One of the internet oldest paid online communities, a subscription discussion forum founded in 1985 by Stewart Brand. Salon Media Group sold it in September 2012 to The Well Group, a company formed by 11 long-time members, for $400,000.
The $400,000 sale price puts it in the top quarter of the 547 deals with a disclosed price here, where the median is $21,000. 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 52 Community exits, and the ones that disclosed a price sold at a median of $42,000. 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 27.0 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 Community exits.
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Online community and content platform for bootstrapped founders.
Community platform for no-code founders with 34,000 members, generating around $10k/month before being acquired, with founder Joshua Tiernan staying on to run it.
Virtual body-confidence conference and 20,000-member online community; founders Emily Ward and Jess Hunichen sold it to Trafilea for six figures in March 2023.