I wonder what price could have been achieved had it been marketed as "Patio11's Bingo Card Creator" not "a well-established software business creating bingo cards for educational and recreational purposes".
Patrick's 'brand' certainly has value, at least to me (I've learnt much valuable information from him over the years). And while homo economicus knows this brand doesn't change the underlying business fundamentals, especially as Patrick was exiting, I believe it would have created acquisition competition and therefore a higher multiple than Px3.
The missing 'one more piece of information' in this instance may be Patrick's desire that BCC went 'to a good home', someone who saw potential in what it is, not bought it because of who he is.
Either way, he's now had a successful exit! Congratulations (again) Patrick - feels like only yesterday you stepped out of your salaryman role https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1230156
"I wonder what price could have been achieved had it been marketed as "Patio11's Bingo Card Creator" not "a well-established software business creating bingo cards for educational and recreational purposes"."
Assuming it mattered, and I don't know if it does or not honestly, he may not have wanted it to be known that bcc did the amount of sales that it did because that could hurt his brand not help it. Not that he ever called it anything more than iirc "wee" but honestly I kind of expected that the sales and/or profit was more than what the sale page said and that assumes that sales have been going up and not down.
As far as the patio11 brand that only matters to people on HN nobody in the rest of the world cares about that at all. All they care about is what the business will make and what the product is and what they see as the potential. Which, quite honestly given the product (and especially since Patrick ran it) seems nominal to me, given the amount of time it was in operation.
Obviously there was a reason he didn't publicize the sale on HN and the brand. You can draw your own conclusions.
Patrick's 'brand' certainly has value, at least to me (I've learnt much valuable information from him over the years). And while homo economicus knows this brand doesn't change the underlying business fundamentals, especially as Patrick was exiting, I believe it would have created acquisition competition and therefore a higher multiple than Px3.
The missing 'one more piece of information' in this instance may be Patrick's desire that BCC went 'to a good home', someone who saw potential in what it is, not bought it because of who he is.
Either way, he's now had a successful exit! Congratulations (again) Patrick - feels like only yesterday you stepped out of your salaryman role https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1230156