Re the emails / support / whatever being stressy... dude. It's been like no time at all, and you had a spike. You don't have to reply to EVERYTHING ASAP. All things in moderation. Set up an autoresponder politely telling folks that you're a single person and the spike in requests is a bit overwhelming. ask their forgiveness and let them know that you'll get to people as soon as you can.
With that out of the way, congratulations on the spike in traffic.
After having been on the front page of multiple programmer sites I can tell you it's just that. It's a good day. You may even get a good week out of it.
Unless you are incredibly atypical the spike in traffic will not last. There's absolutely no basis for assuming that traffic will continue at the spiked rate. It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an unpleasant reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively optimistic.
The upside is that the onslaught of requests is that since it's a spike, they will die down and you'll be able to catch up. The longest, and hardest, i had was a project that ended up with me stuffing envelopes every night and making daily trips to the post office sending of letters to people around the world because my offer started getting passed from message board to message board. It lasted about a month.
I'm very dubious of the belief that adding "more advantages" would get you a 10-15% conversion without any evidence to back it up, especially when you can't even be sure of the 1% conversion rate you think you can get for the current state of things.
You can't extrapolate an enduring income stream (or even an amount of work) from a single small spike.
If I may also give a brief suggestion, coming from a place of a lot of love for bootstrappers and sympathy for your situation, there is a line in your post which suggests that people compensate you for the 2.5 years you put into this when making an offer. I am afraid that this is at variance to how the world works generally and how acquisitions of small websites work specifically.
People pay for their future revenues, not your sunk costs. In the world of small website acquisitions, you'll be valued at something like 1X your previously proven annual revenue, not at a linear projection from what spike day looked like. If that number is -- let me pick a representative example -- $100, then you have a $100 site, not a $60,000 site, even if $60k is a reasonable approximation of the cost of duplicating it using market labor.
Also, as someone who also has struggled / struggles with depression: it is much much better for yourself and the world on net for you to just say "I am under stress and cannot email today, therefore, I will not email today." than for you to be adversely affected trying to get people replies to their questions about a browser game. Some people may be discomfit by this. That's fine. There is an entire Internet full of browser games. There is only one you. Do whatever you need to to not have this adversely effect you and your loved ones.
Congratulations on shipping, by the way. Very few people can do it. You demonstrably can. That's awesome. You've got a lifetime of shipping successful software businesses ahead of you, regardless of what happens in the next short while.
>Unless you are incredibly atypical the spike in traffic will not last.
The spike won't last, but it doesn't mean that it won't grow consistently from where it is into something much larger than it is today.
> It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an unpleasant reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively optimistic.
That's pretty judgmental. This obviously has the potential to grow. If he doesn't want to deal with it or maybe needs the money now, he isn't doing anything wrong by trying to sell it to someone that sees the same potential that inspired him to spend 2 years creating it.
Maybe he won't get $60K, and maybe he'll get more. Maybe somebody will offer to invest in it and allow him to draw a salary while he grows it. Maybe he'll be hired by someone that has a use for the talent and dedication he displayed by building this. Regardless of the outcome, it's clearly worth something, and if he wants or needs to sell, I hope he gets a fair offer.
Why not take the modest income and pay somebody to improve the game and or it's traffic?
Seems to me, you could find another University student looking to grow traffic as part of their studies. Collaborate on this.
Take another small share and pay somebody to do a little support for those users worth responding to.
As others have said, you could potentially benefit from this in the future.
Right now, you are just a programmer. Continue that. Do well, grow.
But, a programmer who understands some business has serious potential. Seems to me you just created the perfect lesson plan. This little project won't take that much to treat like a business and if you make a couple of friends, who knows where you all might go in the future?
You would be able to learn how to better execute on an idea, get a lot of very interesting user metrics, have a following, show income, etc...
Consider this. I would in a second. A few hours here and there just isn't going to impact your studies. However, those few hours here and there could really educate you in ways you will find difficult to realize in a strictly academic environment. This is worth more to you than you currently realize.
First of all, congratulations for finishing your game and getting some success with it.
A few thoughts:
- 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral. It's a promising start but too early to use that adjective (and the numbers are also pretty low).
- The fact that you are trying to sell something you worked on for more than a year just because you can't keep up with the email volume is... suspicious. Especially if the income estimates you give in that article are accurate. Why not just ignore your inbox for a few weeks and come back to it later?
- I think the answer to the question above is obvious: you know your success is temporary and you're trying to cash out while you can. Sorry for my cynicism, just being honest.
Some people don't think only on money. I created this game as a fun project, for fun, without expecting any revenue. (If I did, it would be pay-to-win).
I tried to kill myself last year a few days after I gave a talk at a FOSS conference. Some people can't handle pressure, email volume or too much social contact, specially if they have something called social anxiety, depression, and other things that I do.
I understand your suspicious.. However you are assuming I'm a crazy-for-money guy like... many people.
If no one buys the game I'll probably shut it down. For my own mental sanity.
> 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral
Going viral isn't a certain number or speed of adoption. It's a method of adoption. If most of these members joined because of referral by other friends, and they in turn are continuing to invite others, then yes, it's going viral.
I really don't know what to do. Many people told me if I hire a team, or at least one developer, this would help me get going with the game. This does make sense.
However I've been extremely stressful for the last hours. I guess this really is a bad decision, but one that would free myself for university and other projects I have.
The problem is I can't stand to spend my whole day working only on Hacker Experience anymore. I already have other projects that I want to work full time with.
Happy to hear any advice from you. I have no experience at all with business, marketing or even start-ups. I'm just a programmer.
Just wait a few days until things settle down before making any decisions. Seems the stress of the events is still fresh, don't make any final decisions just now.
That's a general lesson in life. Know yourself and know when you're being afraid, when you're being irrational. And postpone taking decisions that can wait a few days.
Hey Renato,
I am the developer of an Android app that had more than 1000 downloads a day and a huge number of active users. I ran into the same issue that you are facing right now - I was just a programmer and didn't really have the time to support everyone.
One way I managed to cope with it was setting up an autoresponder that redirects over to a FAQ to help with most common issues / requests. If something wasn't covered via the FAQ people still came back to me and I jumped in to help.
As most of the others here replied: Don't jump the ship and sell immediately - try to power through the next few days and use this as an opportunity to learn.
Hey Renato, good job you did here, but I would honestly don't sell and I'll definitely don't buy.
See, I've been wandering on HE a couple of hours yesterday, and your project seems to have some serious execution flaws (bad ui, downtimes, social based income, etc).
Nothing serious for a side project but these are definite blockers if you ask for a 50k something.
Not mentionning the stack: slackware (honestly?), php and python (why two langages?), no framework. The last one could be the main reason you are struggling to keep it afloat, and that at least throws a big red flag: "I'm gonna head troubles if I'm gonna buy".
And the business side doesn't seems to be worth it.
My 2 cents on selling/buying webapps : I would be keen on paying 10K on a website-based business with 10 long-time customers paying 100$ each month.
That's not the kind of deal you seems to be after, but I think this is somehow the standard for serious buyers on the market.
Why so low you may ask? Because if I understand your project to the point I could buy it, then that means I can replicate your little business.
I'm only buying time, and I think it would take ~10 months to build that webapp and gather some ~10 customers (maybe yours, now I know your flaws...).
And that means buying a strong problem solving webapp, not a niche online game.
If the webapp is very well executed then I would maybe push to 15K per 10 recurring customers, not more.
And I don't care the market size: it's for the potential 100 recurring customers that I would be in, not for the seldom social viralisation peak with an only 1 or 2% conversion.
In a nutshell: don't loose your time trying too hard to sell it.
If it sells then congrats, but you should spend your time fixing the UI to keep your players onboard, writing a great FAQ that handle the tickets, and boosting your infra so you that you're not needed around when it collapse.
Because after that you're done: let it live alone and enjoy your 1000$/month.
Based on my experience there's little chance you'll reproduce that for the years coming.
But that's still a good feat for your age and experience, kuddos and congrats to you ;)
I don't know if it's a bad idea if you can get someone to buy it for a price you find acceptable. I think you might have trouble doing that though, which will make the the question moot.
If you did get someone to buy it for say $60k (or $10k?), and they ended up making millions, would you feel ripped off? If they end up not even making back what you paid, how would you feel?
You can also just sit on it for a while, and see what happens, see how your attitude develops. Yes, that might mean you end up losing the chance to sell it (note, it's not clear you have that chance now), but you say you didn't really do it for the money anyway. You could wait a month or two, remembering you don't need to respond to every email or support ticket, and see what happens. Does the success continue? Does it trail off? Are you still stressed about it and want to get rid of it, or do you have a renewed enjoyment?
There's nothing forcing you to rush, you are in complete control here. I suspect you are worried about doing the 'wrong' thing, and maybe being judged for it, and maybe then feeling like you missed out (on making money, or whatever). Don't worry about it. You didn't do it for the money. It's an experiment to see what happens.
If part of your stress is feeling an obligation to your users, maybe actually turn off the freemium pays (for now), so it's all free. If you're getting enough income from adsense to pay your costs, just let it coast a bit see what happens.
Give it rest, go out and take a walk. You don't need to worry about this too much. You've put a lot of effort into this, but nothing like this is worth ruining your health about it.
Being tired doesn't allow you to think straight.
As for handling support, an autoreply to a faq can save time. Zoho also has a free plan for their support system https://www.zoho.com/support/
First, it's hard to put a value on it. It isn't clear than the buyer would make enough revenue to keep up with the expense of keeping it running.
Second, you aren't obligated to respond to everyone who sent you an E-Mail or message. Wait a couple of weeks, and then start looking at them.
Third, you aren't considering user retention. You had 6k unique visitors today. There is no guarantee you will still have 6k unique visitors in a month.
Fourth, as long as your income from ads and payments cover the expenses, leave it running.
Finally, if you do retain an audience of 1k+, now you have a customer base for whenever you launch your next project.
Congrats on the success. Allow me to give you some advice before you sell, having been in almost your exact position at your age:
- Lots of emails/press attention is a good sign and no reason to give up on a project. Focus on improving the game and ignore the emails if you have to. They don't matter
- I too had a game go viral (0 to 3 million accounts in about 6 weeks). I was getting multiple acquisition offers but up until that point it was the most exciting and stressful time of my life. I got absolutely no sleep for days on end. But it paid off and I learned more practical knowledge in those short few weeks than my entire college career.
- When the time was right I sold, not because I was tired, but because it was the right time for the game and for my future
- Shortly thereafter I developed another game which I considered selling early on like you are doing now because I wanted to move on to something else. I decided to continue improving it and it ended up lasting 5+ years and grossing several million $s, far more than I ever thought was possible with the initial version
- This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
- Your growth is promising but the traffic right now is too low for you to get any serious offers in my opinion. Keep on grinding, it'll be worth it
>This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
That comes through in all the meticulously detailed, earnest and honest information you posted about it. It sounds kind of like you're trying to find a good home and trustworthy owner for a beloved cat who you can't keep in your apartment any longer. Just remember, your cat (i.e. your audience) loves you too. Good luck whatever you do!
My "show HN" went peek on HN and then back to what it was before.
He is smart: Everything seems fine. From the media we know about all the companies, which have established business models with such figures. But they are the 1%.
Taking over (from him) is already so hard: If you were the inventor of [X], you would have done [X]. Taking it over and going on: ~IMPOSSIBLE~
I doubt anyone will want to buy your game. It is not that it is not good but without you in the price it is not worth it, they will not be able to improve it or even maintain it. The learning curve in order to maintain that game will be very expensive. Also success is not guaranteed yet, now is the time your game is growing do not let go. Just take a trip somewhere to relax.
Also find a partner, if you were working on this with someone else, you would have much less stress. Working alone is very unhealthy and extremely stressful. Either partner with someone or balance life and work which might be hard since you have to study too. Go to forums where other programmers that love making games are and find someone to become your partner.
I'll make an alternative suggestion. Hire management. You want to sit in a box and code. You want someone to handle business, support, etc. People who can do that are a dime a dozen.
That could be another student at the university; someone with an active Twitter account, good charisma, etc. Offer 25% equity vesting over 4 years. That's pretty generous. Keep hacking and plugging, and do as much or as little of the interacting as you want. If the other person doesn't carry their weight -- which is not uncommon -- dump them or swap them out for someone else. Be very upfront about this when bringing them on (if you want, overly upfront -- pitch this as a short-term engagement, with possibility of going longer depending on how business goes).
Give yourself the title of CEO and CTO. Give them the title interrim president+COO.
Regarding depression, social anxiety, etc., this can help fix it. I've been there. Depression gets better when you have meaning and purpose, and when you're busy enough to not have time worrying about it. Social anxiety gets better with status. When people are competing to talk to you (rather than the other way around), and you're in a position to say yes or no, the dynamic is just different. If this were to grow into a successful company, you might be in a very different position. You've been playing with fixing this for a while. Play with this as an opportunity to try a different approach to fixing it.
Again, I don't know you. This could not apply at all. Take this as what it is -- an idea from a stranger.
> You want someone to handle business, support, etc. People who can do that are a dime a dozen.
Is this really true? I mean that as an honest question, because, while being a coder with a typical distaste for shallow marketing folks myself, I think these "business things" actually constitute work, if done right (first and foremost good user support).
I would imagine that there exists a similar comment in a board for marketing guys and gals, where they say:
> You want someone to program the database. People who can do that are a dime a dozen.
I'm sorry, but this is a terrible suggestion. I ran a company successfully for 8 years and at times made this same mistake in thinking.
The only time you can hire above is when scaling a successful product + sales model - essentially when you are no longer a startup and are becoming an established player.
So... I can't advise you about selling. I've bought tiny companies, but have never successfully sold them, and... yeah.
However... I do have a suggestion for your sanity now and in the future that doesn't involve selling the company, or at least, not all of the company.
Assuming you want to keep releasing stuff direct to the public, I suggest finding a friend that you can interact with, that can interact with the public and other business partners. There are a lot of different ways to structure that relationship; some people get a "business partner" and when the relationship is described that way, usually the partner gets some control over you. This relationship can also be structured as "hiring a secretary" - if that's what you call them, you are implying your partner has less power, and often that you will compensate said partner regardless of revenue, but compensate them less.
On your end, I think, the fact that this person can deal with your quirks and protect you from the parts of the limelight you find unpleasant might be more important than their raw talent as a business person, especially if you retain more control over the business side of things. (Note, if I'm reading your personality correctly, and I might not be, you probably want someone who is willing to at least act in public like they made the decision in question. Someone willing to take the blame even if it was actually your decision. These people exist, but you need to be clear, if that is in fact what you need.)
I mean, you and your partner need to decide what your relationship looks like, how the power dynamic works, and how remuneration works, and it doesn't have to conform to either one of those models, but I've worked with people that were really, really uncomfortable with social situations; I've been that "human interface" person, and if you find a compatible person, I think it can generate a whole lot of value for both people.
I am very sorry to hear about your health problems. I don't have the same challenges as you but I do have experience of when a side project explodes. I have a piece of freemium software that has been downloaded about 700,000 times and here is what i did to manage the emails:
- set up a great FAQ and put all questions that are asked more than once in there.
- if you use a mac get a copy of TextExpander ( or a similar product) and automate all your email replies. Then you can answer support emails with one command.
- use a Gmail label to sort out support, and batch send emails once or twice a week. Don't be afraid to ignore whiners, complainers and the people who cannot Google answers for themselves.
This is somewhat similar to the situation where a FOSS developer feels the pressure from the users of his software. The more successful their software the more miserable and frustrated they become. I believe the best way of preserving your sanity in this case is just pushing back and allow others to take responsibility. Forks and pull requests exist for a reason. Chances are you're using my open source library for your regular job in which case you (unlike myself) will actually get paid for your contributions.
@napsterbr: you don't owe anyone anything. If there's any obligation it runs the other way. Take a deep breath and enjoy the ride, long may it last. One way of sharing the burden of support (which seems to be your main concern) is creating a community and granting most eager and devoted users some 'superpowers'. Makes them happy and they do a lot of work for you. You only get involved sporadically and on your own terms.
Get some sleep bro. Shelve the project for a while, work on something else, then come back to it in a couple of months when you're feeling energized again.
Please remember, that even if you don't do anything at all - ignore it, let it fade, or whatever - you had a great success. Be proud, let yourself feel the satisfaction. Working for years on something and having people connect with it is an amazing accomplishment. If nothing else comes of it, that's OK. You won.
> There are two main ways to earn money with this game. One is using Google Adsense.
> These values are estimated, but I believe one can get at least $20–$25 per day. That’s about $750 per month.
Until you actually see your first payout, the estimate is meaningless. I've heard of many cases where people saw significant estimates and google turned around and shut down their accounts before the first payout.
I've been in a very similar position to what you're in now, at university in England and a side project went viral and was making a decent amount of money. In the end I sold it onto someone that gave me a decent offer.
Has to be one of my biggest regrets, I could have paid someone else to support it while I was busy with my education. Perhaps the biggest kick was that the person who bought it didn't really look after the site and it went into decline anyway losing most of it's users.
Selling might be your best option, however be 100% sure before doing anything :)
Everybody's advising not to sell it, but looking at the game: Yes, it might only be a spike. The game is long to get into, a lot of reading, etc. It's like starting a complicated board game without somebody to explain it to you: a lot of people will just drop it to play a game in which the rules are explainable in 20 seconds.
There's a buzz going on around it right now, but don't expect it to be Flappy Bird. So depending on what you want (you seem tired of that game), I don't think it's a bad idea to sell it while it's hot
Pretty cool that you made the forum automatically create account when the game account is made. It's the small touches that make the difference between something people will use and something people love to use.
Like other people commented, I don't think your user numbers will hold up in the long run -- not because of the game, necessarily, but because people naturally try stuff out and then never return.
Nonetheless, I'd consider buying it, but not at any price that would make you feel good about spending two years coding the thing.
[+] [-] masukomi|11 years ago|reply
With that out of the way, congratulations on the spike in traffic.
After having been on the front page of multiple programmer sites I can tell you it's just that. It's a good day. You may even get a good week out of it.
Unless you are incredibly atypical the spike in traffic will not last. There's absolutely no basis for assuming that traffic will continue at the spiked rate. It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an unpleasant reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively optimistic.
The upside is that the onslaught of requests is that since it's a spike, they will die down and you'll be able to catch up. The longest, and hardest, i had was a project that ended up with me stuffing envelopes every night and making daily trips to the post office sending of letters to people around the world because my offer started getting passed from message board to message board. It lasted about a month.
I'm very dubious of the belief that adding "more advantages" would get you a 10-15% conversion without any evidence to back it up, especially when you can't even be sure of the 1% conversion rate you think you can get for the current state of things.
You can't extrapolate an enduring income stream (or even an amount of work) from a single small spike.
[+] [-] patio11|11 years ago|reply
If I may also give a brief suggestion, coming from a place of a lot of love for bootstrappers and sympathy for your situation, there is a line in your post which suggests that people compensate you for the 2.5 years you put into this when making an offer. I am afraid that this is at variance to how the world works generally and how acquisitions of small websites work specifically.
People pay for their future revenues, not your sunk costs. In the world of small website acquisitions, you'll be valued at something like 1X your previously proven annual revenue, not at a linear projection from what spike day looked like. If that number is -- let me pick a representative example -- $100, then you have a $100 site, not a $60,000 site, even if $60k is a reasonable approximation of the cost of duplicating it using market labor.
Also, as someone who also has struggled / struggles with depression: it is much much better for yourself and the world on net for you to just say "I am under stress and cannot email today, therefore, I will not email today." than for you to be adversely affected trying to get people replies to their questions about a browser game. Some people may be discomfit by this. That's fine. There is an entire Internet full of browser games. There is only one you. Do whatever you need to to not have this adversely effect you and your loved ones.
Congratulations on shipping, by the way. Very few people can do it. You demonstrably can. That's awesome. You've got a lifetime of shipping successful software businesses ahead of you, regardless of what happens in the next short while.
[+] [-] elwell|11 years ago|reply
That's the vibe I got from this post too.
[+] [-] downandout|11 years ago|reply
The spike won't last, but it doesn't mean that it won't grow consistently from where it is into something much larger than it is today.
> It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an unpleasant reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively optimistic.
That's pretty judgmental. This obviously has the potential to grow. If he doesn't want to deal with it or maybe needs the money now, he isn't doing anything wrong by trying to sell it to someone that sees the same potential that inspired him to spend 2 years creating it.
Maybe he won't get $60K, and maybe he'll get more. Maybe somebody will offer to invest in it and allow him to draw a salary while he grows it. Maybe he'll be hired by someone that has a use for the talent and dedication he displayed by building this. Regardless of the outcome, it's clearly worth something, and if he wants or needs to sell, I hope he gets a fair offer.
[+] [-] ddingus|11 years ago|reply
Seems to me, you could find another University student looking to grow traffic as part of their studies. Collaborate on this.
Take another small share and pay somebody to do a little support for those users worth responding to.
As others have said, you could potentially benefit from this in the future.
Right now, you are just a programmer. Continue that. Do well, grow.
But, a programmer who understands some business has serious potential. Seems to me you just created the perfect lesson plan. This little project won't take that much to treat like a business and if you make a couple of friends, who knows where you all might go in the future?
You would be able to learn how to better execute on an idea, get a lot of very interesting user metrics, have a following, show income, etc...
Consider this. I would in a second. A few hours here and there just isn't going to impact your studies. However, those few hours here and there could really educate you in ways you will find difficult to realize in a strictly academic environment. This is worth more to you than you currently realize.
Nice work :)
[+] [-] napsterbr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zak_mc_kracken|11 years ago|reply
A few thoughts:
- 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral. It's a promising start but too early to use that adjective (and the numbers are also pretty low).
- The fact that you are trying to sell something you worked on for more than a year just because you can't keep up with the email volume is... suspicious. Especially if the income estimates you give in that article are accurate. Why not just ignore your inbox for a few weeks and come back to it later?
- I think the answer to the question above is obvious: you know your success is temporary and you're trying to cash out while you can. Sorry for my cynicism, just being honest.
[+] [-] napsterbr|11 years ago|reply
Some people don't think only on money. I created this game as a fun project, for fun, without expecting any revenue. (If I did, it would be pay-to-win).
I tried to kill myself last year a few days after I gave a talk at a FOSS conference. Some people can't handle pressure, email volume or too much social contact, specially if they have something called social anxiety, depression, and other things that I do.
I understand your suspicious.. However you are assuming I'm a crazy-for-money guy like... many people.
If no one buys the game I'll probably shut it down. For my own mental sanity.
[+] [-] namenotrequired|11 years ago|reply
Going viral isn't a certain number or speed of adoption. It's a method of adoption. If most of these members joined because of referral by other friends, and they in turn are continuing to invite others, then yes, it's going viral.
[+] [-] napsterbr|11 years ago|reply
I really don't know what to do. Many people told me if I hire a team, or at least one developer, this would help me get going with the game. This does make sense.
However I've been extremely stressful for the last hours. I guess this really is a bad decision, but one that would free myself for university and other projects I have.
The problem is I can't stand to spend my whole day working only on Hacker Experience anymore. I already have other projects that I want to work full time with.
Happy to hear any advice from you. I have no experience at all with business, marketing or even start-ups. I'm just a programmer.
Thanks!
[+] [-] AYBABTME|11 years ago|reply
That's a general lesson in life. Know yourself and know when you're being afraid, when you're being irrational. And postpone taking decisions that can wait a few days.
[+] [-] seraphimserapis|11 years ago|reply
One way I managed to cope with it was setting up an autoresponder that redirects over to a FAQ to help with most common issues / requests. If something wasn't covered via the FAQ people still came back to me and I jumped in to help.
As most of the others here replied: Don't jump the ship and sell immediately - try to power through the next few days and use this as an opportunity to learn.
Cheers
[+] [-] victorfigol|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpizzi|11 years ago|reply
See, I've been wandering on HE a couple of hours yesterday, and your project seems to have some serious execution flaws (bad ui, downtimes, social based income, etc). Nothing serious for a side project but these are definite blockers if you ask for a 50k something.
Not mentionning the stack: slackware (honestly?), php and python (why two langages?), no framework. The last one could be the main reason you are struggling to keep it afloat, and that at least throws a big red flag: "I'm gonna head troubles if I'm gonna buy".
And the business side doesn't seems to be worth it.
My 2 cents on selling/buying webapps : I would be keen on paying 10K on a website-based business with 10 long-time customers paying 100$ each month. That's not the kind of deal you seems to be after, but I think this is somehow the standard for serious buyers on the market. Why so low you may ask? Because if I understand your project to the point I could buy it, then that means I can replicate your little business. I'm only buying time, and I think it would take ~10 months to build that webapp and gather some ~10 customers (maybe yours, now I know your flaws...).
And that means buying a strong problem solving webapp, not a niche online game. If the webapp is very well executed then I would maybe push to 15K per 10 recurring customers, not more. And I don't care the market size: it's for the potential 100 recurring customers that I would be in, not for the seldom social viralisation peak with an only 1 or 2% conversion.
In a nutshell: don't loose your time trying too hard to sell it. If it sells then congrats, but you should spend your time fixing the UI to keep your players onboard, writing a great FAQ that handle the tickets, and boosting your infra so you that you're not needed around when it collapse.
Because after that you're done: let it live alone and enjoy your 1000$/month. Based on my experience there's little chance you'll reproduce that for the years coming.
But that's still a good feat for your age and experience, kuddos and congrats to you ;)
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jrochkind1|11 years ago|reply
If you did get someone to buy it for say $60k (or $10k?), and they ended up making millions, would you feel ripped off? If they end up not even making back what you paid, how would you feel?
You can also just sit on it for a while, and see what happens, see how your attitude develops. Yes, that might mean you end up losing the chance to sell it (note, it's not clear you have that chance now), but you say you didn't really do it for the money anyway. You could wait a month or two, remembering you don't need to respond to every email or support ticket, and see what happens. Does the success continue? Does it trail off? Are you still stressed about it and want to get rid of it, or do you have a renewed enjoyment?
There's nothing forcing you to rush, you are in complete control here. I suspect you are worried about doing the 'wrong' thing, and maybe being judged for it, and maybe then feeling like you missed out (on making money, or whatever). Don't worry about it. You didn't do it for the money. It's an experiment to see what happens.
If part of your stress is feeling an obligation to your users, maybe actually turn off the freemium pays (for now), so it's all free. If you're getting enough income from adsense to pay your costs, just let it coast a bit see what happens.
[+] [-] mgiannopoulos|11 years ago|reply
Being tired doesn't allow you to think straight.
As for handling support, an autoreply to a faq can save time. Zoho also has a free plan for their support system https://www.zoho.com/support/
[+] [-] MrMeker|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsk|11 years ago|reply
First, it's hard to put a value on it. It isn't clear than the buyer would make enough revenue to keep up with the expense of keeping it running.
Second, you aren't obligated to respond to everyone who sent you an E-Mail or message. Wait a couple of weeks, and then start looking at them.
Third, you aren't considering user retention. You had 6k unique visitors today. There is no guarantee you will still have 6k unique visitors in a month.
Fourth, as long as your income from ads and payments cover the expenses, leave it running.
Finally, if you do retain an audience of 1k+, now you have a customer base for whenever you launch your next project.
[+] [-] jliptzin|11 years ago|reply
- Lots of emails/press attention is a good sign and no reason to give up on a project. Focus on improving the game and ignore the emails if you have to. They don't matter
- I too had a game go viral (0 to 3 million accounts in about 6 weeks). I was getting multiple acquisition offers but up until that point it was the most exciting and stressful time of my life. I got absolutely no sleep for days on end. But it paid off and I learned more practical knowledge in those short few weeks than my entire college career.
- When the time was right I sold, not because I was tired, but because it was the right time for the game and for my future
- Shortly thereafter I developed another game which I considered selling early on like you are doing now because I wanted to move on to something else. I decided to continue improving it and it ended up lasting 5+ years and grossing several million $s, far more than I ever thought was possible with the initial version
- This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
- Your growth is promising but the traffic right now is too low for you to get any serious offers in my opinion. Keep on grinding, it'll be worth it
[+] [-] DonHopkins|11 years ago|reply
That comes through in all the meticulously detailed, earnest and honest information you posted about it. It sounds kind of like you're trying to find a good home and trustworthy owner for a beloved cat who you can't keep in your apartment any longer. Just remember, your cat (i.e. your audience) loves you too. Good luck whatever you do!
[+] [-] gasping|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mqsiuser|11 years ago|reply
My "show HN" went peek on HN and then back to what it was before.
He is smart: Everything seems fine. From the media we know about all the companies, which have established business models with such figures. But they are the 1%.
Taking over (from him) is already so hard: If you were the inventor of [X], you would have done [X]. Taking it over and going on: ~IMPOSSIBLE~
[+] [-] victorfigol|11 years ago|reply
Also find a partner, if you were working on this with someone else, you would have much less stress. Working alone is very unhealthy and extremely stressful. Either partner with someone or balance life and work which might be hard since you have to study too. Go to forums where other programmers that love making games are and find someone to become your partner.
[+] [-] cypherpnks|11 years ago|reply
That could be another student at the university; someone with an active Twitter account, good charisma, etc. Offer 25% equity vesting over 4 years. That's pretty generous. Keep hacking and plugging, and do as much or as little of the interacting as you want. If the other person doesn't carry their weight -- which is not uncommon -- dump them or swap them out for someone else. Be very upfront about this when bringing them on (if you want, overly upfront -- pitch this as a short-term engagement, with possibility of going longer depending on how business goes).
Give yourself the title of CEO and CTO. Give them the title interrim president+COO.
Regarding depression, social anxiety, etc., this can help fix it. I've been there. Depression gets better when you have meaning and purpose, and when you're busy enough to not have time worrying about it. Social anxiety gets better with status. When people are competing to talk to you (rather than the other way around), and you're in a position to say yes or no, the dynamic is just different. If this were to grow into a successful company, you might be in a very different position. You've been playing with fixing this for a while. Play with this as an opportunity to try a different approach to fixing it.
Again, I don't know you. This could not apply at all. Take this as what it is -- an idea from a stranger.
[+] [-] tokai|11 years ago|reply
Very harmful advice potentially.
[+] [-] rrrene|11 years ago|reply
Is this really true? I mean that as an honest question, because, while being a coder with a typical distaste for shallow marketing folks myself, I think these "business things" actually constitute work, if done right (first and foremost good user support).
I would imagine that there exists a similar comment in a board for marketing guys and gals, where they say:
> You want someone to program the database. People who can do that are a dime a dozen.
Pun intended.
[+] [-] orasis|11 years ago|reply
The only time you can hire above is when scaling a successful product + sales model - essentially when you are no longer a startup and are becoming an established player.
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsc|11 years ago|reply
However... I do have a suggestion for your sanity now and in the future that doesn't involve selling the company, or at least, not all of the company.
Assuming you want to keep releasing stuff direct to the public, I suggest finding a friend that you can interact with, that can interact with the public and other business partners. There are a lot of different ways to structure that relationship; some people get a "business partner" and when the relationship is described that way, usually the partner gets some control over you. This relationship can also be structured as "hiring a secretary" - if that's what you call them, you are implying your partner has less power, and often that you will compensate said partner regardless of revenue, but compensate them less.
On your end, I think, the fact that this person can deal with your quirks and protect you from the parts of the limelight you find unpleasant might be more important than their raw talent as a business person, especially if you retain more control over the business side of things. (Note, if I'm reading your personality correctly, and I might not be, you probably want someone who is willing to at least act in public like they made the decision in question. Someone willing to take the blame even if it was actually your decision. These people exist, but you need to be clear, if that is in fact what you need.)
I mean, you and your partner need to decide what your relationship looks like, how the power dynamic works, and how remuneration works, and it doesn't have to conform to either one of those models, but I've worked with people that were really, really uncomfortable with social situations; I've been that "human interface" person, and if you find a compatible person, I think it can generate a whole lot of value for both people.
[+] [-] whocares|11 years ago|reply
I am very sorry to hear about your health problems. I don't have the same challenges as you but I do have experience of when a side project explodes. I have a piece of freemium software that has been downloaded about 700,000 times and here is what i did to manage the emails:
- set up a great FAQ and put all questions that are asked more than once in there. - if you use a mac get a copy of TextExpander ( or a similar product) and automate all your email replies. Then you can answer support emails with one command. - use a Gmail label to sort out support, and batch send emails once or twice a week. Don't be afraid to ignore whiners, complainers and the people who cannot Google answers for themselves.
Take care of your health first and best of luck!
[+] [-] fishnchips|11 years ago|reply
This is somewhat similar to the situation where a FOSS developer feels the pressure from the users of his software. The more successful their software the more miserable and frustrated they become. I believe the best way of preserving your sanity in this case is just pushing back and allow others to take responsibility. Forks and pull requests exist for a reason. Chances are you're using my open source library for your regular job in which case you (unlike myself) will actually get paid for your contributions.
@napsterbr: you don't owe anyone anything. If there's any obligation it runs the other way. Take a deep breath and enjoy the ride, long may it last. One way of sharing the burden of support (which seems to be your main concern) is creating a community and granting most eager and devoted users some 'superpowers'. Makes them happy and they do a lot of work for you. You only get involved sporadically and on your own terms.
[+] [-] meh_master|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orasis|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikkom|11 years ago|reply
The current usage is a peak because of exposure. It will drop and the ad profit will go way down in the coming few weeks.
[+] [-] foz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sheetjs|11 years ago|reply
> These values are estimated, but I believe one can get at least $20–$25 per day. That’s about $750 per month.
Until you actually see your first payout, the estimate is meaningless. I've heard of many cases where people saw significant estimates and google turned around and shut down their accounts before the first payout.
There is an ongoing class action lawsuit against AdSense for this behavior. Relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7776282
[+] [-] iSloth|11 years ago|reply
Has to be one of my biggest regrets, I could have paid someone else to support it while I was busy with my education. Perhaps the biggest kick was that the person who bought it didn't really look after the site and it went into decline anyway losing most of it's users.
Selling might be your best option, however be 100% sure before doing anything :)
[+] [-] pouzy|11 years ago|reply
There's a buzz going on around it right now, but don't expect it to be Flappy Bird. So depending on what you want (you seem tired of that game), I don't think it's a bad idea to sell it while it's hot
[+] [-] kngspook|11 years ago|reply
Like other people commented, I don't think your user numbers will hold up in the long run -- not because of the game, necessarily, but because people naturally try stuff out and then never return.
Nonetheless, I'd consider buying it, but not at any price that would make you feel good about spending two years coding the thing.