<story><title>What I Learned Selling a Software Business</title><url>https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_software_business</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zkhalique</author><text>Could someone write an article about Patrick McKenzie&amp;#x27;s appeal and techniques on marketing to the HN community? :)&lt;p&gt;And by marketing, I mean getting their attention and building a brand, not money.</text></item><item><author>aresant</author><text>FEI still has the original listing on their site:&lt;p&gt;Yearly revenue - $31,000&lt;p&gt;Yearly net profit - $19,000&lt;p&gt;Asking price - $57,000 SOLD&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s fascinating what a small amount of money we&amp;#x27;re ultimately talking about vs. the influence of the &amp;quot;cult of Bingo Card Creator fans&amp;quot; on HN - which I am card carrying member of.&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;feinternational.com&amp;#x2F;buy-a-website&amp;#x2F;3745-software-business-in-education-niche-25k-gross-mo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;feinternational.com&amp;#x2F;buy-a-website&amp;#x2F;3745-software-busin...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>patio11</author><text>BCC was originally a bit of a purple cow, which is interesting to the HN community because it overlaps programming&amp;#x2F;business but different than the vast majority of what is on HN because it&amp;#x27;s the aggressively un-startup startup.  Publishing sales numbers before that was common probably helped a non-zero amount, too.&lt;p&gt;Many HNers feel a sense of personal investment in me, because HN has been my home-away-from-home for ~7 years now and I am a &amp;quot;local boy who made good.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I write decently and have a strong written voice which people like.&lt;p&gt;A relatively small fraction of what I write is immediately useful to people.&lt;p&gt;Also: I write &lt;i&gt;a lot&lt;/i&gt;.  My published output is something on the order of ~3 million words, roughly ~2 million of which are on HN.  (Give or take 500k or so.  It&amp;#x27;s been a while since I ran the script and I don&amp;#x27;t have a few hours to wait before bed.)  That&amp;#x27;s roughly Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones... combined.&lt;p&gt;There: that&amp;#x27;s the whole secret.  Use these dark magicks responsibly.</text></comment>
<story><title>What I Learned Selling a Software Business</title><url>https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_software_business</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>zkhalique</author><text>Could someone write an article about Patrick McKenzie&amp;#x27;s appeal and techniques on marketing to the HN community? :)&lt;p&gt;And by marketing, I mean getting their attention and building a brand, not money.</text></item><item><author>aresant</author><text>FEI still has the original listing on their site:&lt;p&gt;Yearly revenue - $31,000&lt;p&gt;Yearly net profit - $19,000&lt;p&gt;Asking price - $57,000 SOLD&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s fascinating what a small amount of money we&amp;#x27;re ultimately talking about vs. the influence of the &amp;quot;cult of Bingo Card Creator fans&amp;quot; on HN - which I am card carrying member of.&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;feinternational.com&amp;#x2F;buy-a-website&amp;#x2F;3745-software-business-in-education-niche-25k-gross-mo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;feinternational.com&amp;#x2F;buy-a-website&amp;#x2F;3745-software-busin...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davidw</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s genuine (tech people don&amp;#x27;t like certain kinds of BS), he&amp;#x27;s helpful, and he&amp;#x27;s done something a lot of people want to do.  And he&amp;#x27;s been very good at communicating what he&amp;#x27;s done.&lt;p&gt;I think it helps a lot that he built a business that&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;human scale&amp;quot; - everyone can relate to replacing their salary, whereas building some zillion dollar SV business really isn&amp;#x27;t in the cards for most of us.&lt;p&gt;Also, bingo cards was a huge wakeup call that you don&amp;#x27;t have to do something technically brilliant or with an amazing business model.  &amp;quot;Just&amp;quot; find a niche and sell stuff to people with a need.</text></comment>