Well, one part is that it's a Dutch startup - targeted primarily at Dutch customers.
300 million people in the USA. 16 million in the Netherlands. So ppc campaigns are far less effective here.
The obvious question is: so why aren't you targeting the global market then? We originally thought that a local approach would help us get off the ground more easily. Perhaps we made a mistake there.
That makes sense, but I think the opportunity cost should not be ignored. If the opportunity cost of continuing on the current track is higher than the expected returns (both on the short and long term), then it might be better for us to either sell or cut our losses.
But yes... when somebody approaches us (instead of the other way around) we have a much stronger position during negotiation. So the problem is really in the "eventually" part.
"The best way to sell your business is to not need to sell your business."
I agree. That would be the ideal scenario. But we think a different product would work out better for us. So selling the product and starting fresh is tempting.
As for the money we're making. Not much at all. Our customers are just friends and family at this point. We haven't really tried to sell the product. No marketing campaign to speak of - once again because we're a bit "inexperienced".
We have paying customers, but only a few. Finding customers is harder than we thought it would be.
That's the thing. We want to sell. If we sell we have a little money we can use to grow our second product. Hire freelancers for graphic design, and so on.
Unfortunately, we picked a market where selling is pretty difficult for startups. It doesn't really sell via the web, so we need to call people for sales. If we could start again we would not make this mistake.
So basically, we picked the wrong market. We're still trying to graduate (MSc) and we think we can do a much better job when we try again.
Thanks a bunch.