
Ask HN: How can I sell a piece of my profitable SaaS? - tkdchamp
Hi,<p>I&#x27;ve been running a Saas now for about 6-7 years and it&#x27;s been going really well. It&#x27;s very profitable (around 200k&#x2F;year) and not taking up too much of my time.<p>I have now reached the point where I would like to sell part of it to an investor (or someone who brings expertise that can help grow the business even more).<p>It would be very easy for me to share revenue, as my payment provider allows me to setup a royalty partner and that would divide revenue automatically.<p>I&#x27;ve thought about going through a broker, but they take a ridiculous percentage (up to 15%) and their best interest is to do as many deals as possible rather than get me the best deal.<p>Any thoughts?
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davismwfl
Are you looking to sell a component of the SaaS or just to get a partner that
will help you grow the business more?

Selling a portion of the business that is profitable so you can pursue another
segment is not much different than selling any other business, you are selling
the assets, liabilities and income stream. To do this you need to either use a
broker or find a buyer yourself.

If you are instead just looking for someone to buy in and work with you to
grow the business that is a different avenue and brokers wouldn't be who I'd
ever look at for that type of scenario. Essentially you are looking for a co-
owner that wants to be operational, so most investors are also probably the
wrong avenue and you should instead be looking for co-founder types. To do
that you need to find out what skills you really need that would compliment
your skills and help the business grow and you should be looking down that
angle.

You might consider just hiring in a hungry new-grad or experience manager that
can help scale the business but is just an employee or contractor. This way
while you give up some of your profit temporarily in the form of pay to this
person, in the long run you'll maintain ownership and the higher profit as
they grow the business. When I got bored with a small but profitable business
prior I just hired a person to run it for me. Sure they took some of the first
years profits, but they grew the business and I was only involved basically
for status meetings and guidance. So in the end the business became more
profitable and freed me up to pursue other ventures. I would do this again in
a heartbeat. It also lets you sell the business later on for a higher value
usually because it is self sustained, plus you personally don't have to be
committed to any long term support agreement. Usually those businesses sell
easier and faster because they are less dependent on a founder operator.

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tkdchamp
I'd prefer a partner that would deliver a new impetus, but would still want a
buy-in in that case.

There's not much work to outsource at the moment. Right now everything pretty
much runs by itself and most days it's minutes rather than hours of work.
That's also why I found it hard to search for someone to take over. I had
smaller sites in the past where I'd hire help and it would definitely pay off.
But this is such a niche and (like I said) such a small amount of support that
it's not really worth it.

I've setup everything in such a way that it's quickly transferable, because
almost everything is automated or documented...

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rchaudhary
Have you considered [https://tinyseed.com/](https://tinyseed.com/)?

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tkdchamp
No - I wasn't familiar with them. But I'm not looking to start up so much as I
am to transfer / sell off.

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cloudking
Is there a way to get in touch with you to learn more?

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tkdchamp
yes - try sava.lisandro@iiron.us (this is a temporary email)

