Ask HN: Is it a good idea to sell my startup?
I have been running my startup for a while, no seed funding and still was able get around ~$500 (ish) monthly profits.
Yet I was thinking that if I could sell it I would have more money to start something new plus to help me with my college.
I would like an advice from someone with more experience, should I sell my startup and attempt to create something else or focus more on my product?
Url: http://skyul.com
22 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 61.4 ms ] threadIf you've done your best and you can't get past that $500 barrier then move on. But getting from $500 to $5000 should be a shorter path than starting a new product from nothing.
Keep doing that, you'll get better at it the more you try / practice / fail / succeed, and the skills will be vital on your next project when you run into this exact same problem just after you launch.
Basically, considering that you mention the proxy industry is pretty big, your offering is just not competitive! Yet with a few simple cosmetic changes, the look (and thus the impact on first-time visitors) could be improved hugely. It might make all the difference...
If 'proxy industry is pretty big with over 1 mil searches monthly' then why don't you target some of them, especially the ones having low competition in SERPs ? Use Google keyword tool/planner and search suggestion box to get some ideas on this.
+ improve landing page title (currently it's 'SkyUl', which could be changed to your-title-with-primary-keyword : SkyUl)
+ also improve h1
There you go.
If the answer to that is a decent hourly rate, do that and then just start doing something else.
If it's not, and you aren't able to figure out growth, you may want to shut the doors, as I think it's not likely that you'll see a lot of buyers looking for $6K annual revenue, even at high margins.
I'm not that good at marketing either, but I'm having to figure it out. We programmer types think that "if you build it, they will come", and that a better mousetrap will trump any need for a sales and marketing strategy beyond a good checkout page. The truth is, if you don't figure out some of the marketing basics for yourself, at least enough to know what type of marketing experts to use, you'll be likely to have the same problems with your next venture. You might get lucky and stumble into a hot market, but if you don't, marketing will be the difference between being in the top tier making a double digit percentage of the available revenue in the market and being an also-ran making a pittance.
The most prominent item on the page is a search box... but I don't even know what I'm supposed to search for – apparently search terms? Why? Your page doesn't tell me anything I need to know.
And the main call to action – "Start an account today" – is smaller than the search button... and even below the fold on my screen.
Bottom line – read up on building effective landing pages! Start here for a quick summary: https://www.formstack.com/the-anatomy-of-a-perfect-landing-p...
You'll need to know this kind of thing to build a successful project in any niche.
In general, the new website will help but probably less than most people think. The most important thing for a product is distribution channels until they build their own brand. For a product like yours (either) you need to get a view on what your expected customer life value is, what margin you expect to retain and then look at distribution channels you can fit. An obvious one is Adwords. Test using social as a knowledge point. Also look to resell your product via other seo 'experts' as you might get fast recognition through this.
I'm not kidding about the distribution focus. As a young marketer I was so concerned about a perfect website and content. Experience has taught me I will take a weak product & sale point coupled with good distribution over a great product/website with weak distribution any-day.
Your design and the improvements and optimizations don't mean anything until after you find a way to reach your market. If you can't reach your customers nothing else matters. You have some paying customers so apart from typos your website is good enough at least for now.
$2/day = $60/month.
I would suggest a way to get a free trial, for at least a week that's linked to a credit card or paypal account or something to keep people from just signing up for tons of free trials. Kind of like how Netflix or Hulu does it.
If you are serious about selling, I'm currently looking at acquiring products in your profit range. Please email me if you'd like to discuss.
So there may well be some potential improvements to be made there!