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Ask HN: Do you have a SaaS tool or small online business for sale?

23 points by trykondev ↗ HN
I'm interested in buying ownership of a SaaS tool or other small online business. I suspect that there may be others on HN who would also be interested in seeing posts about tools/businesses that are available.

My ideal range would probably be something worth 4-figures or low 5-figures with some amount of active users and existing monetization model, but certainly willing to discuss deals outside that range as well if they're a good fit.

If you are not comfortable posting here for whatever reason but would still like to reach out, my email is in my profile.

I'd also be interested to know if there is a website/platform anyone can recommend for buying/selling projects of this scope.

Looking forward to seeing what's out there!

10 comments

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davidsojevic
In terms of sites/marketplaces that will have listings meeting the low 5-figure criteria, these two will likely be your best bet -- though because they do deal with a lot of lower value sites, there is a lot of lower quality and "starter" sites that you'll need to filter out.

https://www.sideprojectors.com/

https://www.flippa.com/

The following sites generally have listings starting at low-to-mid 5-figures and you'll even regularly see 8-figure listings on them too. Some of these will also require you to sign NDAs before getting further information on a listing, but there's usually enough information on the overview for you to decide whether or not it's in the category/style of purchase you'd be interested in.

http://www.microacquire.com/

https://latonas.com/

https://feinternational.com/

https://empireflippers.com/marketplace/

trykondev
Thank you so much for the resources! Will definitely check these out. Very helpful to have a couple concrete recommendations for marketplaces that are aligned with my price range -- most of the ones I'd seen previously were 6 figures & up.
quickthrower2
Buyer beware a lot of people make a living selling and flipping sites that are ahem... not worth the money. In fact expect 99% on some of those sites to be trash and spend a lot of time on DD. There are probably some good ones on there.

I recommend participating in forums and getting to know people that way, then reach out to someone if you’d like to buy their thing. Mostly they’ll say no but you never know your luck.

jesterson
Couldn't emphasise this more.

99% of "projects" on those sites is just crap - bloated numbers on injections of paid traffic to show "potential" and bunch of other ways to disguise crap.

I was a regular there but after a while decided my time simply is more valuable than poking into pile of shit.

trykondev
Thank you for weighing in with this perspective -- definitely saw a lot of this yesterday while combing through listings.
davidsojevic
Definitely a good point to raise for the sites with the lower value listings such as Flippa and Side Projectors. You'll find that you can discard the majority of listings on them quite quickly just with your own "looks too good to be true" test. I personally reduce my searches to listings of sites/services that have been operational for two years or longer and have had a long history of traffic and sales.

The other sites like latonas have listings that are generally via brokers and the quality is significantly higher on average though the prices reflect that with multiples of 4-5x and upwards not being uncommon.

In all cases, you'll want to do your due diligence and ask for things like profit & loss statements, read-only access to their analytics, etc. as you're more seriously considering any of the listings.

trykondev
Thanks very much for the input -- definitely saw a lot of the "too good to be true" stuff yesterday as I worked through the listings.
trykondev
Thank you for taking the time to share that warning -- I'm new to this process so it's great for me to have the appropriate amount of caution.
Nilef
Yes - Got one I bought a while back and am looking to sell on, can give me more details if you email nile@hey.com