Not the OP, but I would consider 2x earnings as a reasonable discount given the youth of the company. Given a normal customer acquisition curve, most of the rev

Not the OP, but I would consider 2x earnings as a reasonable discount given the youth of the company. Given a normal customer acquisition curve, most of the revenue would be coming from customers with tenure < 1 year. So a buyer could reasonably wonder how long these customers would stick around. Put another way: the LTV hadn't been demonstrated yet. (No scare quotes needed around earnings; the article doesn't suggest that there was any reason the owner couldn't just pocket the monthly earnings.)