Influencers sell ads around content. Whatever is in that box surrounded by ads doesn't really matter other than being fresh and getting clicks. It's generally more interesting to see videos about different types of projects because it's always new and different people like different things. There's a difference in doing things for content and doing things for real, almost for any content type. Camping content, woodworking content, programming content etc, is optimized for views, not for the actual thing, usually.

Tell me about it. I've been plucking away at an online business since 2004. It makes just barely enough money that I'm not quite willing to shut it down but not enough to get excited about or quit my regular job. Hate it.

It’s really hard to change project and recognize the blurredd line between “it doesn’t work” and “I didn’t put enough effort into it”.

My first product worked, but very average. My second project worked excellently, there was quasi-immediate traction. That second thing was resolving an actual business issue.

It’s stagnating now. It’s probably because, even though I don’t feel it, I’m bored (it’s been 7 years). I have difficulty waking up in the morning.

You need to innovate. If not just for your brain and sanity, the market didn’t recognize your first product. Evaluate whether you should trust the sign that the market gives you.

Launch a second product.

Do you have a way I can contact you? I’m looking for a business to acquire and I wonder if there would be a fit.

What about selling it on Acquire?

Would you sell thousands of your man hours for 10,000 dollars?

Those hours are gone. If I am no longer interested in a side project, would I sell it for $10K vs. just turning it off? Absolutely!

Think not about the hours you have spent, but about the hours remaining in your life. They are finite. Do you want to spend more of them on that thing that has turned dreary? If you can afford it, it's usually better to call it a day and free up time and mental energy for something new and better.

If the result of those thousands of hours is worth <= 10000 by some valuation method which makes sense to me.

More nuanced answer: I have a project that I've been plugging away at for years now. It may never pay for itself if I value my time at the same rate that I charge it out to others, but in that time it's improved the quality and speed of my other outputs significantly.

In that regard it's probably already paid for itself, but I wouldn't sell it because it continues to be valuable to me both in that regard and as a creative outlet.

If it were a throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks saas I'd have no problem selling it for a reasonable valuation of future earnings.

Wish I could edit my comment as I see it has triggered many responses. To me, the effort of closing a deal to sell something that's not losing money isn't worth $10,000. I'd rather keep it alive and let users enjoy it. If I'm losing money, that's a different story, of course. But since selling on Acquire tops at $10,000, I decide that it's not worth my time. I might think differently if instead of $10,000 it was $100,000. That would pay off part of my mortgage. But having to do KT, sign documents, consult with lawyers, do loads of admin for $10,000? No way. I am almost offended

Maybe people are assuming it's $10,000 net after the cost of lawyers and "admin" or whatever it takes to sell your thing on Acquire. $10,000 is a lot of money, if I had some hobby project that was break even and I was getting sick of dealing with it, I'd even sell it for $1,000, let alone $10,000 which can be life changing!

Even if it meant you can't work on something similar to that hobby project again?

Probably. OP said he can't get excited about the project, and hates the situation, so sure. For a few grand in the pocket, no big deal. Is this really a standard term for selling a failed business? You can't work on something similar ever again for the rest of your life?

If those hours are in the past, sure. All jokes aside, you’d be selling an asset, not the time you already put into it.

> Hate it.

If I was at that point, probably.

The thousands of man hours are a sunk cost. If you wouldn't start the business today knowing what you know now, you should probably sell.

Hire someone and produce proof he can run the business as a manager - then you can have at least 5-7xEBITDA

That's also part of the problem. I don't think I could find anyone competent enough for less than $150K or so, and then we'd be losing money. Plus finding them and training them is hard.

Why sell them when you carry them with you to your grave?

Depends. What will I get for it 2 years from now ? Would someone even pay 10K ? You need to know when to let something go. SOmetimes, at a huge loss. And I am a founder so I know how hard it is to let things go that you put your blood and sweat into.

If it meant I didn't have to spend thousands of more hours working on something that doesn't interest me anymore, sure.

There’s opportunity cost of what worse might be on the radar.

Sunk time isn’t always invaluable.

Sunk cost fallacy. It doesn't matter how much time or money you've put into something, the question is always what is the best use of my time and money today? The value of something is what someone else is willing to pay for it.

Folks below are saying Acquire caps out at 10K? That's a joke, my business isn't doing that poorly. Thanks for the suggestion though

It doesn't cap out at 10k, it was just a number chosen by the poster. Acquire takes a 4% fee if a deal closes.

Do you have a way I can contact you? I’m looking for a business to acquire and I wonder if there would be a fit.

Well, if you try a lot of stuff, and stop early.. You have more chance of success.. "put your eggs in one basket" kind a thing

There is some truth in that, but if you only spend 1 month on a project it will be really difficult to realize any potential there might be.

It shouldn't be about the time spend but how quickly you can validate assumptions, those are different things.

My point is: It's not "that easy". I'm pro indie hacking, but it's hard work and difficult to create a profitable business that you can live off. Spinning off crappy quick projects only works if you have a big audience you can sell to, and most don't have that, so they will have to put in a lot more effort and time.

This take sounds very bitter and I disagree.

I know someone in the UK who has been in a very poor situation and told them they can make a bit of money by building a small side project and charging for it.

About 6 months later, I caught up with them and they made over £700,000+ by just learning to code, taking advice from others, discipline, and turning around their dire and desperate current situation they really wanted to get out of.

Depending on the situation it actually changes lives.

I think you are misunderstanding my point, I'm specifically referring to the "build 12 companies in 12 months" version of indie hacking that is really vocal on twitter and other places.

They usually build a landing page or bad prototype, wait for people to come, then move on to "the next startup" if it inevitably doesn't work. Their ideas usually don't have enough potential to sell, and if they do they don't take them far enough to actually realize even a fraction of the potential.

I love bootstrapped companies, I'm all for building side projects and turning them into jobs, but this movement has moved away from that and is now about selling the dream instead of the work.

It sounds like the person you know did not do this and actually created something valuable, that's amazing and I congratulate them. I would like the indie hacker movement to move back to celebrating these success stories instead of the influencer BS.

Edit: and maybe I am a bit bitter as I loved the indie hacker movement. I found it to be incredibly inspiring, and I truly miss the stories of people doing lots of hard work, solving difficult problems, and building incredible products and companies.

So that person found a business idea worth solving, learned to code and launch a product and made 700k all in 6 months.

Surely worth a post on its own.

Or was this person already an expert in a certain business domain, which helped to come up with a business idea in that domain?

It’s really incredible how YouTube shapes the zeitgeist today. Hype cycles and their “movements” should be avoided like the plague.

At the end of the day if you want to gamble, buy a lottery ticket, then at least you are being honest with yourself.

It takes tremendous effort launching products that have integrity, and its something that should be respected, the journey is what its all about.

Stating with problems actually belonging to B2B customers that they have tried and failed to solve and are willing to pay for good a long way instead of being a solution in search of a problem.

Being a solution in search of a problem is being everything on one hypothesis of what you built being correct instead of problem based thinking that would line up multiple hypotheses to then select one to start with.

Startups are a learning engine and most don’t get setup to learn and iterate based on customer feedback.

I've always been extremely skeptical of the whole "serial entrepreneur" thing.

You mean build 12 startups in 12 months doesn't work ? Wow, who would have thought ? /s. Sorry for these "SAAS influencers" really piss me off.