Last week I did something I never thought I'd do: I sold one of my side projects!
ProductVideoExamples.com now has a new owner (my good friend Tibo), and while it wasn't exactly a life changing deal, it taught me some valuable lessons about knowing when to let go and finding the right buyer.
This wasn't a multi-million dollar acquisition (very far from it, hehe), but the whole process was more interesting than I expected.
The "too many projects" problem
Let's be real – I arguably have too many side projects running at once.
→ HelpKit.so (my main business)
→ Redreach.ai (my second main business)
→ ProductVideoExamples
→ A few other experiments I tinker with (like Filmtypes.com)
→ Plus the constant stream of new ideas demanding attention
Sound familiar? As founders, we're wired to see problems everywhere and want to solve them all. But there comes a point where you realize you're spreading yourself too thin.
ProductVideoExamples (PVE in short) was born from pure necessity. I was working on HelpKit's new documentation layout theme and desperately needed inspiration for product videos. I spent hours scouring the internet, trying to find quality examples.
That's when it hit me: there wasn't a proper centralized place showcasing the best product video examples. So like any other founder, I decided to scratch my own itch and build what was missing.
Here’s the video I created for HelpKit’s new documentation layout:
Building something people actually wanted
The process was more manual than I initially expected. I hand-selected every single video, mainly from very successful Product Hunt launches. This took me quite some time, but it proved the concept was solid.
When I launched it on Product Hunt, it became Product 🥈 of the Day. Great validation that other founders had the same problem I did.
Up until the sale, it was generating passive income through access sales to the library. Nothing life-changing, but enough to cover my monthly coffee budget ツ Read on to see how much I sold it for.
Probably the most rewarding part of the project was the feedback I got for the design of the landing page. I got tons of amazing feedback, people DMing me and PVE even got featured on Landingfolio as one of the best product landing pages.
Realizing it was time to let go
Here's the thing about side projects – they're like plants. They need attention to grow, and if you can't give them the care they deserve, they start to wither.
I reached a point where I realized PVE deserved better than being one of many projects competing for my attention. It had proven its value, but I wasn't the right person to take it to the next level.
That's when I made the decision to declutter. Make some room for new experiments and give my existing projects the focus they deserved.
Finding the right match
I initially thought about posting PVE on a marketplace but quickly noticed it’s probably too small. I then stumbled on my friend Erwin AI who recommended to rather reach out to individual people I think that might be a good fit.
So I did just that. I reached out to 10 people all doing some variation of a video-based SaaS thinking that PVE could be a great lead magnet for them.
The first person I thought about was Tibo who eventually also ended up buying it. It felt like a good fit. He's working on a lot of video and content-related products, so PVE would actually complement his existing ecosystem.
The negotiation process was surprisingly straightforward. We both saw the value alignment, and honestly, knowing that the project would be in good hands was more important to me than squeezing out every last cent.
So how much money did I sell PVE for?
$5000 or in other words the price of a Honda CRF 150L dirt bike.
Tibo's making the site free now and using it as a lead magnet for his products which is brilliant and something I never would have thought to do.
The transition process
Since I have already met Tibo in real life a couple of times I did not feel the need for any escrow or contract. Tibo asked me to spend a few hours on modifying the site a bit to get rid of the Lemonsqueezy integration and make the product free. PVE also has a convenient internal chrome extension to easily add new videos to the database which also needed to be upgraded from manifest v2 to v3.
I decided to migrate the entire database to Supabase so everything (auth + db) is in one place making it much easier for him to update in the future.
I then handed over the Github repo, domain name and graphic assets. Tibo then wired me the money and that’s it. Smooth as it gets.
What this taught me
Even though this was a pretty low-key sale, I learned some valuable things:
- Sometimes the best thing you can do for a project is let someone else run with it. Tibo has the vision and resources to take it places I never could have.
- Not every project needs to be "the one." Some projects serve their purpose by teaching you lessons, generating some income, or simply proving you can build something people want.
- Decluttering your project portfolio is just as important as decluttering your closet. You can't give everything the attention it deserves if you're spread too thin.
What's next?
The profit from this sale isn't going to change my life, but it's going straight back into new experiments. Well… maybe the dirt bike but let’s see 😉
There's something nice about using the proceeds from one project to fund the next one and can’t wait to share more soon.
