Is this exit really a significant milestone? If I'm not wrong, he sold the site for $3,500 which really is not alot. That plus considering the fact that he probably got out at the right time considering the venture was not profitable for the new owner (a presumption based on the fact that the site is on longer online). Sales like these happen numerous times a day, usually theyre fly by night business ideas, spam adsense sites, or etc. Its nothing new, and posting stuff like this to hn does not make it any different, go to digitalpoint theres 15 year olds doing this stuff day in and out.
It's a very significant milestone. He created value for customers from a basic idea and managed to sell the entire thing to some other guy.
It's a great little story to get you funding. Ignore the 3.5k (which isn't horrible imo) the entire story is worth way more from a career building POV.
It's not your typical adsense pump and dump either this is miniature startup entrepreneurship. I'm not a VC guy but a story like this would get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling.
Sorry, I come off sounding as a cynic from the start. But I have liked the quality and content of Dan's previous posts, and this is not anything personal. With that said - Really? I could find you hundreds of others doing this same exact thing and I wouldn't find that as a reason to qualify them to get my "yeah invest in that dude" senses tingling. I think I see this from a different viewpoint because from my years on hn it seems as most of the readers are blind to the other side of the startup world - the one where people focus on building products for 1) money or 2) flip. There's a whole ecosystem out there full of these small, medium, large, business that are bought and sold everyday.
The guy who bought it also had a few other projects going on at the same time. I wish I still had it because it was a reliable money-maker for me. Just needed attention that he couldn't give it - especially because he couldn't code it himself.
Why don't you buy it back? He gets to recoup part of his failed investment and you get your project back. Dedicate 3-7 days to implement what you've learned since that time and set up a passive income source. Would make a hell of a follow-up blog post too.
