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Semantic quibble: A founder founds a company, if you're buying it you aren't a founder. More broadly is there a market for side projects? I could understand so

Semantic quibble: A founder founds a company, if you're buying it you aren't a founder. More broadly is there a market for side projects? I could understand someone's side project expanding to the point they need to bring someone else on board (which is what the name implies to me). It seems to me that if the founder is selling its probably because there isn't money in it. Or at least I would be concerned that the bulk of sales are for that reason rather than because the founder has another job or something.

deleted 4y ago
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echelon 4y ago
If a side project isn't a company and then someone else buys it and turns it into a company, I'd argue the purchaser is the founder. If you take open source software or some white label solution and sell it, you're a founder. If a company goes bankrupt, you buy the assets and then launch a new company. Founder.
codegeek 4y ago
It is a bit more nuanced. I bought a 3 month old "side project" which had like 10 customers at the time and I have bootstrapped it into a low 7 figure business with a totally new tech and lots of pivots/business changes. I call myself the founder for all practical purposes. Everything about this business was setup by me and the team I built from the ground up except the initial market validation which btw we have changed anyway since the customer profile is now different.
stockboss 4y ago
would you consider Elon Musk a founder of Tesla?
- lajamerr 4y ago
  I would. But in general I would consider anyone a founder of a company if they had a significant impact before the companies first product/service went general availability to their target demographic. If they already had a general release of product or service. I wouldn't consider them a founder if they joined afterwards.
- Guest9081239812 4y ago
  Is Zuckerburg the founder of Instagram? The company went from 13 employees and 30 million users to 450 employees and 2 billion users. 98.5% of users came after the purchase, but I still don't think most people would call him the founder.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    That's a bit disingenuous though, it's like saying YouTube got 99% of their accounts post acquisition, knowing that the majority of these were merely Google accounts who through the associative property of acquisitions were delegated these accounts by the purchaser. In my opinion Instagram sold a bit early[0], but coming from an app that existed merely as the first widely used iteration of phone-camera filters, I can't necessarily blame them. Who'd have thought that Instagram, and also Giphy to an extent had -any- form of business model or potential for profit? I sure didn't. [0] - sidenote: (in the financial and growth sense, not the chronological sense)
yieldcrv 4y ago
The projects have explanations on why they are selling, and what their current Monthly Recurring Revenue is. I think you have heavily heavily discounted that the people building aren't the same people ready to make the same time and financial risks. That site is doing two things: selling projects, and finding cofounders. These are two separate functions if it isn't clear. You can buy a project and find a co-founder, not buy into a project and be the co-founder with someone that has another job.
gunapologist99 4y ago
> is there a market for side projects? Yes. I'm always interested in cool security projects.

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echelon 4y ago

If a side project isn't a company and then someone else buys it and turns it into a company, I'd argue the purchaser is the founder. If you take open source software or some white label solution and sell it, you're a founder. If a company goes bankrupt, you buy the assets and then launch a new company. Founder.

codegeek 4y ago

It is a bit more nuanced. I bought a 3 month old "side project" which had like 10 customers at the time and I have bootstrapped it into a low 7 figure business with a totally new tech and lots of pivots/business changes. I call myself the founder for all practical purposes. Everything about this business was setup by me and the team I built from the ground up except the initial market validation which btw we have changed anyway since the customer profile is now different.

stockboss 4y ago

would you consider Elon Musk a founder of Tesla?

lajamerr 4y ago
I would. But in general I would consider anyone a founder of a company if they had a significant impact before the companies first product/service went general availability to their target demographic. If they already had a general release of product or service. I wouldn't consider them a founder if they joined afterwards.
Guest9081239812 4y ago
Is Zuckerburg the founder of Instagram? The company went from 13 employees and 30 million users to 450 employees and 2 billion users. 98.5% of users came after the purchase, but I still don't think most people would call him the founder.
- aliqot 4y ago
  That's a bit disingenuous though, it's like saying YouTube got 99% of their accounts post acquisition, knowing that the majority of these were merely Google accounts who through the associative property of acquisitions were delegated these accounts by the purchaser. In my opinion Instagram sold a bit early[0], but coming from an app that existed merely as the first widely used iteration of phone-camera filters, I can't necessarily blame them. Who'd have thought that Instagram, and also Giphy to an extent had -any- form of business model or potential for profit? I sure didn't. [0] - sidenote: (in the financial and growth sense, not the chronological sense)

yieldcrv 4y ago

The projects have explanations on why they are selling, and what their current Monthly Recurring Revenue is. I think you have heavily heavily discounted that the people building aren't the same people ready to make the same time and financial risks. That site is doing two things: selling projects, and finding cofounders. These are two separate functions if it isn't clear. You can buy a project and find a co-founder, not buy into a project and be the co-founder with someone that has another job.

gunapologist99 4y ago

> is there a market for side projects? Yes. I'm always interested in cool security projects.