Hi everyone in this blog I will share my story how I sold one of my projects called "beSocial" for 30 USD to a foreign client.
Last year, in November I built a social-media-cum-blogging platform called "beSocial", which featured all the basic functionalities that are found in typical social media site: like share post, like/dislike, comment, follow/unfollow etc.
The project was made using Nodejs, Expressjs, Mongodb and other NPM libraries. I hosted it on Render.com in free tier. The website was minimalistic and easy to operate. It took me a week to design and develop it from scratch.
After deploying and getting beSocial live, I decided to sell it on sideprojectors.com, a platform where you can list your side projects. I listed beSocial for $30.
In May, I got an email from a person in Kenya, he was interested in buying the source-code of beSocial. I created a sales agreement and sent it to him. After three days he sent me $30 through PayPal and I, as per the agreement sent him the complete proper documentation along with the code, wrapped in a zip file, to him.
beSocial live link (it may take a while to load): beSocial
Insights
Make useful tools/softwares using whatever programming knowledge you have, and list them on websites like sideprojectors.com.
You should create a proper documentation of your project.
If you consider your project worth solving people needs, share it on social media like LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
beSocial snapshots
I am a newcomer in Dev.to community, I will highly appreciate if you will like this post!
I have the full source code along with proper documentation, if anyone want, reach me at merudra.official@gmail.com
Top comments (39)
I think it's too cheap for complex project especially like sosmed
Yes I also think so. I will be vigilant next time:)
Selling so low also brings the market down. We should be trying to keep the value of our work high not devaluing our profession.
Correctly said.
I think hard to earn direct money with startup software selling. Onestly this design looks quite old, and dont't put together to nice. But this is no problem, you put a little effort to modify. Shortest way is start using tailwind, and take look some modern design, for example dev.io design. If you would like find your own style maybe try some AI image generator that is help a lot or take look on pinterest
In this project I deliberately used retro look. In future projects I will definately incorporate modern tools.
Thank you
Playing Devil's advocate...
Simple layout and basic CSS makes it really easy to build and host. If the buyer just wanted something simple but functional and only had a small budget then this is what they should expect.
I Also want to sell my project mangatv.shop 😎
I just checked it out , wow its really wonderful but isn't there a way to add each pages of the manga as the video
You mean, transition videos? I will try 😃
Thank you for sharing this. i ddin't know that there are services that you have listed.
Welcome
Thank you for sharing.
You are welcome
You should consider publishing your scripts also on CodeCanyon
Thanks
I also want to sell my project Espere.in
Oh nice!
Just 30??? Don't you think it's too cheap? And also you make market down.
Next time, I will take care of this.
I also want to sell my project espere.in
good luck
This is really interesting, thanks for sharing 👏
Congrats for selling the project! 🚀
Thank you 😊
And what about the frontend? Did you use pure HTML and JS?
Yes,
Yes, i think you can use JS and HTML, but you would have to learn their syntax
Hey Devs. Can you suggest any price, for how much I should sell litekart.in?
I really like the design of the site.
I think an investor would be interested in how many active users you have, how many subscriptions, profit, growth. It's not possible to answer how much a business is worth without considering those things right?
can you add the link please
litekart.in
Hey Devs. Can you suggest any price, for how much I should sell litekart.in
I seriously doubt many devs can help you here. That is a business question and a website like yours (and most websites I guess and pretty much any busines too) is what I think in the new parlance, we'd call non fungible.
What that means to you is the price is as long as a piece of string. In other words, the subject of negotiation between you and any prospective buyer.
There are ways of valuing a business, but you may not like them. For a standard business, the common market price will be a function of the books, that is the finances. Typically, if investing due diligence demands that the last 5 years or so of business financials are available for scrutiny, independently audited and a buyer will want to amortise their investment (earn the money they spend on your site back) within about 5 years and be looking to find evidence that this is likely/possible in the books. sideprojectors.com looks like a great place where those things happen ... helping to find an audience.
That is, however, for a going concern or a running business. For a startup with no revenue yet, it's really down to what we call, the gift of the gab. There is fundamentally no starting point that can be arrived at by looking at your site alone, the starting point is what you believe this site can earn in the coming 5 years ... or alternately, if you sunk costs into building it, a clear presentation of those, and the margin (positive or negative) you're seeking and why.
I'm not aware of, and doubt there is, any functional open market for arbitrary startups, websites, or businesses. It is a case by case sale, pitch, marketing etc. Of course sideprojectors.com looks like a great place to do all that, and find an audience.
Thanks for suggestion, just submitted my project there☺️
I think (hope) you mean “come” not “cum” 😂
Ha Ha Ha
I can't help but feel that you sold yourself short. That's a lot of logic for $30.