## after the sale

[Watching an acquirer ruin your company | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31963460)
[Watching an acquirer ruin your company - by Jon Christensen](https://startupwin.kelsus.com/p/watching-an-acquirer-ruin-your-company)

## criminal stories

[Elizabeth Holmes' 11-year sentence explained by tech bubble : NPR](https://www.npr.org/2022/11/23/1138477784/elizabeth-holmes-sentenced-11-years-explained)

## ending stories

[Goodbye Zachtronics | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31863966)
[Goodbye Zachtronics, Developers Of Very Cool Puzzle Video Games](https://kotaku.com/zachtronics-farewell-goodbye-closing-eliza-last-call-bb-1849096767)

[Snapshot: Viaweb, June 1998](https://paulgraham.com/vw.html)

## failure stories

[My startup failed, then I found out I was unemployable | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26792876)
[Dave Sullivan: IT Consulting](https://web.archive.org/web/20210413145218/https://davesullivan.is/my_startup_failed_then_i_found_out_i_was_unemployable.html)

[5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0 | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28980691)
[How I failed 5 side projects in 6 years, earning $0](https://kwcodes.com/how-i-failed-5-side-projects-in-6-years-earning-0/)

[After losing $38676+ as an Indie Hacker. I can't do it anymore. I quit.](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/after-losing-38676-as-an-indie-hacker-i-cant-do-it-anymore-i-quit-8673223598)

[RethinkDB: why we failed (2017) | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26443406)
[RethinkDB: why we failed | defmacro](https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html)

[I turned down $500k, pissed off my investors, and shut down my startup (2016) | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31702922)
[Why I turned down $500K, Pissed off my investors, and Shut down my startup - Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan](https://www.disruptingjapan.com/turned-500k-pissed-off-investors-shut-startup/)

[A career ending mistake | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30428602)
[A career ending mistake - Bitfield Consulting](https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang/career)

[I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020) | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30831688)
[I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea - by Tom - TJCX](https://blog.tjcx.me/p/40k-fantastic-startup-idea)

[Tell HN: I'm Afraid We're Shutting Down | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598978)

[Failory](https://failory.com/)
[Failory](https://www.failory.com/graveyard)
Learn Why Startups & Products Failed

[These now-successful founders failed (hard) so you don't have to](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/these-now-successful-founders-failed-hard-so-you-don-t-have-to-8d95d439db)

[Top 10 reasons why I failed my last venture](https://old.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/15onvid/top_10_reasons_why_i_failed_my_last_venture/)

[Starting to understand the high failure rates...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/15gm19l/starting_to_understand_the_high_failure_rates/)

[Did I just lose half a million dollars? | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30134500)
[[deleted by user] : ethereum](https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/sfz4kw/deleted_by_user/)

[Dave Sullivan: IT Consulting](https://web.archive.org/web/20220223130304/https://davesullivan.is/my_startup_failed_then_i_found_out_i_was_unemployable.html)

## odd stories

[NDA expired, let's spill the beans on a weird startup | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782604)
[NDA Expired - let's spill the beans on a weird startup - Terence Eden's Blog](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/nda-expired-lets-spill-the-beans-on-a-weird-startup/)

[Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25506593)

## open-sourcing

[It Took Me 1.5 Years to Build This Bookmark Database And I'm Sharing it Publicly - No Sign-Ups Required](https://old.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/156oxpm/it_took_me_15_years_to_build_this_bookmark/)

[Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33685209)
[Kite is saying farewell - Code Faster with Kite](https://www.kite.com/blog/product/kite-is-saying-farewell/)

[Actual is going open-source | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31206536)
[actualbudget.com/open-source](https://actualbudget.com/open-source)

[Placemark is going open source and shutting down | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38250459)
[Placemark is going open source and shutting down - macwright.com](https://macwright.com/2023/11/13/placemark)

## selling

[Tiny | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29376588)
[Tiny | We buy wonderful businesses](https://www.tiny.com/)

[Indie Hackers](https://www.indiehackers.com/)
Community and stories of successful solo founders.

[How People Get Rich Now | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26781052)
[How People Get Rich Now](https://paulgraham.com/richnow.html)

[VCs aren’t your friends | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40375548)
[VCs aren't your friends](https://www.openvc.app/blog/vcs-arent-your-friends)

[Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40654190)
[Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret: Founder Liquidity](https://www.stefantheard.com/silicon-valleys-best-kept-secret-founder-liquidity/)

## selling stories

[My Show HN Project got acquired after 6 months | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21692165)
[How My Startup Got Acquired After 6 Months | by Josh Howarth | Marker](https://marker.medium.com/how-my-show-hn-project-got-acquired-after-6-months-954f81ca6a18)

[Skillsoft Buys Codecademy for $525M | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29649755)
[Skillsoft to Acquire Codecademy, a Leading Platform for Learning High-Demand Technical Skills, Creating a Worldwide Community of More… - Skillsoft](https://www.skillsoft.com/press-releases/skillsoft-to-acquire-codecademy-a-leading-platform-for-learning-high-demand-technical-skills-creating-a-worldwide-community-of-more-than-85-million-learners)

[Thank HN: 7 years and $7M later, it all started right here | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28902215)

[How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24689339)
[How we built a $1m ARR SaaS startup - Canny Blog](https://canny.io/blog/how-we-built-a-1m-arr-saas-startup/)

[I sold Baremetrics | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25045325)
[I sold Baremetrics - Baremetrics](https://baremetrics.com/blog/i-sold-baremetrics)

["About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today" | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127)
[Casey Newton on X: "About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today after a contentious all-hands meeting. I'm told more are coming." / X](https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1388212468510380034)

[Elon Musk moves ahead with Twitter deal in 13D filing | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33085269)
[sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922105787/tm2227435d1_sc13da.htm](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922105787/tm2227435d1_sc13da.htm)

[How We built a $1M ARR open source SaaS | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31857069)
[How we built a $1M ARR open source SaaS | Plausible Analytics](https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas)

[What I learned getting acquired by Google | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207024)
[What I learned getting acquired by Google](https://shreyans.org/google)

[Excerpt: How Google bought Android-according to folks in the room | Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/08/excerpt-the-history-of-android-as-written-by-a-longtime-android-developer)

[Stack Overflow sold to Prosus for $1.8B | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27370026)
[Stack Overflow Sold to Tech Giant Prosus for $1.8 Billion - WSJ](https://www.wsj.com/articles/software-developer-community-stack-overflow-sold-to-tech-giant-prosus-for-1-8-billion-11622648400)

[I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40512500)
[I Sold TinyPilot, My First Successful Business · mtlynch.io](https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/)

## selling

[YC's $500k Standard Deal | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29878365)

## metrics

Here are key metrics you should track:
Traffic Stats - I recommend using Google Analytics.
Revenue and Expenses -
Hours Spent - Using a tool like SlimTimer, track every minute you spend working on your product, broken down into development, support and marketing. This allows you to monetize your time during month-end,

I bought CMS Themer for a song (less than 2x monthly profit).
The site paid itself off in net profit in 4 months.
I owned it a total of 9 profitable months and sold it for a substantial gain.
The reason the site had literally hundreds of interested parties when I listed it for sale was due to one reason:
I had outsourced the hard part, and had tracked my time so was able to document that I had earned over $100/hour on time spent working on CMS Themer.
I was selling a business, and a well paying one, rather than a job like the previous owner.