Thread: Price of sentimental value

In my spare time I planned out an online service to link two groups of people who were previously never joined in one central online place. Got the site developed and have a handful of active users. I was approached by a company to purchase the whole kit and kaboodle.

Anyhow I'll keep the dollar amount out but it's about 20x my yearly salary.

Anyone regret selling their personal project, or regret turning down an offer?

Sold my personal project which was my baby and I never looked back. Emotions in business = weakness. Your grandma's watch has sentimental value. Your company doesn't. Company = make money. If it's 20x your yearly salary, that's a no brainer UNLESS you think you'll make more by launching it yourself. That's a differen't story, because you might think it has great potential.

I sold my screenwriting app knowing the guy buying it was going to improve it and increase the revenue. Am I upset that he's making more money off of it than I was and that money could of been mine? Of course not. My decision was to sell it based on my situation. So, I sold it, it's looking great and I'm very happy with it's improvement soo far. I don't care if he makes a million dollars off of it. I have absolutely no regrets.

I'd get that in contract asap. You came up with a good idea, you can do it again.

Originally Posted by Forfend

In my spare time I planned out an online service to link two groups of people who were previously never joined in one central online place. Got the site developed and have a handful of active users. I was approached by a company to purchase the whole kit and kaboodle.

Anyhow I'll keep the dollar amount out but it's about 20x my yearly salary.

Anyone regret selling their personal project, or regret turning down an offer?

Take that 20x your salary and bank it. Start working on other ideas.

Take the win and reinvest the money. Unless you really think in the long term that this could grow more than 20x plus your time and effort, I would sell it in a heartbeat. Or just try to get the 20x without having to sign a non-compete clause and try to out-do them .

I could never out do them, they are the de facto in the industry.

After a night of drinking and contemplating I think I'm going to decline the offer. The initial money is nice but I think in the long run its no where near enough. The phrase "give the man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish he will never go hungry", keeps playing in my mind as in taking the money will be nice now but it won't be beneficial in the grand scheme of things.

Originally Posted by saintv90

Take that 20x your salary and bank it. Start working on other ideas.

+1

Good job on creating something marketable. What you decide is entirely up to you, just make sure it's not one that you regret. You could always try to make them add a few more years worth of salary to their offer lol. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Forfend

I could never out do them, they are the de facto in the industry.

After a night of drinking and contemplating I think I'm going to decline the offer. The initial money is nice but I think in the long run its no where near enough. The phrase "give the man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish he will never go hungry", keeps playing in my mind as in taking the money will be nice now but it won't be beneficial in the grand scheme of

They say cash is king, but it isn't. Cash Flow trumps it. good for you man. Do what you want, no regrets! Maybe after you decline they'll want you even more! I know Dropbox declined an offer from Steve Jobs. I woulda sold to him though

Good luck and congrats!

You have to be realistic about your chances of succeeding if you decide to run the project yourself (time,$,expertise, etc). As well, keep in mind that the big fish eats the little fish, so consider what the possibilities are of the bigger companies running you out of business. If the chances are slim, then there's no need to sell. However, if the big fish has high chances of "running you out of business",(or affect your biz in general to the point that it is not worth to run it) then I would sell, but sell right! If possible, I would try to negotiate the dollar amount plus keep a percentage of the company.

my .02

DENZO has a good point.

They could go and put in this pile of cash into developing the same product (which I would suspect would cost a fraction of that). They come out with a better product, own the market, and therefor have a much lower customer acquisition cost. You see where this is going.

Not saying it's the wrong choice at all. If you have the time, effort, and passion to put into it than I don't blame you.