Ask HN: Where can I buy SaaS businesses?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817871

by titusblair • 6 years ago

25 13 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am looking to purchase some SAAS businesses this year and would love your thoughts on places to purchase them. Thanks!

throwaway888abc• 6 years ago

https://flippa.com/ as quick pointer

titusblair3• 6 years ago

Thanks!

mariocesar2• 6 years ago

There are several places with different quality.

https://microacquire.com

https://empireflippers.com

https://digitalexits.com/listings/

https://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/

https://www.sideprojectors.com/

https://quietlight.com/listings/

Another alternative is finding small niche websites and make an early proposal, and you can find leads in https://betalist.com or search on Twitter "We are shutting down" and phrases like this.

I have this experience looking at someone else doing so. I can tell you it was not fun. Do all your diligence about all the details that matter, trustworthy metrics, IP, real costs, and advertising history; don't trust so easily.

Another piece of advice is to start small, don't buy a 100.000 $us business, start with something less than 5.000 $us, and learn how to measure and reprovision costs; it's not always evident how to continue with an existing business.

titusblair3• 6 years ago

Awesome post thanks! Did you end up buying a SAAS? Are you running it now? Would be cool to have a SAAS purchase checklist :)

mariocesar2• 6 years ago

I have not do it myself, but I watch someone doing it. Due diligence, Good judgment and knowing how to provision costs are some important keys, but I will say that experience is half of what you need. The first business you buy will be crappy because you will need to learn so many no self evident things, so you better start the with one objective in mind: what do I need to learn?

davidsojevic• 6 years ago

The following sites/marketplaces have a mix of SaaS sites, content sites, and affiliate sites. These are all generally higher value sites/businesses for sale (think 50k and up for many) and are often for sale at high yearly multiples.

https://microacquire.com/

https://latonas.com/

https://feinternational.com/

https://empireflippers.com/marketplace/

If you're considering lower value businesses to purchase, these two will primarily have sites/businesses for sale for under 50k, but often considerably less than (eg. 1-5k):

https://www.sideprojectors.com/

https://www.flippa.com/

As with all things, whatever you're considering buying from any of these sources, you're going to want to do your due diligence to make sure everything is above board.

titusblair3• 6 years ago

Thanks!

fxtentacle• 6 years ago

You don't. SaaS businesses come in 2 variants:

1. Failed product market fit. These will be for sale, but you won't want to buy them because operating them will cost more than the revenue they produce.

2. The market likes the product. In this case, the original owner can just hire people to do the work, so there's no reason to sell.

tjbiddle• 6 years ago

Completely false. People buy and sell SAAS businesses all the time.

1. Sure, bad businesses exist. When they do, they're priced accordingly or just can't find a buyer.

2. It's called an exit for a reason. There are million reasons to exit (eg: Big life event, wanting to cash out and invest elsewhere, bored of the business, have other projects, etc, etc, etc.)

Just because someone is selling a business does not mean it's a bad business. I say this as someone who acquires and grows online (e-com) businesses as my primary wealth vehicle.

amarghose2• 6 years ago

100%

I had no idea you were on Hacker News, TJ, what a welcome surprise

amarghose2• 6 years ago

There are lots of great reasons to buy SaaS businesses. Failed product market fit, for example, does not mean that creators tried everything they could. If you're a marketer (or already have an audience) buying a product is a great idea.

Lots of people also sell good SaaS products because they have others that have taken off (I bought one last year from someone who got funding from YC on another project, for example).

"The market likes the product. In this case, the original owner can just hire people to do the work, so there's no reason to sell." is also flawed. Do you have any idea how many developers/creators hate the idea (and reality) of hiring and managing people? Plenty would prefer to cash in and go back to building and let someone else build a team.

BelenusMordred• 6 years ago

I'd add that there's plenty of talented people who can easily build and execute an idea well, but struggle so badly with the business side.

Have been guilty of this myself and seen so many overconfident devs who think they can manage it once they "get there" despite the entirely different skillset that's required for the role. Someone who can do both at the same time is incredibly rare.

TimWillebrands• 6 years ago

Somewhat adjacent to this question, does the techstack have an impact on the price of a SaaS? I could imagine a java/react codebase is easier to sell then a rust/clojurescript stack. Is this true? And if it is, should it be a concern when starting a side-hustle?

Ask HN: Where can I buy SaaS businesses?

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