
Ask HN: Do you have a side project that you would like to sell? - skdjksjdksjdk
Many HNers have side projects that make small amount of money or have a userbase. If you would like to sell your webapp&#x2F;mobile app, please specify. Don&#x27;t forget to add contact information<p>Note to moderators: Can we please make this a recurring question like whoishiring thread?
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20years
Small ecommerce site selling fidget spinners. It's sold $4k worth of fidget
spinners in the past 2 months.

Hosting costs $10/mo Shipping & support take about 5 to 10 hours total per
month.

I started this with my 13 year old son over the summer as a way of teaching
him how to launch a website, advertise it and sell products through the site.

Now that school will be starting up again here soon, we will not have the time
to put into it. I have a few other sites/SaaS products that take up most of my
time and he is going to be busy with school so I am looking to offload the
site.

Email: bizdiscussions at gmail dot com

~~~
nodesocket
Are you using Shopify? Drop shipping?

~~~
20years
Custom Woocommerce implementation on Wordpress. Custom plugins for automating
things such as shipping labels, packing slips, etc. Hosted on DigitalOcean.

No drop shipping. We spend about 20 to 30 minutes per week packing and
shipping inventory from our garage.

~~~
robtaylor
How do you generate relevant traffic out of interest?

~~~
20years
Search engines, social media, videos, content, etc. A variety of different
ways.

------
espitia
Sort of related:

I launched an app a few years ago and sold it for $8.5k. I wish more people
knew that exits don't always mean $1m. There's a big market for small project.

link to the project: [http://www.germanespitia.com/habit-
streaks](http://www.germanespitia.com/habit-streaks)

~~~
statictype
Nice. What strategies did you use for organic growth of your website?

------
manuelflara
[http://founderpact.com](http://founderpact.com) It's not making any revenue
so any offer will be considered. It's a tool for helping inexperienced
founders avoid common mistakes when starting a business with someone, both
legally and in terms of making sure you're on the same page. Did it after
getting very burned on a business venture because of this. Got retweeted by
some TechCrunch writer and also got to the frontpage (I think) of ProductHunt
a while back. But I never got the time to get the product to where I wanted it
to be (pay a $49 fee to get a good legally binding agreement based on the data
you provided that you can just download, print and sign, and avoid problems
and lawyer fees) nor market it properly (I also think it would be great to
partner up with people who organize hackatons etc). Built in Rails, hosted in
DigitalOcean. Email in profile

------
africajam
I recently got offered $10,000 for my open source real estate website builder
(PropertyWebBuilder) on condition I close down the project. Turned it down but
still not entirely sure if it was the right decision.

~~~
deedubaya
Thanks for your contribution to open source <3

------
ckuhl

       Can we please make this a recurring question
    

Wouldn't it be worth doing a trial period of manual posts first, to gauge the
amount of interest?

~~~
dsacco
Agreed, and can we please _not_ make this a thing, actually? Because it
happens regularly already and in my opinion it's pretty noisy. We have
questions like:

"What is your pain point?"

"What do you wish existed?"

"What problem in your industry would you pay to solve?"

"What is your side project?"

"How much do you earn from your side project each month?"

It just seems obsessive. There is sometimes a fair amount of participation but
I don't really understand what people are getting out of it.

Has anyone who has ever asked about industry pain points on Hacker News ever
successfully built and launched a solution? Has anyone who has ever asked
about side projects for sale ever bought one or aided in one being purchased
by bringing attention to another commenter?

Maybe making it a regular thing would help in that it each iteration only turn
up _once_ per _n_ days, but otherwise I feel like these questions come up
enough already.

~~~
thenomad
This is radically different to the above questions (which you may not find
personally useful, but to the more bootstrap/entrepreneurially minded HNers
are often pretty helpful or interesting.)

They are general information/discussion posts.

This post's a direct service connecting HNers with assets to HNers who want to
buy them. Assuming there are a reasonable number of both, and the replies in
the thread so far suggest there are, it's useful to have it recur for the same
reason that "Who's Hiring?" is useful.

As for your question on whether anyone's ever bought a side project from a
thread like this - the comments on this thread alone suggest there's a fair
bit of interest in purchasing side projects, at least.

------
nodesocket
Fielding serious offers for my startup
[http://commando.io](http://commando.io). Looking for 3-4x ARR.

Commando.io is a web based SSH platform for running commands on servers. The
commands (recipes) are centrally stored and versioned and there is a complete
execution history. There is an API, CLI, and iOS app for running commands on
servers on the go as well.

If interested see HN profile for my contact info.

~~~
AdamGibbins
This looks like a less featured version of Rundeck, does anything set it
apart?

------
21throwaways
What do side-projects typically sell for?

My own is 8 months old. It averages $3K/month in revenue with costs of
$100/month. Mine is a plugin not SAAS. I've had 100 sales so far, currently
around 5-10 sales/month. I offer 30-day no-questions-asked refunds, but no-one
has requested one yet. I've never had a visa chargeback, either.

My own probably requires at least 3 software updates/year to maintain the
revenue level. E.g., a small feature added or a couple bugfixes. Customers
always buy annual licenses, and annual maintenance extensions to the license
are half price.

~~~
kweks
Depending on the age of the site, its uniqueness and competition barrier to
entry, typically between 1.5 - 3.5x

I've just gone through the process via dealflowbrokerage.com - good experience
so far.

~~~
iends
To clarify, 1.5x - 3x ARR?

------
peacemaker
I have a wordpress plugins business that earns maybe a couple hundred a month
without touching it at all. I know it's not a lot but I sold a similar
business a few years back that regularly made $1200-$1500 a month and the
products were not as good. The only difference is I'm working so hard on other
stuff this hasn't had the time it deserves. Someone with the time and
motivation to add a couple of new features and actually advertize it a bit
(I've never done any advertizing at all) would make a decent, passive income.

I also own another business that makes about $1500 a month (50/50 adsense &
product sales) but does require a few hours a week of effort. I've only just
started improving this and expect it to hit $3k a month within 6 months. I'm
not seriously considering selling unless I get a really good offer but you
never know!

~~~
trcollinson
What exactly is a really good offer? I'm not personally interested. But every
time one of these threads comes up someone invariably comes along with a
"business" that makes a tiny about of money but they want to sell it for a
"really good" offer. A couple hundreds a month. Let's say that comes to $4000
in profit a year. What do you want? A 10x multiplier? So $40,000? Does your
plugin business have enough value to justify this? I doubt it. How about
$12,000? A 3x multiplier. Can you justify that kind of value? It might be
hard.

I've messaged people before who are making a couple hundred in revenue a month
and then ask for $1,000,000. I doubt you're one of those people. But
seriously, keep your expectations in line with the reality of your business.

~~~
vanderreeah
His comment about a "really good offer" applied to the (potential) $3k per
month, not to the couple of hundred per month.

~~~
peacemaker
Exactly, the one that makes a couple hundred is different because I'm actively
trying to sell it and therefore will sell for a reasonable market price.

~~~
dancameron
TBH that's not how valuations work, simce projections higher than current
sales are not reliable (unless there are special circumstances).

you have any questions on how an acquisition for your plugins would work?

~~~
peacemaker
I guess things are basically worth what people are willing to pay so there is
no way one way that valuations work.

Any questions? Not really, I've sold and bought businesses in the past so it's
pretty straightforward now.

------
jmbmxer
My little Chrome extension [https://unshorten.link](https://unshorten.link)
has had a growing user base for several years now. Like a few others in this
thread, my strengths don't necessarily lie in advertising or marketing. I'd be
open to bringing on a partner who has experience monetizing and marketing
projects like this or even selling outright to the right buyer.

------
throwaway171717
I have a portfolio of Wordpress themes on Themeforest, it started as a side
project and I still don't dedicate much time to it but it makes around
$10,000-$12,000 per month in revenue. The only expenses are hosting (150$/m)
and support person ($700/month).

~~~
sah2ed
Although you used a throwaway, you forgot to include contact info. Assuming
you want to sell the side project that is.

~~~
throwaway171717
Added to profile. Thanks

------
penpapersw
We have made several iOS apps which have been very well reviewed and sell
consistently, but we're not terribly good at marketing. We're open to an offer
if someone wants to purchase them and market them to the right audiences.

Apps: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/nikki-
degutis/id119686...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/nikki-
degutis/id1196862460)

Contact: email in profile

~~~
ballenf
Cool looking bubble and paint apps. I would seriously consider buying if the
iTunes listing had a video preview.

By buying I mean pay the $0.99, not buy the rights to app from you. ;)

Like a couple of the reviews, my kids are obsessed with bubbles and love
colorful paint apps.

~~~
penpapersw
They do have a video preview if you look at it from within the app store on a
mobile device. Check it out, I'm sure your kids would like it :)

------
sklink
[http://trybtg.com/](http://trybtg.com/) Currently has about 100 DAU, high
engagement (avg. 10 sessions per week per user). Users tend to stick around
and the feedback is all positive.

The desktop software is the iteration that found fit with our users. You'd
need Dota to try it, or you can watch the demo here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_plCQi6PE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_plCQi6PE)

I have a set of paid features ready to launch, but I don't have resulting
revenue numbers yet of course.

Even after the paid feature release I don't believe I can give it a proper
change without more resources, mainly man power.

Not that I necessarily need to sell it. If someone were interested enough to
partner up and fill the gaps I haven't been able to address I would be back on
it. Guess I should be looking for a HN post that matches projects with people
looking to join a project.

~~~
kahlonel
Hey I'm a 4.2k player and a developer. I like your app's interface more than
dotapicker.com. I noticed both had same suggestions for a given set of heroes.
Is the source of data for both of these apps same?

~~~
sklink
Thanks! They are different sources, I use OpenDota's open source software to
gather matches and dump them into Google's BigQuery for processing using our
own algorithms we've created. The algorithms are run against 15 to 30 million
matches depending on how deep in the patch is.

My guess is we've landed on similar algorithms to DotaPicker, it's usually the
set of matches we're using that makes the difference so I'm surprised the
suggestions were the same.

Feel free to add me on Steam if you'd like:
[http://steamcommunity.com/id/sklink](http://steamcommunity.com/id/sklink)

~~~
thenomad
Are you partitioning the matches by MMR, or just doing global suggestions?

I ask because this always seems the biggest weakness of all the existing
picking tools. A 1k player and a 5k player throwing the same lineup into a
picking tool should ideally get dramatically different suggestions, both
because of their own skill and the skill of their teammates.

~~~
sklink
There is no access to MMR from the Steam API. Best we have is Normal, High,
and Very High skill splits and the problem then becomes having a large enough
sample size to have accurate results.

114 heroes that all influence each other when they play together so if you're
looking at matchups for two heroes that don't get played frequently the
accuracy is already limited.

That said, my strength is in front end, not statistics. Getting a Normal and
High split might be fine as is.

~~~
thenomad
True, but the OpenDOTA API does give access to estimated MMR stats for many
games, which are pretty accurate. So you could use those if you wanted to.

That would limit the available match pool, granted. It depends on how many
thousand games you need to make predictions, I suppose. I was able to pull
some interesting data a while back from the 2k pool but I wasn't trying to
solve as hard a problem as a global hero picker.

~~~
sklink
They do, but they don't allow sequential pulling of match data.

I would have to collect my own data and poll their API with each match id to
get the MMR estimate.

Although that works in theory, their API rate limit is 3/s and last time I
checked there were about 1M matches / day (~12/s) so we couldn't keep up.

------
ceyhunkazel
[http://www.jeviz.com](http://www.jeviz.com) which I used to make around
$500/month from amazon affiliation with very few (around 30) daily users.
Amazon has terminated my affiliation. I think it has more potentials and you
can migrate to another domain with your associates tag and promote it. Its a
readable Django web app.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Why did amazon terminate your affiliation?

~~~
ceyhunkazel
I suspect that main reason is related with payment method. I am non-us
associate. I have started with gift card payment it well good then I have
changed to cheque payment method. I have waited long but no payment I have
received. I have called amazon they said me there is problem and they will
send it again. I have waited long when I contact them they said me it is
already on the way then few weeks later they terminated my account and these
cheques never come to me although they said they are on the way. I have wrote
a story about the process without mention of payment issue
[https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-
basket-...](https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket-
amazon-terminated-my-account-without-any-valid-reason-4c0a27ed0fb4)

~~~
assafmo
Sounds unfair and probably happened to other small businesses.

I'd love to read a blog post about your experience with amazon affiliates, and
I also think it'll help with getting those cheques amazon owes you.

~~~
ceyhunkazel
Thanks for the feedback. Sadly Amazon strongly stated they will not pay it
back as I wrote it about here [https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-
in-one-basket-...](https://hackernoon.com/dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-
basket-amazon-terminated-my-account-without-any-valid-reason-4c0a27ed0fb4)

------
impostervt
I wouldn't mind selling one of my side projects, Water Marquee -
[https://www.watermarquee.com](https://www.watermarquee.com). It lets users
watermark their photos. I started it about 5 years ago when I was getting back
into development. It brings in around $1,200/month, though that's been growing
lately. A year ago it was more like $500/month. It's been going up in search
result rankings, I assume because I've tried to be more active on the blog
(though it's paid-for content). There are around 1,000 visitors/day.

My email is my profile. The site is written in Node.js/angular 1.x. I haven't
had to change the code in several months, so it's pretty much "done" as far as
I'm concerned, and I'd rather spend my time on other projects.

~~~
sinhpham
Your email is not visible in your profile

~~~
impostervt
john . titus @ gmail

------
desfan
Line: Android/iOS game.

Has a big userbase on Android, but nearly as much on iOS. Made around
3k$/month for a couple of months a year ago, now it's close to nothing as I
stopped developing it, don't really now why. The whole thing is made with
LibGDX for Android, using the (now defunct) RoboVM for iOS.

Link: [http://2121.io/](http://2121.io/)

Email me at nuno @ domain in link above if interested

------
spking
SendCatch.com

I recently picked up this nifty little app from the original developer
([https://www.sendcatch.com/](https://www.sendcatch.com/)), and then
immediately got swamped with my main product. It is not currently monetized.

I use it to instantly move larger files between my laptops and phones.
Node/Mongo. Costs $5/mo on DigitalOcean. Open to offers! Email in profile.

~~~
stanmancan
Probably good to mention how much it's making, even if it's $0?

~~~
spking
Thanks and good point, updated.

------
wilhempujar
[https://pricemoji.com/](https://pricemoji.com/) an GraphQL/Node.js API that
turns product prices into emojis.

No revenue, just a side project really. But considering the feedback I'm often
getting, it seems to have great potential...

Originally, my challenge was to find a way to turn abstract product prices
into more familiar, visual representations of their worth. Imagine paying your
Netflix subscription in Bananas for example :)

A Financial Times journalist dubbed it a way to "take us back to a barter
economy, where we price things in emoji beer rather than dollars".

Been featured on Product Hunt at producthunt.com/posts/pricemoji as well.

Would be curious to hear for your proposal for such an app? I was thinking
$15K or something.

Contact information in profile

------
glenscott1
I built [https://freelancedevleads.com/](https://freelancedevleads.com/) with
the aim of promoting it to developers looking for freelance work and also
creating revenue by offering paid posts. Holds little interest for me right
now, and I haven't touched it for months. Happy to listen to offers - email in
profile.

~~~
trevmckendrick
Hi, I'd love to chat but your email is _not_ in your profile :)

~~~
glenscott1
fixed :)

------
bettertomorrow
Ive got [http://www.pedalr.com](http://www.pedalr.com) \- a marketplace for
people who love bikes.

It's been completely refactored, has a decent mailing list and list of
followers. I'd be interested in selling it or linking up w the right cofounder
w some energy to help me relaunch, test, learn, and grow the product.

Contact me for a look behind the landing page.

~~~
alexgandy
Just a note; you SSL cert is either expired or invalid. So when I visit the
link you posted, and get redirected to the https version, I'm greated with a
big chrome warning page.

~~~
bettertomorrow
updated. Please LMK if you have any other questions.

------
TomTasche
Android app with big userbase and huge potential but stalling revenue due to
lack of development:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.tomtasche.r...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.tomtasche.reader)

------
quickpost
I've got a SaaS system that generates a small physical newsletter that I've
been running for the past 3 years. Averaging consistent $600 / month profit w/
no marketing. I've always intended to grow it (and think $2k / mo profit would
be easy to achieve), but haven't put in the marketing effort as I've been busy
with other businesses. It takes about 1 day a month of work, but that could
easily be outsourced.

Open to selling for 1x to 2x ARR, since I've been neglecting it a bit. Email
for more details.

~~~
cmer
What's the url?

------
gtheme_io
I have a side project GTheme.io[1] selling Ghost.org premium themes. 11 of the
themes are designed by myself. Tonnes of growth potential as Ghost 1.0 just
released.

As my focus shifted, I plan sell it.

------
sportsdataguy
[http://www.mysportsfeeds.com](http://www.mysportsfeeds.com)

A sports data service for developers and small-medium sized businesses. Tonnes
of growth potential.

~~~
tomascot
Nice. How do you verify input?

------
IgorPartola
OT question: how much money can you make off doing something like Bootstrap or
Wordpress themes? Is that a thing that is still a viable business?

------
litzer
[https://github.com/alixander/Ceruleum](https://github.com/alixander/Ceruleum)

I had built this with the intention to sell it on the app store but ended up
not wanting to bother with marketing and signing up. But idk, maybe it can
garner some buys as a paid developer tool app.

email: blueglue at fastmail doot com

~~~
sillysaurus3
This looks useful! Thanks.

------
trevmckendrick
I sold my Bible app company a few years ago, and it was mostly a PITA (e.g.
took 7 months for a relatively small deal)

Now I acquire small SaaS businesses at CapitalAcademy.org and make it a point
of making the process as painless as possible.

If you have any interest in selling or just want to learn about the
acquisition process feel free to say hi, trevor@capitalacademy.org

------
nl5874
We are open for offers to both transfer.sh (file sharing with curl) and
SlackArchive.io (archiving +700 teams, data will be of interest for machine
learning and NLP startups.). Both are side projects that grew far too big.
Mail me at remco@dutchcoders.io for more info.

------
sghiassy
I built 'h34t' \- shows a realtime heatmap of where people are in the city
(search iTunes Store for it).

Snapchat just paid $300 million for the same functionality. They could've
bought it from me for a lot less ;)

~~~
gesman
Your app shows that nothing happening neither in San Jose nor in SF? iPhone
7+.

Maybe that forced Snapchat to spend more money? :)

~~~
sghiassy
The filter is set to show activity in the last month only - slide the filter
to all and you'll see activity.

The app has gone a bit into hibernation lately, so the activity has waned.

Thx for checking it out though!

------
fiftyacorn
I built a site last year - www.gpsheatmap.com. The site lets you generate
heatmaps from your gps routes for cycling or running

I never got round to marketing it so Im open to offers

------
kfriede
[https://fastandes.com](https://fastandes.com)

It's a product search engine that ranks products from Reddit comments and
posts.

Any offers welcome!

~~~
teagee
Interested in learning more. How can I get in touch?

~~~
kfriede
Shoot me an email, kevin@fastandes.com

------
pvsukale3
hakrlog.com

sample blog - pvsukale.hakrlog.com

Markdown blogging for hackers. Everyone gets a unique subdomain and they can
write and publish with a simple interface. A native nested comments section,
No ads, No monthly charges. People can follow authors for weekly emails and
RSS. It is in beta, no current users though. If anyone wants to support
development / buy the project contact email :- pvsukale at gmail dot com .

Developed using Rails. ( I am a last year CS student)

~~~
arthurwinter
My 2c, no technical user would ever want to host their blog on a 3rd part
platform when it's so easy to self-host. The exception are platform with
network effects (e.g. Medium). Why should I post on your platform when I don't
know if in 30 days it will still be online? And given the lack of focus on
grammar and spellchecking on the landing page, why should I assume what's in
the backend is better?

------
sanchayan
I would like to sell my app 1600 Pennsylvania for raising funds for
politicians . It has chat + geolocation + poll features

------
superplussed
I have a domain: fooker.com. Brandable, awesome. Don't need it. Wanna sell it.

------
paxpelus
I have the domain 5vs5.com in case anyone is interested

