piss them off. "Pay for this or I release it and compete with you."

Of course (a) I guess that's business, and (b) if I were the competitor, had the money, and wanted to get a leg up, I might actually be pleased. It would depend on my position.

There was a recent Sell HN thread where people were posting projects they wanted to sell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5803374 . Hopefully this will be a recurring monthly event, so you might be able to put it up then,

I'm assuming there is no users and/or revenue stream. So your talking about an untested business plan, some intellectual property ie code, trademarks, patents. I don't know of anything but I'd be interested to see. Yuo might think about selling it as a service and white labeling the functionality.

http://us.businessesforsale.com/us/search/Internet-Businesse...

That is the major one.

www.flippa.com

Flippa looks geared only toward web apps with web traffic, not other kinds of things.

What is your startup?

Virtual distributed Ethernet.

It's about 95% of the way to being turn-key. I plan to move ahead and release, but recent events in my life have called into question whether I have time to truly take it all the way. So I've decided to explore other options just for the hell of it.

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