How To Sell Your Non-profitable Startup: I Sold Mine, And You Can too

If you’re here, chances are you either have one or more startups or you’re thinking about building your very first one. You’re probably here to uncover the big secret: how to sell a startup.

Let’s be real — creating your own product is about two things: first and main, making money, and second, self-realization and building something.

This article will help you know how to sell your startup. I did it, and if I can, so can you.

When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I read a lot of stories about founders who had successful exits, selling their startups for huge amounts of money. Honestly, I think that’s a dream many of us share.

But the reality is, not all of our startups take off — sometimes for all kinds of reasons.

– Lack of marketing skills or experience.
– Realizing your startup idea isn’t as good as you thought.
– Choosing the wrong niche or targeting the wrong audience.
– Feeling exhausted and needing a break.
– Burning out and losing interest.
– Facing financial pressure and needing money quickly.
– Being a developer but not a salesperson or marketer.

Just because your project doesn’t need you anymore doesn’t mean it doesn’t need someone.

I worked on my sold startup, SlideLab, for over two years. After that, it stayed online for a few years as a kind of “dead project.” I launched it with zero experience in startups.

At the time, we were just a small local production studio. But let’s not dive into that now. If you’re curious about my solo entrepreneur journey, check out my Telegram channel, “Aleks is working” where I share more about it.

So, my project sat for several years without visitors — basically dead weight. Were some new visitors, but not much. I decided to sell it and put together a list of all the platforms where I could do that.

I went to each platform, filled out their forms, sent any requested information, and then just waited. The whole process was completely free, of course.

After some time, I started receiving emails with NDA requests and questions from interested buyers.

At one point, I received an offer of $5,000 from SideProjectors, but I wanted more. Some people asked additional questions about my tech stack, business idea, audience, and similar details.

In the end, I sold my startup to a software development team. The buyer reached out to me via DM, and we chatted for a few hours to discuss the price. Once we agreed on a price, the buyer sent me a purchase agreement. We decided to split the payment into two parts: one payment upfront and the second after the product was transferred to the buyer’s server.

It was my first experience selling a product, but I found it surprisingly simple and easy. I believe this was because I build my business in public. I shared all reports, updates, and ideas about my products, and I’ve always been open-minded. When someone wants to buy your product, all they need to do is check your social media to make their decision.

It took 8 months from the moment I first published the sale. I can’t share all the details of the deal because, of course, I signed an NDA and other documents. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it’s enough for me to live as a solo entrepreneur in Thailand for a year. It gives me the freedom to continue being a solo entrepreneur and focus solely on my new products.

Now I’m working on my next product. It helps domain investors quickly access valuable expired domains. I find these domains by web scraping authoritative sources like Product Hunt, Medium, Forbes, and other popular websites.

Before I decided to sell my unused online presentation editor, I struggled with a lot of fears. Over time, I realized these fears are actually quite common among developers and startup owners.

Common fears when you’re afraid to sell your product:

– If the startup doesn’t generate income, it’s impossible to sell.
– My product doesn’t have any customers.
– My product doesn’t have visitors.
– It’s not actively promoted or running.
– My product isn’t valuable to anyone.
– The selling process is difficult and unclear.
– How much is my startup worth if it doesn’t have any income?
– How do I find a buyer?
– If you sell something, it means you’re selling something of bad quality.

All of these fears are just in your mind.

Now, let’s look at it from a different perspective: the buyers.

Buyers have money, right? So why do they search for and buy startups?

– Some small software development companies want to test a hypothesis. Buying a ready-to-use product with similar features can be cheaper than paying a team for 3–5 months.
– Some wealthy individuals with no experience in tech want to try it out. They can buy a product they like and treat it as a business experiment — hiring a team, marketing, developing, and promoting it, like playing with a toy constructor.
– If your project is on a valuable domain, domain investors might buy it. A ready-to-use website on a premium domain increases its value, especially with the added benefits of SEO.
– The startup might have innovative technology, software, or patents that the buyer sees as valuable for their own operations or future projects.
– Even if the startup doesn’t have income, it might have a strong user base, community, or audience that can be monetized later.
– Buyers might see potential for the startup to grow into a profitable business with the right resources, strategy, or scaling efforts.
– The product might complement or enhance the buyer’s existing offerings, creating opportunities for cross-selling or upselling.

So, as you can see, buyers are ready to acquire your projects.

My offer aligned perfectly with one of their reasons. They needed a ready-to-use online editor and wanted to add some AI automation features to quickly test their hypothesis.

What else can you do to try and sell your project?

Then I decided to write an article reviewing all the web platforms where you can sell your product, aiming to grab the attention of more people in tech. In the article, I also mentioned that I was selling my online presentation editor.

I published it everywhere I could for free:

– Medium
– HackerNoon
– IndieHackers
– Hacker News
– LinkedIn
– X
– Reddit
– Telegram

I also made launch on Product Hunt and noticed that I want to sell it in the first comment.

So, let’s summarize.

If you want to successfully sell your project, you need to set the right price. The right price is crucial — don’t be greedy, but also don’t undervalue your work. A low price can make your product seem less valuable.

Make sure your project is always online. Renew your domain, hosting, and SSL certificates. I forgot about SSL initially, but the buyer asked me to fix it to review and test the product — and I’m thankful he did.

Your project description should be detailed and comprehensive. Include all relevant information about your project: social media pages, monthly visitors, features, successful or failed experiments, business ideas, and anything else that paints a full picture.

Don’t be afraid to be public and share everywhere that you’re selling your project.

I share more about the solo entrepreneur journey on my Telegram channel, including strategies, marketing and my real experiences in public. Subscribe if you want to learn more about online business.

Good luck with selling your project!