Ask HN: Where can I buy real software companies?
So I have a software company that is generating a good amount of cash. I'd like to buy another small software company and (ideally) optimize it and make some more money.
Problem - most of the sites, like flippa, have crap businesses for sale. Is there a real place that one can find $50k - $500k software businesses for sale? Side projects that people make money from but don't have the time for?
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 206 ms ] threadhttp://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/
http://empireflippers.com/marketplace/
It seems like the best deals come through old fashioned networking. Maybe look at several businesses that would compliment your existing product and get in touch with the owners?
Come out to Microconf sometime. You can meet ~300 nobodies all at once!
(I think the advantage this approach has over the one you've suggested is that the product is always capable of making money even from the very beginning, just on a smaller scale at first. I think this is a critical feedback mechanism so that folks know whether what they're developing is actually useful to folks.)
I would claim there is still a large chunk of areas that have very poor service from the software field and would find tremendous value of a trivial software product that is just applied correctly. So it's more about service design rather than hightech, if one is just looking to make a profit.
As an example...
Building and construction is still in infancy as what it comes to utilizing digital technology. The field is fragmented with long subcontractor chains. The digitalization that happened in e.g. car manufacturing is not yet complete. The field is dominated with clunky, expensive cad packages which, while some may be eatabslished standards, are never the less decades old piles of legacy software. Most of the data is still transmitted between parties in paper drawings.
Why not split the $3-5 million into risk-based chunks and invest in startups instead? You only need 1 of them to hit 50x.
Capital is free flowing at the moment and a legit revenue-generating, valuable, scalable business shouldn't have to cash out this early or this low.
The $500k/year business does, conservatively, cost $2-3 million (using the common "5x the yearly revenue" formula).
If you don't take into account expenses then you get some really wacky valuations: ie a company is in the business of selling houses (or other large cost item) for a small percentage higher than they bought them. If you don't take into account the cost of buying the house and running the business, and just look at the revenue from each house sale you will drastically over value the business. If they sell 50 $100,000 houses that they bought for $99k each and it cost them $500 in fees per house sale they would have $25k in actual earnings but $5 million in revenue. Valuing on a common "5x the yearly revenue" you would be willing to pay $25 million for a business that produces $25k per year (if you are willing to do so and have a lot of money I'll sell you a lot of businesses like that!).
Software is a higher margin business of course, but at the end of the day as an investor I care about how much cash is going to go into my pocket due to an investment rather than how much total cash passes through the companies books.
Even the 2x to 3x of earnings that sole proprietor/small software shops are getting now sounds outrageous to me. You're betting on growth (and paying like it's there) and hoping that clients don't leave for 2 to 3 years. Higher multiples can make sense if there are expenses you can cut to get earnings (or a very clear, easy to see growth opportunity [if that is there then why are they selling of course?]), otherwise you're just tossing away money.
http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-197-h...
Also, it is extremely difficult to sign an NDA just to inquire more about a sale as feinternational does not give any details upfront. Totally understandable that the company in question wants to maintain its privacy, secrets etc but this is a difficult situation. How do we move forward without knowing more about a company but they want you to sign NDA even without giving any details.
Think about it: I have this company for sale but I won't tell you which one it is until you sign this document.
What's is there to lose for the company to have its name spread to those that might be interested?
It's not like they're advertising the name in the NYT or making it public other than on a one-to-one basis with leads and those leads are definitely not going to publish the name if they're really interested because the last thing they need is more interest from others.
if you're making 33.3% of $50k-$500K per year... the very top end of that is close to what you'd get working for someone else, and usually you don't have to put down a half million to get those jobs.
So, while I don't think I'd sell you my company for 3x SDC, I completely don't blame you for wanting to pay less than that. It'd really only make sense if you were sure that I had things setup to the point where I didn't have to do any work (which is something I can deceive myself about... I don't see how you could get a solid answer out of someone who had an interest in deceiving you.)
If the business can run without any input from the founder a) why would they sell it? and b) if they did they would sell at a much greater multiple.
1) sudden financial hardship like hospital bills
2) a divorce court judge ordered it
3) a non-founding owner has no emotional attachment and wants to switch to another investment.
Online companies that produce passive or near-passive income are bound to become obsolete quickly. The internet moves quickly in a lot of niches. The potential lifespan of the business affects the multiple.
But it's just plain wrong to think that you can look at the current numbers and assume they will go forward without more input from the owner.
I would argue that the whole idea of 'passive income' when combined with the idea of a 'small business' is a little flawed, or really, a lot flawed. Owning a small business is not like owning stock in google. You are an active participant in the business. A small business owner is fundamentally different from someone who owns shares in a large corporation.
I kind of like using marxist terminology for it. We are bourgeois[1]. We are not full members of the capitalist class; we still need to combine our labor with that capital, or else it's all gonna go to shit pretty fast.
But the real takaway you need to understand is that owning a small business is not at all like owning stock in a large business. It's a completely different thing, and your return on investment capital should be very different (and in my opinion, much higher.)
[1]no, not necessarily in the 'poor taste in lawn furniture' sense. I don't even have a lawn.
If I had to come up with something... Risk that the business fails. Some would rather take $200k than hope a $66k income sustains in 2019 and beyond.
And liquidity, although it's usually not terribly difficult to borrow money if you're cashflow positive, it can be very nice to get $200k today to jumpstart an even more promising business or jumpstart a mortgage, instead of delay that for 4 years.
In business it's a bad idea to deceive business partners or to sign an agreement intending to ignore it. Your reputation will catch up with you, and don't be surprised when you get sued.
Public listings increase the number of copycats the end buyer will have to deal with. This isn't much of an issue for a well-established company with significant market share, but it is for a young software company fighting it out with their other (early) competitors.
With interest rates so low, it seems like businesses with recurring revenue that can recoup their costs in 3 years are a steal.
If you're looking to sell and walk away from a founder-run SAAS startup 3x is about right.
Add multiples if you have employees, long term contracts, significant market share etc etc.
Fascinating. I just messed around in Excel to see what the DCF discount rate would be, and it's exactly 25% discount to get to the 3x number.
Why would i sell my business at 3x SDC (which, if it's a small one-person shop, probably just 15-20 months' worth of all 'take home money')? Only if was a 'crap business' as said, and i know it is heading straight into the ground and can somehow conceal it from the buyer.
I've worked at a few companies where we've been sold to VCs and the like.
Anything more, and the risk of no recuperating the invested money is too great. (unless you find a sucker to dump it on, which is basically the current buisness model for most of silicon valley)
The SDR calculation [1] excludes compensation and looks like a generous net revenue measure. Earnings per share -- from which P/E multiples on public companies are typically calculated -- includes compensation, interest expense, various non-cash adjustments, and adjustment for dilution.[2] Generally you would expect the SDR number to be higher than net income and correspondingly attract a lower multiple in estimating firm value.
As others have commented, there are additional reasons why valuation metrics for large-cap listed companies don’t make for useful comparison with SaaS startups. See also Heidi Roizen’s cautionary tale [3] about the perils of multiple envy.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9589223
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnings_per_share see also ../Net_income
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9516910
I have a website that makes quiet some amount of money (at least according to my own criteria) and out of the blue I have been contacted by a so called buying/sellin sites company, named Hautesite, on behalf of a potential client interested in buying my website.
Ever heard of Hautesite? Their french website is http://www.hautesite.fr/, they say they are from the UK and are big in the UK (but no website to be found). I was wondering if it was a scam?
I even got into a Skype call with one of the employee who seemed very professional and so on...
But still... a buying and selling sits business with NO website in english, no social network, no presence on social media... I find it very strange.
Thanks in advance for your help :)
Nicolas.
A few recommendations based on my experience (YMMV):
- Cash is king. While you should definitely structure the deal with a transition period, an all-cash offer carries more weight than a deal where you are financing some/all of the price. You'll need to show proof of funds too, so make sure you can do that easily.
- Get your attorney on standby. You'll probably need help with offer letters and purchase agreements. Plan on going through a couple rounds of revisions for both.
Feel free to email me if you have more questions.
I'm in Austin. Lemme know if you want to meet. My email is HN username + gmail.
(Caveat: the size of the business you're looking for is on the lower end of the deals on Axial)
> Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
EDIT: I'm not sure why your original comment would have been downvoted, but this is probably why your self-reply is getting downed.
(Some, but not all, due-diligence is worry alleviation through hazing ritual business theatre.).
"Send me an email, we'll talk"
Is it a secret to be shopping your website/product to a new management? Why?
It's a hard thing to do, trade-in somwthing more precious than cash, labor, time and effort, life... so have a good time and aim make people consistently, insanely happy and always satisficed
I don't know if I'm entirely serious. It just makes money and I don't work it properly. It should make $90K-$110K if someone cared about it.
Two thoughts:
1. If there are prior successful sales, show those!
2. If possible, try to show more (even if this means linking out to projects for sale on different sites until you get some traction).