

37signals selling Sortfolio on Flippa for 480k - jroes
https://flippa.com/2739829-sortfolio-com-web-design-marketplace-w-220k-annual-revenue

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pavs
Why (to me) sortofolio is a bad investment for a buyer:

1) They made a big deal about the sell. "We are selling it within x days and
if no one buys we will be shutting it down" because apparently its not worth
their time; but at the same time, according to them it takes zero involvement
from their part. Doesn't sell it in x days but makes it available at flippa.

2) Doesn't answer any important questions regarding the sale on flippa. Either
its not worth their time or they are not telling the whole story.

3) As someone who would use sortfolio this looks like a complete lack of
confidence on the business/platform by their owners and has unstable future as
a product, so why bother using the service?

4) Sortfolio almost definitely exist as a platform and makes money simply
because of its association with 37singnals. The product is nether impressive
or unique.

To me the whole "will shut it down in x, if not sold" not only leaves a bad
taste towards sortfolio but also its parent company 37signal. I am not sure
exactly why.

~~~
iuguy
Not to mention the people who've paid $99/month for a service. Surely if
they're going to shut it down they need to sunset it properly.

It's always interesting when the hype meets reality, and it seems that the
users of flippa are far more astute and deserve more credit than they're often
given. They're asking the right questions and getting no answers. Clearly
37signals may price it at $250,000 but doesn't value it as such.

EDIT: Changed to $99/year. Thanks for pointing that out melvinram.

~~~
melvinram
It's $99/month, not $99/year.

~~~
creativityhurts
On Flippa they say "The premium membership is sold for $99/month. This is how
we generate revenue."

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tferris
Now, I understand DHH's resentment (or envy) against Pinterest, Instagram and
Quora—everbody's raising money like shit while Sortfolio stays unsold for
weeks. This shows one more time in which league 37signals actually plays.

Doing scalable business isn't 37signals' strength. And selling, networking and
dealmaking neither => Flippa is generally for smaller sites/SEO stuff for low
prices. This size of sale is better done through contacts or just a good
seller who has these contacts and gets a commission. Otherwise you risk
reputation damage and external effects on your other brands and entire group
if offering your products/companies directly on Flippa or eBay (which feels
just desperate).

Anyway, they had to raise funds and put a dedicated team on it when
Sortfolio/Haystack was at its peak. Now, it's too late looking at Sortfolios
decreasing traffic on Alexa. Nobody will buy it and that's something DHH never
will get: it's not about your _current_ revenues or status, it's always about
you _future_ expectation when valuing assets/companies/startups/businesses
_and that's how you sell_

~~~
drats
Yes, it's always struck me that many 37signals posts are lathered in passive-
aggressive envy regarding other businesses rather than just getting on with
their own. The only good 37signals post I can remember that wasn't of that
kind, or just trite advice, was the nice photos of their office environments.
It constantly amazes me how much coverage they get on HN. But I guess a lot of
people use RoR as a breadwinner and have a connection in that way to them.

If you look at another "builder of tools the community uses" like, say, Linus
it's different. His blog doesn't really make it onto HN, as it's often
personal, whereas his G+ posts sometimes do. His G+ posts are usually about
something specific though rather than recycled trash from popular business /
personal wealth books - not looking at anyone in particular - with some added
passive-aggressive venom towards the more successful.

~~~
davidw
I don't think it's actually envy, it's simply making some noise, which gets
them more attention and thus more business.

~~~
tbeseda
The irony, of course, is the name of their blog.

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danneu
Been listed for 20 days already, all questions remain unanswered in the
comments, no analytics/data provided, listed profit == listed revenue.

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sgdesign
The way Sortfolio works is that designers and agencies pay to be listed on the
site. But if you build a good following on Dribbble, you'll start receiving
new job offers every week. So why would you pay $99 a month for Sortfolio?

This means Sortfolio doesn't include the best designers, since they don't need
the service it provides. There are still some good design agencies on there
(because they can afford the price), but I'm not sure how long that will
remain a viable market.

The bottom line is that if your barrier to entry is money instead of talent,
it'll be hard to reach the best people.

~~~
jfarmer
This is one of the fundamental things 37signals doesn't seem to understand. In
a winner-take-all market, which includes any market with strong network
effects, you want to get as big as you can as fast as you can.

Charging for the product makes that harder and opens you up to having someone
compete against you for free while monetizing indirectly (via ads, affiliate
revenue, secondary services, whatever).

See also: about.me vs. flavors.me

It's like they're constitutionally incapable of recognizing this.

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raganwald
Outside of the tech echo chamber, selling a profitable business that isn't
integrating well with your core direction is pretty common. Jack Welch of GE
was famous for selling off any business that wasn't--or couldn't quickly
become--#1 or #2 in its market, no matter how much cash it was throwing off.

You're doing well if you're creating new businessses, trying them out, closing
the losers, keeping the winners, and selling off the decent-but-not-fabulous
rump to other people who can make them even more profitable.

------
mikeryan
This was covered a few weeks ago. A lot of info in the thread with input from
Jason.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941230>

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batterseapower
On the face of it this doesn't sale make a lot of economic sense, so this says
to me that _signalling_ to customers and employees that 37 signals is serious
about focus is worth $18k a month to them. Viewed from this perspective the
decision makes a bit more sense.

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pbreit
There's one major problem for the new owner: all paying customers will need to
re-sign up for a new billing plan.

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amoore
Auction ends in a couple of hours. No bids. I wonder if they'll really shut it
down.

------
perlpimp
I wonder if original domain name haystack.com is also included.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
it isnt

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its_so_on
Wow, this whole thing -- which first I read about here,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941230> and in which that blog entry
itself had said "A year ago we put Sortfolio up for sale..." -- is turning
into an extremely instructive example of how _not_ to flip a web service (or
maybe anything). Looking at all the comments, it's obvious that you can't even
get pocket change for a mature site with paying customers, by saying what
37signals is saying about sortfolio.

