

Cheddar is For Sale - samsoffes
https://cheddarapp.com/buy
I'm selling Cheddar. The whole kit and caboodle — API, web and native apps, acclaimed code base and documentation, and 33,000+ user community — is being sold, not necessarily to the highest bidder.
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mgkimsal
33503 users, 2.61% are paying 'plus' customers, at, say $20/year = ~$18k in
revenue. You'd need to grow and monetize that base a lot more to get back
$125k purchase price.

I'm guessing someone might buy it, but there's a heck of a lot more ways you
could spend $125k building a similar company to get to profitability faster.
There's even more ways to spend $125k to make $18k/year. I'll happily let you
invest in my company at $125k with returns of $18k/year for few years. :)

~~~
samsoffes
Solid point. On the other hand, getting 30k users in general is pretty
expensive from a marketing perspective.

The real value is the potential.

~~~
mgkimsal
No doubt, and it wasn't meant as a potshot, although perhaps it came across
_too_ sarcastically; anyone that can build an audience of that size,
especially with paid users as a portion, is doing something right. I wrestle
with free user bases barely 20% of that, and growth is harder to achieve that
most people think.

Serious question here: what portion of the audience base is using this because
of you personally? Not that you _know_ 30k people, but perhaps a large part
came because of your connections. Relatedly, how many of them might leave if
they saw it changing hands to someone they didn't know (or perhaps everyone
would cheer because someone with more time for new features was taking
over)???

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whalesalad
You're batshit crazy to try selling for this price. The most recent reviews
suggest it loses data and isn't very innovative. I tend to agree. It's yet
another fish in a sea of todo apps.

Your craftsmanship and attention to detail on the UI and experience are great.
I'll give you that. But this is a todo application. Not only that, but it's
open source. Hell, I've built it and run the iOS app myself.

The only thing you're selling is 33,000 free users (rather, a list of them,
not necessarily 33k active pekple) and a Ruby on Rails app. You also said it
requires 4 dynos to operate, plus a Postgres db. I'd imagine the reason you're
selling this is that it's costing you $200 per month and not making anywhere
near that.

While I'm grateful for everything you have done with cheddar in terms of
transparency and sharing with the community: I think you shot yourself in the
foot. Reverse engineering the back end (from the app and api docs) and
rebranding the iOS app would take me 2 weeks tops.

$125,000? Good luck man. If you can get that.. You're an even better magician
than you are a developer.

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fearless
Your stats don't mention how much revenue Cheddar is generating. That's the
most important metric for determining the price!

Nobody cares how many hours you put into something when determining price.
Based on your traction so far, this acquisition would be based on a revenue
multiple, not as a strategic sale. For a niche SaaS product like this one, I
would expect a valuation of 12X-24X monthly revenue depending on growth rate.
Is this product making about $10K a month now to justify the $125,000 price?
Take a look at some of the products on Flippa to get a sense of how much you
could get.

~~~
propercoil
On flippa it's worse than that 10x, 12x at most. People there have a huge BS
radar, they seen it all. Their revenue is maybe $900/m after apple's 30% cut
looking at the stats.

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ricardobeat
Does he really charge $1000/hour or is it a joke I didn't get?
<http://hire.samsoff.es/>

edit: explanation <http://soff.es/one-thousand-dollars-an-hour>

By that rate and the 800-hour figure, Cheddar would be one of the most
expensive apps ever (utility vs cost).

~~~
Ives
The best sentences on that page are

> This rate is designed to weed out less serious clients. Serious clients
> generally have more exciting projects. I'd rather not freelance. I need to
> focus on Cheddar.

I guess now that he's no longer focussing on Cheddar he can lower his rate.

~~~
jakemk
He works full-time at Seesaw now.

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nfm
This is something I've experienced first-hand, and an _extremely_ valuable
lesson for people thinking about starting a startup. At a low average monthly
cost (say less than $30), it's really damn hard to get enough people into your
funnel for a reasonable cost of acquisition. And you need to reach a LOT of
people for your service to be a significant source of long term income.

If you're about to start a startup, I'd strongly encourage you to come up with
some hypothetical figures for these metrics:

* Number of monthly uniques

* Percentage that will convert to trial

* Percentage that will convert to paid

* Average monthly subscription cost

* Churn rate

* Cost of acquisition

You'll be way off, but run the numbers you've made up past as many experienced
founders as you can, and you might be able to come up with a model that's
semi-realistic. Of course it will evolve over time as you get some real data
and more experience, but the main point of the exercise is to then ask
yourself questions like: "How can I get X0,000 uniques to my marketing site on
a $0 marketing budget?", and "What can I change about my
product/positioning/target market so I can triple my average monthly
subscription cost?".

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drudru11
Perspective.

When I read the original announcement for this app. It sounded cheery. The
design is really pretty good.

Over time, though, I've learned to keep an eye on these announcements. Not
just cheddar, but all of the 'check us out' posts. Sure enough, a lot of these
do not succeed. Some even blog during their process, to share some epiphany.
Building a successful product is hard. Filtering the noise on HN is hard as
well. When I see a new announcement, I look at the 'good' in the product, but
only time will tell if the founders have hit the right mix.

Sam, the OP, is not one to hold back from backlash. He doesn't have too much
pride. He shows his product on HN to ask for users. He isn't afraid to admit
failure when it happens. He needs the money, so he asks for it. I'm sure there
are hundreds in a similar spot. Yet, they will not make a similar post.

It is super important to see the lifecycle of projects here. It adds a good
perspective to this community.

Back to Cheddar. Without a passionate founder, a product like this will die.
It isn't a turnkey business. It will require much more product work to become
a success.

------
PanMan
To answer a question on the page: "I'm not sure how transferring apps from one
Apple ID to another works. We can figure it out though."

I'm fairly sure this is impossible. I know people (with large apps and the
right contacts) that have tried, and never heard of it being possible. Unless
something changed recently. You could transfer the account (unless other apps
are also on it).

~~~
samsoffes
That's what I was thinking I'd have to do. The only other app on the account
is Shares - <http://getsharesapp.com>.

Thanks for the info!

~~~
Codhisattva
I've heard anecdotally that you can transfer apps but you'll need App Store
support involved. It's not immediate though.

~~~
benguild
They will only merge accounts if a government documented merger takes place
between multiple corporations.

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jere
>This price is $125,000. I think that's a steal for what you get... If you
were to hire me or anyone else to make Cheddar for you, it would be much more
expensive.

Not to be a jerk. I really wish you well. But I'm curious: it would cost over
$100k to make a todo list app? I would think that would be one of the simplest
apps you could possibly make. Am I missing something?

[hmm... didn't see that your rate was $1000/hour. That answers part of my
question.]

~~~
mitchi
I don't mind him charging that price to

\- Lawyers

\- Dentists

\- Doctors

\- Notarys

But charging $1000/h for making trivial things is making the rest of us look
bad. Especially when people do projects with 10000000 times the difficulty...
for free.

~~~
stfu
_Especially when people do projects with 10000000 times the difficulty... for
free._

Thats imho the wrong way to look at compensation. People are not being paid by
the difficulty of their projects but by the value of the problems they solve.
Being a construction worker is certainly a lot more physically demanding than
an office job. Still they are (usually) paid a lot less because they are
easier replaceable, less training, etc.

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ferostar
This might be considered off-topic, but i find the VentureBeat post about
Cheddar's sale (<http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/05/cheddar-for-sale/>) really
sad . The app is called a "cult classic" among "hackers and mac fans" and
there's a disclosure at the end: it was written by the wife of Seesaw's
founder (where Soffes currently works).

------
fourstar
You'd probably have more success posting this on Flippa if you haven't
already.

~~~
samsoffes
Haven't heard of that. I'll post it. Thanks!

~~~
fearless
I would set the minimum bid on Flippa far lower than the $125,000 asking price
if you want to get any interest on there. People on Flippa are not startup
guys and are a lot more realistic about valuation. I for one would be
interested in exploring buying this, but it's not worth anywhere near what
you're asking, so it's a non starter for me.

~~~
1123581321
Two separate points there. On Flippa, you want to start lower to generate
interest and start bidding, but you want the bidding to build up to a higher
amount. But it's also true that Flippa users tend to be "value investors" not
ones who buy high potential. They also are not developers.

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czbond
Talk to the guys at Asana or similar. If you could transition your 33k users
to Asana or similar (through an upsell, conversion, etc) then they would be
paying (roughly) $3.73 per acquiried user.

With an email address worth .60-.90 per month or more, they should be able to
easily justify it. Just a thought

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jmduke
Just curious -- why are you choosing to sell it instead of holding onto
whatever passive income it generates?

I love Cheddar, and judging by some of the sales data shown in the TechCrunch
article it doesn't exactly look like it's bleeding money.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
_At best_ , it's generating about $1,750 per month right now[1], and probably
represents a huge opportunity cost for Sam, especially given that he's
involved full-time with another startup.

[1] (33,499 * 0.0262) * $1.99/month = $1,746.57. More annual accounts means
less money.

~~~
propercoil
\- 30% apple cut

------
guynamedloren
Sam - how's the $1000/hr consulting going? In your original post you mentioned
that it was intended to supplement your income while working on Cheddar. Are
you going to continue consulting now that you're selling Cheddar?

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QuantumDoja
Just because I think this is relevant, here are the three founders
talk(<http://5by5.tv/founderstalk>) podcasts Sam did:

Part1: <http://5by5.tv/founderstalk/38>

Part2: <http://5by5.tv/founderstalk/39>

Part3: <http://5by5.tv/founderstalk/40>

They really are a great listen.

------
fendmark
I am a Cheddar user with a free account and have to say that it really is a
well designed, intuitive app.

Personally, while I really like Cheddar I do not feel that it is a service
that I would ever pay a recurring fee for.

I am a pinboard, fever rss, and instapaper user and feel that all of these
nominal one time investments were more than worth supporting these projects.

I could see paying a one time $30-$50 fee for Cheddar

It will definitely be interesting to see what happens.

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gs7
Sam, what's the plan if you can't find a buyer for the amount you're looking
for?

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propercoil
It's worth whatever the buyer will pay for it. Best of luck guys

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swb1192
Curious - are you selling because it's a flailing company with not enough
revenue or because the growth is hard to handle on the development side of the
company?

~~~
bsims
How do you expect someone to answer this question?

~~~
fourstar
With honesty, I'd hope.

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v66jack
As a Cheddar user you're worth $2.50 more than a Facebook user. Isn't that
nice. :)

Cheddar user $3.71 Facebook user £1.21 (May 2012)

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dh123
Can I ask what is defined as a plus user? I cant see any evidence of a plus
option on the cheddar web app.

~~~
propercoil
look at the left hand side: <https://itunes.apple.com/app/id524382948>

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mcfrl
What makes Cheddar stand out for me is how well crafted the experience is.
Good luck with the sale.

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NonUmemoto
How about sharing your next big ideas in public or at least some of them? You
might encourage more people to buy it.

