Ask HN: Has anyone been able to grow side project bought on Flippa or similar?
I'm a software engineer looking for a side hustle as a solo. I'm considering buying a project from Flippa or similar platform, which has some traction already. My budget will be <$2500. Preferable SaaS or App.
Has anyone here been able to buy side project like this and grow it successfully? Would you be able to share some tips on what to watch out for. What was your story?
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I spent a few years laser focused on web property arbitrage in my spare time.
This is my general advice:
* The deals at the lower end (a budget of $2500 is in that segment) are often trash. You'll need to spend an insane amount of time vetting those deals. And most will be niche products with either no route to profit or a severe decline.
* The best deals are the really poorly built PHP SAAS applications run by an old tech-oriented person that has zero marketing experience (one of my best flips was an awful codeigniter tool related to pets.. I literally only added Adsense, cleaned up the copy, and slightly improved the loadspeed, then sold it for a 2x profit).
* If it's a prior flip (e.g the current owner is not the original creator), turn around and find something else. Sometimes they are fantastic, but it's usually a terrible idea.
* Flippa is the Amazon <2015 of web property purchases (in terms of product quality). The best deals are usually in forums, Reddit, or even locally if you know a lot of devs.
Watch out for sites that are being sold because they are on the decline. Many people will keep a project while it is profitable, then sell it once an external change has trashed its value prop. But they try to price it based on its peak, so you are over-paying for a dying project.
That doesn't mean you could not buy it and pivot it to a model that does work, but be exceedingly wary of the pricing.
You'll probably want to verify yourself any important stats (revenue, etc). In many cases, it can be good to have the creator stay on for a short period if you can negotiate that. Be careful to not buy a declining project but with your budget I'm not actually sure you'll be able to find something decent.
Used to wander the BlackHatWorld forums and learned flippa is full of scammers, many are members there. Be careful.