This is awesome. I've been sketching and thinking about such an approach to editing for months now — it would be perfect for one of my products. Not only have you validated that this "block" concept makes sense to other people, you've also given me a head start on the code. Many thanks, and I look forward to using (and contributing to) the project!
Why? If side-projects are just that, hobby tasks, then it's a toss up of spending $X disposable income on things I/my family enjoy, vs $X - $20. $20 is an additional day out with the kids, or half a pair of shoes for one of them... or an extra $20 overpayment on the mortgage (worth so much more in the long-term).
Bottom line: it has nothing to do with income, but what people value.
My feelings, too. I can understand why Sam feels it's worth $125k, based on the amount of hours he put into it, but a potential buyer will (most likely) evaluate this as buying a business -- and from that perspective the price looks really steep. You'd need to grow the business 10x just to break even.
That being said, there might be someone out there who's been contemplating building a task app business, and this would give them a really nice head start, product-wise. Or, perhaps it would make sense for a larger company (OmniGroup? Panic?) who can devote substantial marketing resources to it.
Nonetheless, I wish him the best of luck. He's a likeable guy and has obviously put a ton of love into this product -- it would be nice to see him enjoy some monetary return on his efforts.
I could see criticizing the price, but the reason you guys are criticizing it for are ridiculous. If you buy a company for 125k and make 125k/year in revenue you dont break even, unless your expenses are insane or if you think the business can't last more than a year.
The person who would most likely buy this app is maybe a company that thinks they could bring the revenues up, integrate this into something theyre working on, and add value. Is it worth 125k? I don't know, but I imagine we will know soon.
I guess my main point is that Sam seems to be setting the price based on what Cheddar is worth to him personally, rather than some kind of growth/potential calculation (or so I assume -- he doesn't go into how he arrived at the $125k price tag, aside from alluding to the number of hours he put into the project). That makes a harder sell, IMO. Buyers are going to look at how much potential Cheddar has as a business, not how many hours Sam put into it.
BTW I'm not suggesting this is the wrong way to sell it -- if it takes $125k for Sam to feel OK parting with Cheddar, that's totally valid.
I don't wanted to say that it should make 125k a year to make it valuable. But the ratio has to make sense. Just compare to the Sortfolio Sale: 120k rev/year sold for around $450k, makes far more sense. (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2899-sortfolio-deserves-a-bet...)
I think Python's process is pretty ad-hoc too, in that anyone can champion an idea and everyone can discuss on the mailing list. There aren't many formalities, other than (1) a few core people get to make the final decision, and (2) at the end of the discussion the yes/no stamp (and importantly, the reasoning behind the decision) is documented.
I consider myself both a coder and designer, but I don't half-ass know things -- I'm pretty experienced in both realms. I've done everything from designing the UX/UI for brand new products to building distributed systems on Amazon EC2/SQS/SMS.
A few projects (happy to discuss details via email):
I think (hope?!) I'm personable and easy to work with. I'm ideally looking for product development work (as opposed to designing/building brochure websites). Everything is fair game, from a few hours/week of piece work to taking on full projects from start to finish.
Get in touch if you want to know anything else, or if you'd like to start on a project: kyle.fox@gmail.com
Yes - this genuinely is excellent. I've already bought two albums (first I've got for years) and am really enjoying stepping through the results. Great stuff!
