Comment by MyFirstSass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MyFirstSass | Hacker News Reader

I have done the exact opposite!

Does anyone know if there's any value in a 5+ year old 95% working SaaS web-app with a "very messy" codebase?

I personally have two systems (my first attempts at live SaaS systems) that have been just closed but have been working "live" for 5+ years- both made in Laravel with Angular 1.4 front ends, they look good! - but the codebase is "a pile of patches on top of a chaotic prototype".

One is a system made for physician doctors training courses; you can make groups, set up courses with calendars, send invite e-mails, and they can turn in papers and teachers can grade them, make pdf's of the papers, set up calendars with files for the students etc.

The other is an accreditation system, you can create an application template and invite users to fill in the application with a sleek interface with autosave etc, and have other people grade the applications.

I don't have time to maintain either system and have been wondering if the systems should be just retired or could be resold somehow, even if the codebase is not in shape to be "taken over" easily. A huge amount of works has gone into them.

Have anyone been in similar situations and have advice? :)

> A huge amount of works has gone into them.

"work" has no value on its own. Work is the function; it is the output of that function that may have value. The difficulty is in figuring out who would value it the highest.

For example, an existing customer base is valuable, especially if paying. A working and nice-looking UI, even with a poor backend, is valuable. The combination together might be valuable.

A line of code doesn't have a lot of value, which means that a large company might easily replace a poor backend by throwing some developers at it. Most people buy what they can see, and what they can see in this case is a "look good" front-end that are working "live" for 5+ years.

You should probably contact your largest competitors's partners/alliance/business development teams. Something might develop. Approach it as a partnership and alliance, and something might work out. One more thought, given that this is HN: companies don't actually negotiate with other companies, but: people negotiate with people. That's 90% of sales right there... being human and talking to other humans.

You could list them on Flippa, Microaquire, etc. You could get a few thousand dollars for the codebase potentially. This may not seem like much, but they buyer will have a massive amount of work ahead of them to find product/market/distribution channel fit.

[1] https://flippa.com/

[2] https://microacquire.com/

> I don't have time to maintain either system and have been wondering if the systems should be just retired or could be resold somehow, even if the codebase is not in shape to be "taken over" easily. A huge amount of works has gone into them.

How big is the userbase, how much do they pay, and how long have they been using this?

Products are frequently worth nothing, but lots of people would be interested in buy an existing pool of paying customers.

The most important question is... does it makes money.

If yes, then reselling is totally possible. The price may be lower due to the shape of the codebase, this is a discussion to be had. There are definitely people interested in taking this kind of system and keeping them alive longer, if not investing in straightening them out.

All depends on what value they find in them.

Try MicroAcquire. Although you'd have a bit better luck if they were already generating revenue, they do have sellers selling pre-revenue SaaS as well.

So we are clear, I do not profit from this. Happy to take a look and if relevant connect you to a friend who is using something similar at a large scale. IF interested, email is in my profile.

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