ShipFast

Priced against revenue rather than profit, ShipFast sold at 2.7× annual revenue, above the 2.3× median across the 249 deals with a disclosed revenue multiple. Revenue multiples run higher than profit multiples because they ignore the cost of running the business, so they are only comparable between businesses with similar margins.

The $580,000 sale price puts it in the top quarter of the 570 deals with a disclosed price here, where the median is $20,000. Most indie acquisitions cluster well under the headline numbers founders read about, which is exactly why a real distribution is more useful than an average.

This database tracks 190 Developer Tools exits, and the ones that disclosed a price sold at a median of $23,000. Category matters more than founders expect: buyers apply different discount rates to a content business, a mobile app and a B2B tool even at identical revenue.

From founding to sale took 1.0 years. Time to exit is a decent proxy for how built-to-sell a business was: shorter, cleaner processes usually mean documented operations and fewer surprises in due diligence.