

Ask HN: How to sell an App Store company with 15m installs? - appstoreq

(I'm a long time user of HN, just posting under a new account for this)<p>I've been developing on the App Store for about 9 months and have built a set of apps that collectively have over 15m installs. Among these have been several top 100 apps.<p>I'm considering selling them all, and I'm wondering how to go about it. Obviously if a buyer knows you want to be bought, it instantly lowers the price.<p>I'd really appreciate any thoughts/suggestions anyone has?
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allwein
First off, I'm going to disagree with the assumption that knowing you want to
sell instantly lowers the price. Businesses get bought and sold every day.
There's no shame in wanting to sell a company you've built. As long as you
don't come across as desperate to sell (which it doesn't sound like you are),
then you'll be able to get a fair price. In fact, you'd face the possibility
of getting a better price if there are multiple bidders.

Secondly, you might want to consider selling off the individual applications
piecemeal. There's the possibility that you'd get a larger amount of money by
splitting them up then by selling the whole company.

There are a couple of other things that will affect the price you receive. Are
the apps still in the top 100? Are they paid apps, and if so, what kind of
cashflow are you seeing from them. If they're free apps, are they monetized in
any way (in-app purchase, advertising, etc.)?

I guess the other question is how much you're looking to get for everything.
Hell, depending on your answers to the questions above, _I_ might be willing
to buy you.

In any case, I'm curious why you're considering selling everything off. Would
you be willing to share with us the reasons?

