
I sold my side-project for $30k - marckohlbrugge
https://marc.io/tweet-photo-acquired
======
marckohlbrugge
I figured some of you might enjoy this story. I talk about how my Medium post
on setting up Zapier to tweet your Instagram photos, lead to a SaaS product
that recently got acquired for $30,000 (with one asterisk, details in the
post).

It's not a life-changing amount of money, but I think it's a more typical
example of what you can expect when selling a bootstrapped side project.
Hopefully it will inspire some of you who have been on the fence to start your
own project.

~~~
ionwake
Thank you for the great write up - I have only one question - how did you get
featured on BetaList and Product Hunt?

Did you email them directly or did you pay someone to make a press release? I
have had similar products but I never seem to know how to get the word out.
Any insight into your first day and how you marketed it would be highly
appreciated. Thank you and keep it up!

~~~
marckohlbrugge
As @donaltroddyn points out, I'm the founder of BetaList. With regards to
Product Hunt, I think my account is flagged such that anything I submit
automatically hits the front page.

So yeah, those are definitely two unfair advantages that are hard to
replicate.

I guess the underlying two lessons are:

1) build and own your own acquisition channels if you can (I initially built
BetaList to promote my other startup at the time), and

2) leverage whatever advantages you have. For me that happens to be the fact
that I can quite easily get some initial traffic, but if you're a great writer
you could use that. If you have a great personality you could invite yourself
to podcasts, if you have a certain technical skill perhaps you build what
nobody else can.

FWIW, I don't think it's worth paying people to write a press release. If
you're an indie maker it's much more compelling for a journalist to hear from
the founder directly. Just make sure you have a story worth sharing with their
audience. (in a way your "pitch" is just as much a product as your product
itself. But in case of the pitch you're trying to convince a journalist you
have an interesting story to tell their audience wants to hear).

~~~
ionwake
Thank you for your informative reply I am currently walking but will take heed
of your advice when I’m at home. All the best .

------
jbverschoor
> The first $10,000 is cash upfront with no strings attached.

> The remaining $20,000 is contingent on Tweet Photo making that much (or
> more) in revenue within 24 months of the acquisition.

So it's sold for $10k, and a max €20k revenueshare on a service that currently
does 1620/year

~~~
marckohlbrugge
That's correct, but it's important to point out the acquirer has an existing
app with a user base in the millions it will use to cross-promote Tweet Photo.

Based on some initial tests and analysis of Tweet Photo's current funnel, that
$20,000 goal seems more than plausible.

But you're right in that it's definitely not certain and this type of deal has
some inherent risk.

~~~
OJFord
Have you done something like that before? Did you spend a chunk of your $10k
on solicitor/lawyer to arrange it?

Not necessarily saying you should have done, just think personally I'd be shy
of anything more complicated than 'here give me cash and take this, kthxbye'.

~~~
pc86
> _just think personally I 'd be shy of anything more complicated than 'here
> give me cash and take this_

You won't find any acquisition more than maybe $5k that is "Here's the cash,
thanks and bye."

~~~
unishark
Eh I think many companies will go an order of magnitude higher than that
before they start viewing it as "real money".

------
loriverkutya
As a user of this service:

You built a service, I started to use it, I was happy to pay for it. Now you
sold all the data your business had about me and the service, so I need to
check the new EULA etc, and need to reevaluate if I want to use this service
futher along the way.

Also my experience with apps/services/etc sold by their original creator(s),
that they are shuting down in a year or two and I'm so tired of this trend.

So yeah, happy about your success, unhappy about another service which
probably goes down the drain and I need to find something else to use, which
probably not really has the same featureset.

Edit:

My point is, I would have been using this service and paying for it in the
next few years, without the need of new features or so, so you only need to do
maintenance of the infrastructure and keeping up with the security updates for
mostly passive income. Probably this is the same for other users of the
service. I think this should be considered, when you thinking about selling
your passive income sideproject.

~~~
quickthrower2
Sounds like you should stick to FLOSS then. Anything you buy as SaaS can be
canned, sold on or just become crap.

~~~
loriverkutya
FLOSS sadly does not solve my problem fully. I'm happy to pay for somebody to
maintain the infrastructure and keep the service I'm using up to date on
security issues.

However if the maintainer happen to stop maintaining the service, I could
setup the infrastructure and maintain it by myself with some learning, but
that would take up more time I need to earn the money I'm paying to somebody
else, who already done the groundwork and has the knowledge about the service.
Also the service is worth $5-10 per month, but does not have enough value to
worth the hassle of setting up the whole self hosted infra behind it and
maintain it by myself.

I'm not sure why, but people recommending FLOSS as a solution tends to forget
about the additional cost to setup and maintain infrastructure and software
and a simple build pipeline (even if it's just a bash script, rsyncing the
code to a server) when mentioning you could self-host it if they shutdown the
service.

This is the "slightly annoying not to have this service, but not annoying
enough to bother to replicate it even if I could" situation for me.

~~~
iso1210
Free software isn't about money, it's about freedom. You value the freedom
enough to complain when it's trodden on, but not enough to do the work
required to continue to be free.

Freedom has a price.

~~~
comboy
No. When you have to maintain the infrastructure you're a slave. Freedom is
when I pay somebody to do it for me and move it elsewhere if I don't like it.

I'm also tired of the trend of recommending FOSS when somebody is looking for
a service. For personal solutions it works only if you are valuing your time
really low or if you are having a lot of fun playing with it.

Frankly, if you think setting up your own FOSS is often a good solution you
haven't listened to your advice enough times. It works if you have a few
things. But if you try to do it with everything you will just give up after a
few years and 50 things set up this way, or you will spend considerate amount
of time on maintenance (which is fine as long that's what you want to do with
your life).

~~~
1123581321
They were recommended FLOSS because they were histrionic about data ownership
in a situation where the data was already out the door. It’s a way of
presenting them with the fact that nothing reasonable can make them happy.

~~~
coldtea
Well, a company/product with steady service that wasn't created to be quickly
sold, e.g. Basecamp, would make them happy...

------
soheilpro
Congratulations! I run the exact opposite service: Turning tweets into
Instagram posts ([https://pikaso.me](https://pikaso.me))

It already supports Zapier but as soon as Instagram opens up its publishing
API again, I will offer my own built-in automation features too.

~~~
keesj
That's awesome. I think I've seen it before and thinking to myself, hey that's
Tweet Photo in reverse :)

If I could offer one piece of unsolicited advice, it's to build in that viral
loop I did with "via tweet.photo". I think that alone 10x'd the user base and
possibly the valuation as well.

P.S. I saw you're in Bali. Which part are you from? I've lived in
Canggu/Ubud/Lovina for a while. Hope you and your family are staying safe in
these trying times.

~~~
soheilpro
Thanks for the advice. I already have a Twitter bot
([https://pikaso.me/twitter-bot](https://pikaso.me/twitter-bot)) that people
can mention and ask for a screenshot. It helps with the virality.

That's cool :) I've been living in Bali (Mengwi area) for almost three years
now. Hope you are safe as well.

------
Traster
>The first $10,000 is cash upfront with no strings attached. The remaining
$20,000 is contingent on Tweet Photo making that much (or more) in revenue
within 24 months of the acquisition.

I'm not sure I'd call that $30k given the current revenue needs to grow more
than 5x over the next 2 years to get the 20k (assuming the acquiring company
even continues to monetize the project). Is that really the terms?

~~~
keesj
I went into more detail here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24340211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24340211)

------
crispyporkbites
Marc has 26k followers on Twitter and owns
[https://wip.chat](https://wip.chat),
[https://betalist.com/](https://betalist.com/) and a startup job board - all
of which give him regular touchpoints (and trust!) with potential side project
buyers.

You might be able to build an app like this in a weekend or a few weeks, but
unless you have a similar capability / vehicle to market it, you're going to
struggle to sell it for anything.

~~~
keesj
That's a fair point. Having an established network and reputation definitely
goes a long way.

I wouldn't rule our selling a side project if you don't have the net work
though. These days there are more and more platforms popping up to help you do
that.

Some that come to mind:

[https://microacquire.com](https://microacquire.com)
[https://www.flippa.com](https://www.flippa.com)

------
huhtenberg
> _It got featured on BetaList and Product Hunt._

A little detail here is that BetaList just happens to be OP's other project.

~~~
keesj
Yes, perhaps I should point that out in the article.

Although to be honest it's not that hard to get featured on BetaList if you
have a half-decent product :)

------
smabie
Nice score, but why do you think that guy wanted to buy it? Little
revenue/userbase. Moreover, he or some contractor could have built the same
product in a weekend.

Also, assuming you get your money in 24 months and using a discounting factor
of 5% (which is either much too high or much too low), you are looking at a
little over 28k, not 30k.

~~~
ayewo
Why would someone want to buy tweet.photo? Time to market.

The product already had traction—actual users numbering in the thousands—and
from the buyer’s perspective, it was cheaper and/or faster for them to buy vs
build a comparable service from scratch.

Also, by owning tweet.photo outright, the new owners can bundle it with other
complementary services in their portfolio.

There is a saying that there are two ways to make money in software: bundling
and unbundling.

~~~
csunbird
Also, the domain name/branding :)

~~~
dumbfounder
Which, if it becomes sizable, will be targeted by Twitter because of their
trademark on the word tweet. They did this with Twitpic.

[https://www.lawinc.com/twitter-vs-twitpic-trademark-
dispute-...](https://www.lawinc.com/twitter-vs-twitpic-trademark-dispute-
shuts-down-startup)

------
Cthulhu_
Did you ever run into trouble with the domain / service name? I wouldn't be
surprised if Twitter has or has tried to copyright / trademark the word
"tweet".

~~~
adventured
Twitter has been unable to protect/own the word tweet effectively in its use
case. They tried to acquire the trademark in a round about way back in 2011
from Twittad [1], relating to a phrase ("let your ad meet tweets"), with a
filing date all the way back to July 2008 [2]. If you dig for "tweet" in the
TESS trademark database, there's nothing related to Twitter owning it however.
My opinion, and from everything I've read on the subject, is that Twitter has
zero trademark control over the word "tweet" unto itself.

They did acquire this trademark however ("subtweet"):

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmz...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmzjl7.2.20)

And there is a new trademark published for opposition from August 25, 2020,
related to bird food:

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmz...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmzjl7.2.5)

[1] [https://mashable.com/2011/10/10/twitter-tweet-
trademark/](https://mashable.com/2011/10/10/twitter-tweet-trademark/)

[1a] [https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/update-twitter-finally-
lan...](https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/update-twitter-finally-lands-
coveted-tweet-trademark-30458)

[2]
[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmz...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:kmzjl7.3.1)

------
OJFord
> I made a new thing called [https://t.co/LMVsrPNaFV](https://t.co/LMVsrPNaFV)

Another reason to dislike Twitter's disguised shortening...

(In the original tweet, viewed on Twitter, that should read 'called
tweet.photo'.)

------
tomkwong
Congrats! Thanks for sharing. I think one of the best decisions you made was
the choice of the domain name. It feels authentic.

------
mtnGoat
I always wonder how many of these are just bought by shady companies to
install spyware and such. Seems like something easy to duplicate for anyone
with funds. Unless they aren't in the business of building and running apps. I
know at least a few this has happened to and goes on in the Google play store
as well.

~~~
puranjay
A lot of SEO spammers buy old but popular Wordpress plugins to inject hidden
backlinks to their websites, so it's entirely possible

~~~
elevenoh
Woah, didn't know that, that's low.

Would it be feasible for an SEO spammer to covertly include such backlinks in
an npm package update?

~~~
puranjay
Check the backlink profile for pages ranking for spam-dominated queries such
as "buy CBD oil" or "buy viagra" and you'll see an incredible amount of spam
and fraud.

Sucks that despite this being a 20+ year old problem, Google hasn't been able
to fix it.

------
stevage
The obvious question: how many hours do you think you spent on it, all up?

~~~
keesj
That's a great question I unfortunately I don't have a great answer for.

The majority of the time was spent in those first few days were I built the
initial product. Tweet Photo is technically quite a simple product, especially
if you're familiar with the relevant open source libraries and APIs which I
was anyway.

But for me the main "cost" was knowing the APIs could change and I'd need to
be ready to make the necessary changes.

~~~
stevage
Oh, that's cool. So a few days of actual labour, then just a certain amount of
mindspace over however many months/years. $10-30k seems a good return on that.

------
JCharante
Thank you for sharing your story! Even though selling my side projects isn't
the goal behind them it's nice to see someone creating a side project in a
short span and actually finishing it.

------
mr_cyborg
I really enjoyed this blog post. Great writing, easy to read and follow, and a
compelling and relevant subject for many readers here. Thank you for sharing!

------
groggo
How did you host this project? Did that have a significant cost?

> I believe in using the tools you’re familiar with, so I used Ruby on Rails
> to build the product.

------
abinaya_rl
Thank you for sharing your story Marc. Any idea how much time you spent on
creating this service in total?

Are you going to continue involve with the product development?

~~~
keesj
See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24340353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24340353)

I won't be involved in the product development, but we might to the occasional
video call or email to exchange ideas and insights.

------
ijafri
basically he still made great money, i don't think anyone would pay more than
$10k .. if he had listed it on flippa it's simple 3 x yearly revneue for such
sites = $ 5000 maxium. he got the right buyer and $10k isn't bad deal for
either party.

------
dmitriid
On technical side: I wonder what APIs this service (and others like Zapier)
use. Original Instagram API is all but closed to devs, and the new Facebook
APIs are limited and reduced to "business accounts". Any good APIs I've seen
are libs that reverse-engineer Instagram's internal APIs and use those.

~~~
keesj
Instagram's new API is open to regular users as well (that's what Tweet Photo
uses), but I believe it's read-only.

Zapier etc probably have special deals with Facebook.

~~~
dmitriid
Thank you! Last time a looked at it a few years ago I couldn't make heads or
tails of it. I'll take a look again.

~~~
keesj
There’s an approval process you need to go through. I wouldn’t recommend it if
you can avoid it as you’ll be at the mercy of Facebook.

------
swyx
you had zendaya using you and there was no step function jump in revenue? why
is that? seems really odd.

~~~
keesj
There was a big jump in signups, but not as much in monetization. My guess is
that it was mostly young consumers signing up through her, but it's the
professionals and businesses that pay to upgrade.

------
summitsummit
1\. how many side projects have you had? was this the only successful exit?

2\. how do you come up with the startup/tool ideas?

~~~
keesj
1\. Too many to count. The trick is to ship fast and see what sticks. Focus on
that, ignore the rest. Tweet Photo is my first legit exit, but some of my
other side projects have turned into $xxx,xxx/year businesses. Just haven't
sold them :)

2\. Usually out of necessity. Something I want myself, but can't find an
(appealing) existing solution for.

~~~
stevage
I'd be interested in hearing about some of these other side projects (well,
the financially successful ones anyway). Do you have a list somewhere?

~~~
marckohlbrugge
My Twitter bio has a list of many of my projects:
[https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge)

Most notable:

[https://betalist.com](https://betalist.com) (2010): $xxx,xxx/year

[https://startup.jobs](https://startup.jobs) (2016): $xx,xxx/year (could hit
$xxx,xxx this year)

[https://wip.chat](https://wip.chat) (2017): $xx,xxx/year

~~~
summitsummit
congrats, that's awesome.

are they all 100% owned by you or did you drink out of the poisoned foundation
(vc)?

also how do you toss up many sass so quickly? do you just have an auth and
payment module you're comfortable that you reuse for every project?

~~~
marckohlbrugge
Thanks. All owned 100% by me. No outside funding or co-founders.

I use Ruby on Rails which has a lot of pre-made libraries for common tasks.

I’ve been building products for 10+ years though. So it’s mostly a matter of
time I think

------
quickthrower2
TLDR: sold for 10k plus rev share. Sold because of platform risk.

------
Pete-Codes
Great work! Email me.

------
jevgeni
I mean, there’s IFTT...

~~~
andrew3019
> You can find many workarounds using automation services like IFTTT and
> Zapier. Because I was unhappy with all solutions,

~~~
jevgeni
Sure. The question to me is where the 30k PV coming from?

------
macca321
Probably for the API access to Zendaya's Insta and Twitter accounts

