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MarketplacePaid listings 2012

Directory built by 37signals that helped businesses find web designers by budget and location. Rather than shut it down, it was sold in July 2012 to a pair of entrepreneurs at its full $480,000 asking price.

Financial Data

Asking Price
Undisclosed
Sale Price
$480,000 USD
Monthly Revenue (MRR)
N/A
Annual Revenue (ARR)
N/A
Monthly Profit
N/A
Profit Multiple
N/A
Revenue Multiple
N/A

Exit Analysis

The $480,000 sale price puts it in the top quarter of the 608 deals with a disclosed price here, where the median is $20,000. Most indie acquisitions cluster well under the headline numbers founders read about, which is exactly why a real distribution is more useful than an average.

This database tracks 64 Marketplace exits, and the ones that disclosed a price sold at a median of $20,000. Category matters more than founders expect: buyers apply different discount rates to a content business, a mobile app and a B2B tool even at identical revenue.

From founding to sale took 3.0 years. Time to exit is a decent proxy for how built-to-sell a business was: shorter, cleaner processes usually mean documented operations and fewer surprises in due diligence.

See how this compares across the market on our market stats page, or browse more Marketplace exits.

Exit Timeline

Founded
2009
Exit Date
July 2012
Platform
Direct

Founder

J
Jason Fried
Source
Other