B2B SaaSNov 9
Shopify Live-Selling App Turning Social Comments into Orders
Shoppers comment a product number during a Facebook, Instagram or TikTok live sale, and this Shopify app messages them a checkout link; about 185 merchants subscribe.
- Ask
- $1M
- Profit
- $205K
- Multiple
- 4.9x
- Ask
- $1M
- Revenue
- $239K
- Profit
- $205K
- Margin
- 86%
- Multiple
- 4.9x
- Age
- 7 yrs (2018)
How it rates
ValuationFair
Similar B2B software businesses we've tracked mostly ask 2.4–5.5x profit; this one asks 4.9x.
Durability
7 years old with 185 subscribing merchants, but revenue is flat and it depends on Shopify and Meta.
Hands-off
The owner works 5 to 10 hours a week, and an outside contractor team handles development.
Why it's interesting
- Founded in December 2018, with 185 paying merchants and all revenue from subscriptions; the seller says it has held around $20K a month with little spent on growth.
- Profit is 86% of revenue, and last month brought $21.5K in revenue and $19.4K in profit.
- It has a 4.9-star Shopify App Store rating and Built for Shopify status, and the seller says it ranks #1 or #2 in relevant live-selling searches.
- Besides comment-to-order checkout, it includes cart holds, waitlists, SMS alerts, on-screen product overlays, barcode scanning and shoppable clips.
What to watch
- New merchants likely come mostly through Shopify App Store search, and the product needs Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to keep giving it access to comments, so a policy change at any of them could hurt it.
- Growth is listed at 0%, and churn is about 8% with no period given; if that is monthly, most customers have to be replaced every year.
- The listed competitors are CommentSold, LiveMeUp, Sprii and Selmo.io, and the seller says some earn $3M to $6M a year.
- The page claims 90% margins and 5 to 10 owner hours a week, while the email says 86% and 5 hours.
Ask the seller
- Is the roughly 8% churn monthly or annual, and how many new merchants sign up each month to replace those who leave?
- What share of new merchants comes from Shopify App Store search, and has Meta or TikTok ever cut off or limited the app's access to comments?
- What does the contractor team cost each month, is that included in the $205K profit, and will the team stay on after a sale?
Growth plays
- Test Facebook and Instagram ads aimed at merchants already running live sales on those platforms, which the seller says has never been tried.
- Rework pricing into tiers based on how often merchants go live or how many orders they take, since pricing hasn't been overhauled in about 3 years.
- Add a guided first live sale to onboarding to bring down churn among new merchants.
Nov 10Added to Acumen Wire