On todayâs show Adam is joined by John Nunemaker (an old friend). For some of you listening you might remember Johnâs appearance on The Changelog #11, which was basically forever ago. Or his company Ordered List â they made Gauges, Harmony, and Speaker Deck which was quite popular in its time â so much so that they attracted the attention of Chris Wanstrath, one of the co-founders of GitHub to acquire Ordered List. The rest as they say is history. Today, John and I go back through that history to see what it was like to be acquired by GitHub and how that single choice has forever changed his life.
John Nunemaker: Yeah, that was pretty cool. That was actually kind of like a â I wonât say accident, too⌠Because I was kind of maintaining it, because everybody else had kind of moved on, and so I just kept it running, and occasionally would add things to it, and stuff; honestly, in my free time. And I remember we started getting a couple support requests here and there, people wanting to buy it⌠They were like, âHey, is it for sale?â And I remember asking, and everybodyâs like âI donât know if itâs for sale. Weâd have to vet the buyer.â And that kept coming back. So finally, I was like, âAlright, this isnât gonna happen. Itâs just dying right now. So if we donât do something with it, it is gonna permanently dieâ, and I was like â I just like it, again, because looking back, itâs the theme or the thread that ties a bunch of that story together. So I was like, âYou know what - Iâll vet the buyer. Are you guys okay if I vet the buyer?â And everyone was like âYeah, that sounds fine.â âEveryoneâ being my manager, and other people, levels up. So I was like, âAlright, Iâll vet buyers.â
And then as I was thinking about that over the weekend, I remember I was like, âWhy donât I just buy it? Iâm already maintaining it basically in my free time. I wouldnât be any different, except now I would have ROI if something good happens to it. Iâd have ROI.â That, again, comes back to impact. So I think on that front, thatâs kind of where â so I was like, âYou know what - letâs try it.â Again, I donât think Iâve thought about it until like weâre talking about it now, but⌠Common thread - you never know it until you ask. So worst-case scenario, when you negotiate, they say no.
[51:57] I remember I think I offered â I donât even remember. At that point it was losing like $1,000/month or more, just from hosting, and AWS bills, and stuff, and I was like, âAlright, Iâll give you $5,000.â So basically, this shows that Iâm real, Iâm genuinely offering for it, and I will take on the burden of $1,000/month, vetting the buyer, all the problems that could possibly arise from selling it, and any possible negative impact of closing it down, or any of that kind of stuff.
I sent that up the tree, and at some point they were like, âYes.â They dropped the price to like â I donât know if Iâm allowed to talk about any of that kind of stuff, but it was like an order of magnitude lower. They were just like â