Buying & selling a startup, done well

A for-sale listing costs a one-time $5 and stays up until you mark it sold. Buyers only ever see what you write here, so the quality of your listing directly decides how many serious offers you get.

Before you list

• Know your number. Most bootstrapped apps and SaaS sell between 2x and 4x annual net profit, sometimes higher with strong growth or low churn. If you're unsure, price a little under what you'd accept and let offers tell you the real number.
• Have your numbers ready. Monthly revenue and profit, even rough figures, filter out tire-kickers fast. Listings with real numbers get taken far more seriously than "message me for details."
• Be honest about the downside. Declining revenue, a key customer that's about to leave, aging code — say it up front. It comes up in diligence either way, and it costs you less trust if you said it first.
• Decide what's actually included. Source code, domain, customer list, socials, brand, any contracts or key-person knowledge. Say so in your notes — "what's included" is the first question every buyer asks.

Writing a listing that gets offers

Handling offers

• Every message lands in your inbox and on your private manage page — reply from your email so the conversation stays directly with the buyer.
• We don't run escrow or verify either side, so use a proper transfer service (Escrow.com or similar) for anything past a few hundred dollars — never hand over source, domain, or admin access before funds have cleared.
• Once it's sold, hit "Mark sold" on your manage link. It keeps the board accurate and stops new offers from coming in on a deal that's done.

Every listing here is self-reported by the owner — nothing is verified by us. That's not a reason to avoid the acquisitions board, it's a reason to do the same checks a careful buyer always does.

Before you message a seller

• Try the product yourself. Sign up, use it, read recent reviews if it has any public presence. A five-minute test tells you more than a paragraph of notes.
• Have a shortlist of questions ready: why they're selling, what churn looks like, how much of the revenue depends on the founder personally, and what breaks if you stop working on it for a month.

Due diligence checklist

Making an offer

• Use the Make an offer button on any listing — a specific number with a short reason gets a reply far more often than "interested, DM me."
• Use an escrow or transfer service for the actual handover — same rule as sellers. Don't wire funds directly before you've confirmed access to what you're buying.

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