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Why we shut down Newsberry Part 2: Why we didn’t sell

31 points by alexknowshtml 15y ago

alexknowshtml 15y ago
Follow up post to questions about shutting down our $75k/year profitable product: http://wildbit.com/blog/2012/01/26/why-we-shut-down-a-product-that-was-75000year-profitable/ http://wildbit.com/blog/2012/01/26/why-we-shut-down-a-produc...
captaincrunch 15y ago
I'd find it more interesting to see how a company such as this got to the point of getting an offer. Not trying to be rude, but I find articles like this a little too trendy.
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  "Trendy"? How so? I can't remember the last "we could have sold it but instead chose to shut it down because it was better for us" essay I saw on HN.
- j45 15y ago
  What do you find trendy, not selling?
ahoyhere 15y ago
Any word on why this was [deleted] until a few minutes ago? Inquiring minds want to know.
- orenmazor 15y ago
  we'd love to know too, actually.
ABS 15y ago
ever considered something like flippa? it addresses all your concerns and is nearly impossible not to know about it if you do business online (and read HN)
- alexknowshtml 15y ago
  From TFA: >> It’s not like we were going to put a For Sale sign up. We had active clients who we didn’t want to scare off. We were still actively supporting the product and we also wanted to sell a profitable service, and for that you needed customers.
  - ABS 15y ago
    and that's taken care of by flippa if you want: you can do private auctions, you can hide names and urls until people sign an NDA and stuff like that RTFM
Domenic_S 15y ago
Yeah, I don't believe it. I think they never would have gotten past due diligence. They claimed to be generating $75k "in profit", but had no F/T devs on the project. Combine that with self-proclaimed stalled growth, and the company's a loser. I'm going to guess that a huge slice of that $75k was due to parasitic hosting -- they probably put it on infrastructure belonging to (or at very least subsidized by) their other "real" projects, so even $75k is a stretch. Next, the codebase is hacked together (as they say in the "why we're not open-sourcing it" paragraph). People buying entire companies in a packed market like this are looking to buy something that's basically running on rails. Newsberry isn't this. Hacked together is fine for a bleeding-edge idea, but this thing had been going for 7 years. A buyout would have landed somewhere in the 4-figures. If I were in their shoes, I would have turned it down, too.

31 points by alexknowshtml 15y ago

Follow up post to questions about shutting down our $75k/year profitable product: http://wildbit.com/blog/2012/01/26/why-we-shut-down-a-product-that-was-75000year-profitable/ http://wildbit.com/blog/2012/01/26/why-we-shut-down-a-produc...

captaincrunch 15y ago

I'd find it more interesting to see how a company such as this got to the point of getting an offer. Not trying to be rude, but I find articles like this a little too trendy.

ahoyhere 15y ago
"Trendy"? How so? I can't remember the last "we could have sold it but instead chose to shut it down because it was better for us" essay I saw on HN.
j45 15y ago
What do you find trendy, not selling?

ahoyhere 15y ago

Any word on why this was [deleted] until a few minutes ago? Inquiring minds want to know.

orenmazor 15y ago
we'd love to know too, actually.

ABS 15y ago

ever considered something like flippa? it addresses all your concerns and is nearly impossible not to know about it if you do business online (and read HN)

alexknowshtml 15y ago
From TFA: >> It’s not like we were going to put a For Sale sign up. We had active clients who we didn’t want to scare off. We were still actively supporting the product and we also wanted to sell a profitable service, and for that you needed customers.
- ABS 15y ago
  and that's taken care of by flippa if you want: you can do private auctions, you can hide names and urls until people sign an NDA and stuff like that RTFM

Domenic_S 15y ago

Yeah, I don't believe it. I think they never would have gotten past due diligence. They claimed to be generating $75k "in profit", but had no F/T devs on the project. Combine that with self-proclaimed stalled growth, and the company's a loser. I'm going to guess that a huge slice of that $75k was due to parasitic hosting -- they probably put it on infrastructure belonging to (or at very least subsidized by) their other "real" projects, so even $75k is a stretch. Next, the codebase is hacked together (as they say in the "why we're not open-sourcing it" paragraph). People buying entire companies in a packed market like this are looking to buy something that's basically running on rails. Newsberry isn't this. Hacked together is fine for a bleeding-edge idea, but this thing had been going for 7 years. A buyout would have landed somewhere in the 4-figures. If I were in their shoes, I would have turned it down, too.