2/ In 2018 we launched a product called Baremetrics Intros, which essentially helped companies and investors find each other based on their actual data instead of just who they knew. Three months later…we shut it down.
baremetrics.com/blog/sunsettin…
baremetrics.com/blog/sunsettin…
3/ It was, commercially, a failure. We just couldn’t get any investors (our target) to fork over any cash. We opted to shut it down instead of going deeper down an already risky rabbit hole.
4/ In that post re: shutting it down, I hinted I wished there was something we could do with it.
"Functionally, we have this product that works beautifully & part of me wishes we could partner w/ someone who’s got deep ties to the investor world who could really make it work."
"Functionally, we have this product that works beautifully & part of me wishes we could partner w/ someone who’s got deep ties to the investor world who could really make it work."
5/ Just a few hours after I published that, my buddy @awilkinson at Tiny, sent me a message.
Why yes, Andrew. I’d love to sell you Intros!
Why yes, Andrew. I’d love to sell you Intros!
6/ He and I went back and forth over the course of a couple of weeks. I was initially torn on the idea as I knew it’d be a bit of a distraction for us to pull out all the code and make Intros a standalone, siloed app.
7/ We nailed down what the deliverables would be and what it would take from the engineering team to pull it off and landed on a price: $100,000.
8/ In true Tiny fashion, Andrew didn’t spend ages going back and forth trying to negotiate things into the ground. He gave the thumbs up on the $100,000 price tag and a couple of weeks later, we had an asset purchase agreement executed.
9/ We got to work on decoupling the app and working with their team on transitioning all the code. A couple of months later, we finished the handoff and found ourselves with an extra $100,000 in the bank!
10/ Now, why do this? Why distract the team for weeks? Why spend time on a one-off deliverable instead of improving our product with recurring revenue?
11/ In 2019, one of our big goals was to have more cash in the bank. We were breakeven profitable, but operating that way left little margin for error. So, having more money in the bank gives us more room to take risks.
12/ Spending a few weeks on this project gave us a very nice chunk of change towards that goal. So while it didn’t directly contribute towards recurring revenue, it did contribute substantially towards one of our big company goals.
13/ The whole process was a big testament to the way @awilkinson runs Tiny. If he’d tried to drag the process out or get pushy on the numbers, we’d have just backed out and moved on. It just wouldn't have been worth the hassle.
14/ If your team has spent substantial time on a major feature or new product and find that it’s ultimately a bad fit, I encourage you to explore the possibility of selling that part of your business.
15/ Many times it won’t make sense, but on the chance that it does, it can be a great way to get cash in the bank and recoup some of the time and resources you put in taking a risk on building that product in the first place!
