Threadbase.io (acquired)
Make Reddit-style communities in just a few clicks.
We bootstrapped Threadbase, scaled the business to profitability, and received an acquisition offer we couldn't pass up!
Threadbase was officially acquired, and we owe so much of our success to IndieHackers.
There are more exciting things to come, but selling our first company was a huge milestone for both of us.
We just launched our coupon engine using Stripe discounts! If you'd like to help us try it out, then use the code TRYTB in the Billing section of your dashboard to get 100% off any paid plan for 1 month.
We hope you enjoy it and we can't wait to see what communities people build!
After working through our early alpha testing feedback, we shipped new features like color customization and logo uploader.
We reached out to some of our earliest supporters, and today, we converted our first alpha user to a paying subscriber.
We needed to validate our hypothesis that people wanted a community as a service, but we didn't have our product completely finalized yet.
But we didn't want to sit around and wait to be perfect. So, we made a fake landing page for a fake company (CaaSify.com) that offered an identical product to Threadbase, and we posted about it on IH.
We were the #3 post of the day and one of the top 5 posts of the week!
With this post, we were able to get 100 email subscribers from content creators, founders, and budding entrepreneurs.
It was on this day that we knew we finally had something.
The original post for the history books: https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/need-alpha-users-make-your-own-product-hunt-hacker-news-or-vote-based-community-no-coding-needed-4b780e8c60
After talking through the idea for weeks, Cam and I finally made our first commit for Threadbase.io.
One of the first GIFs we sent to each other:
18 Comments
Congrats! How much did you sell for?
How did the acquisition go? Did you reach out to them, or did they reach out to you? Can you go into any detail on how things transpired?
It went really well! We listed Threadbase on Flippa to see if there was any interest and put a price that we thought would be a favorable exit for the work that we put in.
We talked with a lot of potential buyers, but there was one person--who is also a fellow IndieHacker--who we really liked. After talking with him about the product, we felt like he understood what we were trying to do but he had the time to take it further. He then offered to acquire the tech at the price we listed on Flippa and we felt it would be a exit for us and a good, new owner for Threadbase.
We're very happy with the acquisition, and we're excited to see what he does with it.
Hi!
Life kind of took over, and our personal priorities changed a bit. We weren't able to give Threadbase as much time as we knew it needed to get to the next level so we listed it on Flippa to see if anyone would be interested in purchasing it for a price we felt was fair.
We kept working on Threadbase while it was listed, and then our buyer reached out to us and we felt he would be a great new owner for the platform.
Got it! Thanks for your response. Good luck!
Congrats, Chris and team!
I've been looking for something like Threadbase having been disappointed with existing options. It looks really simple to set up and seeing your announcement couldn't be more perfect.
I might give you a shout in the near future with some questions, if that's OK!
Good luck with Advisely :)
Wow, congratulations! What kind of company or individual bought your website?
Hey Chris,
Contrats on the acquisition!! I'm launching a product-focused podcast and would love to have you on to talk about Threadbase. Here's an example episode with another fellow indie hacker https://soundcloud.com/produkt-podcast/episode-1-tonebase/s-Wgbea.
If you're interested you can read more about it here https://medium.com/sugarkubes/product-podcast-interview-request-5acefec574a8
Hope to speak with you soon!
AP
Hi there! Your podcast sounds great. I just filled out the form. Hope to connect soon.
That's just awesome! Congrats!
Would you like us to feature you in our "Success Entrepreneurs" rub at Failory (https://www.failory.com/interview-success) ?
If so, please ping me at lubo@failory.com.
Let's spread the word out!
Thanx!
Hey Lubo - Thanks for the invite! I will definitely ping you.
Thank you, sir!
I'll jump right in! Again, congrats on achieving this HUGE success! It's awesome when I hear such a great news!
Congrats. Could you reveal any number? I couldn't find your Flippa post. It would be nice if you could tell what is your MRR and the acquisition amount.
Hi there - we ended up getting to profitability at a little over $1K ARR. I can't reveal the final acquisition number but it was a favorable exit for me and my co-founder.
Congrats! What's next for you and the team?
Hey Pvan - I'm actually going the solo route this time and working on an on-demand consulting platform for top experts in marketing, sales, product, etc.
It's still in alpha, but if you're curious, you can check it out here: https:/www.advisely.co
Advisely looks like a great productized service, I've DM'ed you! And congrats for the acquisition.