Ask HN: Should I shutdown my 20 year old SaaS sideline?

[pohwp]

I have a 20 year old saas sideline in the UK which makes about $10k a year (very little work). It is a vulnerability nightmare. I'm in my 50s now and decided I don't have the energy or desire to rewrite the code. I've tried to do so over the last 6 months but never get anywhere. I work in a full time job. My head is a muddle. What questions should I be asking myself about whether to put it to bed or keep it going?

Ps. I'm a one man ltd company

[codingdave]

Is there a reasonable migration path to help your customer move to another solution? If so, you could shut it down gracefully without giving pain to your people.

Because unless you just don't care about your customers, thinking about the best answer for them is often a good guide. If you don't want to run it anymore, do you think someone else can just pick it up on the fly? FYI, In my experience, that answer is always "No", because SaaS apps are about knowing the problem space, the customer needs, and the history. Being able to read the code is 5% of the work. So people tend to quickly be willing to try, but then get discouraged when they realize the difficulties and just shut down on the customers anyway.

So I'd recommend that if you don't want to run it, but also don't want to just turn it off, find a small group of people who know your niche/market, and who already run a SaaS, and pass it on to them. Often, competitors will turn into partners in such situations. Sometimes that even works best for everyone - you get to escape, your competitors grow a bit, and the customers are taken care of.

That is a lot of rambling, but the overall point is that there are probably more options out there than just sell/quit/keep going.

[pohwp]

Thank you. I have worked alone for 18 years though it wasn't my desire. It is often hard to find collaborators. I agree as you say, passing it on to someone on the fly would problably be more work. People have thanked me for the software when I have sought no feedback. It obviously have value. I think I will have one more go at getting it up to date and more secure. I have the term micro changes in my head as a way forward. As a young man I created a beast of a thing and now in my 50s I need to tweak and not rewrite :-)

[codyklimdev]

If you make $10k/yr you could hire a contractor to refactor it for a few grand, maybe more. It'd be worth it not to shut it down wholesale.

Also I see some people are throwing their hats in the ring in the comments below, I'd be willing to take a look. My email is on my profile.

[nicbou]

You could turn around and sell it for $30k. That's the rule of thumb for selling a profitable website, I keep reading. This would make a young developer really happy, I bet.

Alternatively you can pay someone to rebuild it properly. It could be a fun project for a more junior dev too.

[code_Whisperer]

I am also interested in seeing what you have, and I love refactoring older code.

Please reach out if interested and let me know more, let's see if there's a possible deal here. :-)

codewhisperer at team803585.testinator.email (replace the " at ")

[code_Whisperer]

(I forgot I had an email contact in my HN profile, you can reach me there, as well) :-)

[pohwp]

I’m not there yet, but will keep your details, thanks.

[DolfinsSunlight]

Would love to know more. I'm looking to take on a SaaS venture myself. Career as an engineer dipping my toes in the water of entrepreneurship.

Feel free to send me a message, would be interested in acquiring it.

[e-mail]

[leandot]

I’d love to hear about it, for a reasonable amount and in a good niche it might be interesting, feel free to pm me

[TheRealGL]

The first question is: is this making me happy (could I live without the $10k).

Just interested, what language is the codebase in?

[pohwp]

Php/JQuery/MySQL

[jaredwiener]

Does it have value to the customers using/paying for it? Would someone want to acquire it?

[pohwp]

Good point. Yes, very much so to value point. I imagine no to acquisition.

[csomar]

Feel free to email me. Depending on the niche, I might be interested in such an acquisition.

[robtaylor]

Would you be open to possible sale? (UK based)