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Ask HN: Sell project?

6 pointstomw18089 comments

Hi all,

I guess I am not alone with this kind of situation, let me explain:

So, a couple of years ago I was writing together with some colleagues this php-project - a real estate platform targeting the German market. Its not a small hobby project, but still never made any money - which is the point. Because, after some initial response from the market, we knew we had to put in some extra effort (mainly features the market requested), but we had no time since (family, other jobs, projects, ...). Now is the time to either take the whole thing down or sell it, because keeping it running is not a real option anymore.

I am neither sure where to look for people who are interested, nor at which price-point. Of course, as some things are not finished the market requests, the whole traction is just missing. The project is now 5 years old, running since then without problems, but was not developed since anymore. It took around 400 man-hours to complete everything. At the end, its very sad, since it was running a lot of time, money and heart into the project, but that doesn't count, I know I know...

Do you think, is something like this sell-able, or should we just take it down? Where would you look for buyers for such a thing?

Thank you for your answers.

Thanks everyone for the infos, sorry for responding so late, busy as usual :)

Well, the platform would be a good start for anyone who wants to start off with real-estates in any way in Europe. Direct competitors to a real-estate platform: yes, many, as its "only" a platform. Expendable to what the market wants - speaking of more of a real-estate management software.

Doable up to this point in less than 400 hours? Probably not significantly less. A lot of time was running into the details: e.g. Import/export to and from other portals, looking into open formats around in Europe. Legal situation. What software has to be supported, etc... As always, theory and practice are two different things. One would pretty quickly find its boundaries if coming from the US and plan to do anything in the European markets. A clear advantage when doing something here from Austria, right in the heart of the EU. Except someone has millions to invest, then it doesn't matter. Anyways.

So, basically, interesting for people who want to do something with real estates at the European markets. Who plan to extend the functionality and who are lacking the $200k+ seed money. Who do not have the time and the energy for extensive research on those markets.

the userbase: around 1k registered users (mainly estate agents) with around 1.5k active estates currently online. We clearly lacked of marketing, and the endurance to properly market the product. It was a naive idea at the beginning - no question to that - but lack of time, money and motivation let the whole thing fade away.

Thanks for the extra information.

With only 1k users and many direct competitors you would probably find it hard to find a buyer. It's not the 400 hours you have invested that is the issue, it's the number of hours required to add the requested functionality. That same effort could be, in principle, applied to any of the competing platforms to increase their functionality.

As learning experiences go, you learnt your lessons very cheaply.

Mind to share/send me your project? I am searching for good RE software for Spain, might be possible to scale from German.

Well taking it down does not seem to be a good idea. You should atleast wait a little more and try to sell it. Its worth trying than taking it down right away. You can put banner on your website, letting people know that you are selling the product. Or you can pitch existing similar but low features websites and show them your more powerful feature rich product.

You say it (your RE platform) has been running for 5 years. How many people are using it? Why do they use it? Is there anything out there that directly competes with it? Would it be applicable to other countries?

Lastly, but most importantly, do you or any of your colleagues have the time and energy to make the effort to sell the website?

Perhaps if you could answer these questions then HN-folks might be able to make more useful suggestions.

It's very doubtful you'll be able to sell a product that doesn't make any money. Especially a very old project with no updates.

The price for small websites is usually a multiple of revenue e.g. 2-5 times yearly revenue. Since your revenue is 0, the price would end up 0.

That being said, the https://flippa.com/ is a marketplace where people buy & sell websites.

Thank, you. I didn't know neither the formula, nor the website.

I doubt that you'd be able sell it. Software itself isn't worth much, the traction and user base is what counts. Also, what took 400 man-hours 5 years go may only take 40 hours today due to new technologies/platforms.

Related read: http://avc.com/2014/07/the-dentist-office-software-story/

Hellow, There is many ways to sell your project, if you want to. and for your question that if you should sell or take it down? my advice is , it depends on your feelings or what you feel about i, if you want to sell or just take it down?

regards,

Edward

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