
My Show HN Project got acquired after 6 months - jhow15
https://medium.com/@joshahowarth/how-my-show-hn-project-got-acquired-after-6-months-954f81ca6a18
======
blunte
Not speaking negatively of Trennd or Josh - this illustrates the point that
marketing skills are critical to success in these kinds of ventures, much
moreso than development skills.

Tenacity and willingness to expose oneself (at obvious risk of being told
negative things) is requisite to achieving success like this so quickly (and
probably also when done slowly).

~~~
citilife
I think a large part of it has to do with design... I have a similar product
offering:
[https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=AWS,GCP%20|%20Google%20...](https://hnprofile.com/compare?search=AWS,GCP%20|%20Google%20Cloud,Azure)

We offer to businesses, have a few pilots, but the slickness of Trennd is
probably something we'll copy. It was clearly easy to see how the UI helped
here - congratz on the sale too (if you're reading this).

~~~
micael_dias
It would be nice to let me leave the website using the back button (chrome
android)

~~~
jbarberu
Also on FF Win10. Can people stop doing this please? Tank you :)

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jhow15
Hi everyone, Josh here the writer.

I’d like to give thanks to all the people here on Hacker News who supported
the project during that launch and any questions or comments just let me know!

The short version (summarized from the article): I spent 2 months building an
app to detect trends. Launched as a Show HN and reached #1 on Hacker News
(briefly!). Another 4 months growing and improving it but failed to monetize.
But I got enough traction to get acquired by Brian Dean founder of Backlinko.

~~~
tozeur
For the sake of all the other HN founders here building our own apps and
trying to sell/monetize, how much did you get acquired for? I think it’d be
super insightful to get a data point here.

~~~
achenatx
recurring revenue is king. Typical valuations are 7-10X revenue (crazy right?)
for a strategic acquisition. For example a friend of mine was doing about 3m
in revenue (about break even) and I believe sold for about 15-20M (I forget
the exact number). I think it took him about 8 years to get there. Another
friend got a similar multiple on 7M in revenue.

On the other hand I was talking to a founder last week about acquiring his
company. he is doing about 1M in revenue and was asking about 600K. I dont
think we can close before the end of the year so passed, but would definitely
consider it if he is still available next year.

~~~
tozeur
Thanks for the info! I understand fairly well how software companies are
valued. I, and probably many others, am just interested in a number/ballpark.

~~~
shrimpx
My guess is a few hundred thousand, like 3 or 4. It sounds like an acquihire
with a decent signing bonus more than an acquisition.

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throwawaymath
_> As for the acquisition number… that’s why you’ve read this far, right?!_

Yes.

 _> We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based
engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success
factor already achieved. And I also still have a stake in the project going
forward._

Working _where_ in the US? Software engineers can make wildly different
amounts of money depending on where in the US they work. Even within SFBA and
NYC, a subset of companies pay significantly more than others as well.

So why not just say the actual acquisition number?

~~~
netsharc
Let's say SF.. I'll say half a year's wage im SF is 100 - 125K. What's X? 4 to
10? So I'm guessing he got $500K to a million.

~~~
Akababa
While we're guessing, I'll throw my hat in the ring at 250k. Given that it
failed to monetize, I'd be surprised if it's significantly higher.

I know of a project that did have decent monetization and was impressive
technically that only went for mid 6 figures. However the owner wanted to sell
quickly so that might have depressed the price a little bit.

~~~
Beltiras
They worked out a deal in a little less time than it takes me to be
disappointed with a movie choice. It was more that the seller wanted the hire
part of the acquihire. Looks like it was a good deal for both.

------
csomar
> We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based
> engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success
> factor already achieved. And I also still have a stake in the project going
> forward.

Why not just, simply, put the price? You know that most people are only,
barely, interested in the "acquisition" price rather than the story of how you
got there.

~~~
wolco
How they got there is more interesting.

In the end he got paid 60k + the value of 3000 emails + brand.. 3 dollars an
email? 10000+

My guess is 75,000 + 5%

~~~
csomar
It's not interesting to me if I don't know how much he got paid for it. There
is a difference between $10k and $120k. The way he worded it (engineer salary)
is not quite useful as the range in the USA is quite wide.

~~~
sintaxi
It was nice of him to tell us as much as he did and as far as I'm concerned he
did tell us how much he got paid. The answer is he made more than he would
have working as an engineer over the same amount of time ("more" is based on
the value of the brand and the email list). For reasons that should be obvious
it's not more by a lot.

> There is a difference between $10k and $120k

How do you get 10k based on what he told us?

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petercooper
Neat result. I've sold a few side projects over the years, it's always nice at
first, though I've then ended up wondering "what if" as the years go by :-)

This jumped out to me:

 _We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based
engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction /success
factor already achieved._

It sounds like you have a pretty significant win here, considering there was
no real revenue. I'm guessing we're talking at least $50k multiplied by
something.. so not exactly pocket change :-)

~~~
jhow15
Thank you! And congrats on selling your side projects too :)

You're pretty close there yeah - so it was a huge win! Especially given it had
no revenue like you say.

~~~
gingerlime
Thanks for writing up the experience. With screenshots and explaining how
things panned-out. Very interesting read!

Curious about the secrecy about the price. I guess I'd feel awkward to boast
about the specific price tag, but was there an NDA or something stopping you
from naming the price? It's interesting how much you exposed and shared, but
when it comes to $$s then it's usually a secret... :) not passing judgement at
all, but just interesting to observe this (also on patio11's posts and I guess
others).

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swalsh
This is a really cool project. To be honest, I think Brian got a steal on
this. There's a ton of potential here, and I think if it was developed a bit
more (developed from a business model point of view), there was potential to
sell for a heck of a lot more.

~~~
kohanz
I think it's possible to be a steal for both. Brian has the unique position of
being able to leverage this business into something far more valuable than
what he paid for it (a road that would have been much longer, difficult, and
riskier for Josh), while Josh got a sum for the business that far exceeds
typical super-early stage SAAS valuations. There are probably many owners of
SAAS businesses generating up to, say $3k in MRR (obviously, exact numbers are
impossible to pin down), that would be thrilled with such an exit.

It sounds like Josh also got to hold on to some of the upside while taking a
bit of risk off the table. Seems like a win-win on the surface and with the
experience Josh will get working with Brian, he may be able to grow his next
venture to a later and more valuable stage. Kudos to both of them.

~~~
swalsh
Actually, that's a pretty convincing argument.

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dbancajas
I'd love to try out this product. So just curious, is this another meta post
to drive traffic to the site? Hehe. Congrats on the sale btw! It's not easy
pulling the whole thing off.

~~~
jhow15
Hahaha - thank you! I did want to have the story on paper for myself to look
back on, but some traffic is a nice bonus :)

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Geee
Isn't it a clone of Glimpse
([https://meetglimpse.com](https://meetglimpse.com))? They seem to have
monetized it pretty well.

~~~
Papirola
looks like. anybody knows where do they get the raw data from ? I had a brief
look at Google's public APIs and the closest I could find was trends. However,
they do label some charts with searches per month....

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neonate
The Show HN was
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339).

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jimmytucson
Cool app! Curious about the data sources, or is that a secret sauce?

For example, you have "google cloud platform" trends going back 15 years -
does that mean you have 15 years of data from all your data sources? How do
you backfill that?

~~~
omarhaneef
From the medium article:

"I needed something that could surface opportunities by automatically
monitoring the web for new topics. So that I can then plug them into Google
Trends.

Heck, it could even check Google Trends itself so I don’t have to."

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knicholes
I'd love to know how he literally shook hands over Skype video.

~~~
jhow15
Ahaha... I didn't know how to explain that better...

We both waved our hands up and down in the air like a handshake but we only
had video... is there a name for that?! :D

~~~
bemmu
Demolition Man handshake

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eigenvalue
A couple suggestions: 1) it would be nice to have mouse hover-overs on the
charts that show the exact date. 2) If something is highly cyclical (e.g.,
Ring doorbells seem to spike every holiday season), it's probably not right to
say they have "peaked". I would suggest instead looking at the Year-over-year
percentage change in the trailing 1- or 2-month period, and if that is also
significantly lower, then you can more accurately say if something has peaked.
3) if the query in question is for a commercial product/company (e.g.,
Victure), then why not add a direct link to the company, which could be an
affiliate marketing link? Seems like an obvious way to monetize this.

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tw1010
Gee I remember when this was first posted. I remember being jealous for not
thinking of the idea myself. Can't believe it's been 6 months and that you've
been acquired already. Really kind of inspirational and makes me realize what
wonderful things I could have built in that span of time instead of, well, not
shipping.

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peteforde
Awesome, congrats!

I've been subscribed to a similar service called Glimpse for some time. Who
thought of it first? You seem to have very similar trends identified.

The most recent issue contained: Tiktok lights, Air Fryer Chicken,
Chiropractic Y Strap, and Heated Razors.

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Infinitesimus
Congrats on executing so well and the sale!

We often have so many "what if someone built xyz" thoughts and do nothing with
them so I'm stoked you got off your bum and made this happen

PS: it'll be funny if you use this to find the idea for your next product

~~~
jhow15
Thank you so much!

That's actually exactly why I built it in the first place, so definitely going
to be "eating my own dog food" with this for the next project idea :)

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pidg
It seems to be focused now on tech topics - is this going to remain the case?

~~~
jhow15
Right now that's because of my founder bias, but we're looking to include more
and more types of topics across health, business, marketing, fashion and so
on.

~~~
Schweigi
Congrats on the sale! Came here with the same comment. My wife has an online
store for clothing/fashion and does it now manually to detect trends, think:
"megan markle jacket". This tool would be super useful and save a lot of time.

Btw. is the possibility of adding new topics currently down? Nothing seem to
happen when clicking "Add a topic".

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psychometry
All I want to know is why reddit is showing you ads for hurdy-gurdys.

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joshdance
Where do you source the data? Looking at Google Trends, the graphs don't match
up at all with your graphs, so I assume you have another data source that you
prioritize.

~~~
jhow15
Hi there, the graphs do actually match up - it's just the Google Trends
default time period is usually different to ours. Plus the width and height of
their charts make the chart gradients look flatter than ours :)

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losthobbies
I really enjoyed reading about this. Its cool to see someone get their side
project out and get a bit of money too.

Need to get out of my head and start working on my side project now....

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k__
I don't understand this site.

It only shows stuff from the past.

~~~
Nairus
It would be incredible if it showed from the future.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Ya, if this site could accurately predict future trends, it would have been
worth..... at least.... (counts using fingers).... 7 times as much!

*(Holds up 4 fingers)

~~~
k__
Then I don't get it.

Nothing there is new information to me, so why would anyone pay for it?

~~~
BaconJuice
Did you read the post? He literally highlights a use-case on the first half of
his post?

~~~
k__
I used the tool and found it pretty useless, but you're right. What I know is
just an idea, this tool is basically a validation of the feeling I have.

Thanks.

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umlc
Congrats with the acquisition. Love how you pivoted into specific niche to
gain more traction!

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md8
Impressive.

What keywords did you track on Google trends?

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__m
Congrats, so what’s your next project? ;)

