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Ask HN: How to Sell a Side Project?

Hello HN! Writing from a Throwaway account. I have an unreleased side project that I want to sell. It is in Amazon affiliates space which targets a niche audience (HN users, to be precise). I was working on it for quite some time but never got around to launching it. Since I'm working on my SAAS right now, I don't really want to spend time on it. Tech stack is Python/Flask/SQLite with vanilla HTML/CSS on the frontend. It is not resource heavy, and will easily run on a cheapest VPS instance. You could also deploy it to Heroku but it will cost a bit more ($7 for a hobby dyno and $9 for a hobby Postgres database). The codebase is ready to be deployed straight away. I think this project has potential to gross low-to-mid 4 figures (in USD) for its entire existence. How do I go about selling it? I really want someone to pick up this project, launch it and make some money off of it, rather than seeing it gathering dust in obscurity... You can contact me at sellingwebsite@protonmail.com

bdcravens 7y ago
flippa.com However if it's unreleased no real way of valuing it.
imhoguy 7y ago
You could list it on offload.io or borderline.biz (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200100)
lacbuddah 7y ago
Your project is worthless (in USD) without users and a base for a company to make money off that user base. You're too close to the code - It's an undemonstrated idea.
- sellingwebsite 7y ago
  I get what you're saying, but my projections are based on observing similar sites in similar niches. I also understand that potential buyers are bearing more risk than they'd have if the site were live with real revenue numbers; that's why I'm willing to sell it for cheap.
  - oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
    As a potential buyer, I'd want to see some trajectory. Otherwise, I'd just be buying some code which I can hire anyone to write.
  - jf22 7y ago
    Did you have access to those other websites traffic statistics and revenue numbers?
willnz 7y ago
You can list the site on 1kprojects.com (domain name is a bit of a misnomer as the site has plenty of projects listed for well over $1k)
ashokvarma2 7y ago
You can try https://1kprojects.com/ https://1kprojects.com/
trykondev 7y ago
You might have more success if you had a way to demo the project here -- speaking for myself, I'm always intrigued by these kinds of posts but I would never follow up on something without either existing revenue or some way to judge the upside for myself.
openlowcode 7y ago
Hi, getting users to invest time in a new product is not so easy. One of the fears is that someone will invest time in a product that will be abandoned. There are graveyards or abandoned softwares. I am now working around half-time trying to sell my own side project (https://openlowcode.com https://openlowcode.com), and it is quite hard.
ErwinSmout 7y ago
You have explained everything about what kind of environment it requires to run in and what kind of tools you used to build it, but you have not said a single word about business purpose or WHAT IT DOES FOR IT USERS.

bdcravens 7y ago

flippa.com However if it's unreleased no real way of valuing it.

imhoguy 7y ago

You could list it on offload.io or borderline.biz (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200100)

lacbuddah 7y ago

Your project is worthless (in USD) without users and a base for a company to make money off that user base. You're too close to the code - It's an undemonstrated idea.

sellingwebsite 7y ago
I get what you're saying, but my projections are based on observing similar sites in similar niches. I also understand that potential buyers are bearing more risk than they'd have if the site were live with real revenue numbers; that's why I'm willing to sell it for cheap.
- oiasdjfoiasd 7y ago
  As a potential buyer, I'd want to see some trajectory. Otherwise, I'd just be buying some code which I can hire anyone to write.
- jf22 7y ago
  Did you have access to those other websites traffic statistics and revenue numbers?

willnz 7y ago

You can list the site on 1kprojects.com (domain name is a bit of a misnomer as the site has plenty of projects listed for well over $1k)

ashokvarma2 7y ago

You can try https://1kprojects.com/ https://1kprojects.com/

trykondev 7y ago

You might have more success if you had a way to demo the project here -- speaking for myself, I'm always intrigued by these kinds of posts but I would never follow up on something without either existing revenue or some way to judge the upside for myself.

openlowcode 7y ago

Hi, getting users to invest time in a new product is not so easy. One of the fears is that someone will invest time in a product that will be abandoned. There are graveyards or abandoned softwares. I am now working around half-time trying to sell my own side project (https://openlowcode.com https://openlowcode.com), and it is quite hard.

ErwinSmout 7y ago

You have explained everything about what kind of environment it requires to run in and what kind of tools you used to build it, but you have not said a single word about business purpose or WHAT IT DOES FOR IT USERS.