Whoa there... you've got a blessing in disguise... use it wisely before you scamper off.
I've had two of these in my career - extended stays in a role which is "naturally prestigious" but had minimal actual challenge or operational responsibilities. They're fantastic...
The first one (at about your age) I used to court my wife and read / think EXTENSIVELY about business and life. It let me get my shit straight before the next leg up.
Rolled off that into a super-intense turnaround role and fatherhood (also super-intense) which took about 5 years. At the end of that, wound up as an "executive caretaker" managing group with instructions not to disrupt anything while they sold the company. So 3 - 4 years of sideways action with no meaningful opportunities for promotion.
Which turned out to be a MASSIVE gift. My bosses basically didn't care what I did with my time, so I learned how to code (full stack + database management) on company time and leveraged that into a successful side business. They funded me through the low-return slog of learning a new industry and starting a new business....
Indeed. From what I can tell, it sounds like an e-commerce company is bifurcating into:
- A B2C Shopify store, with the former traffic / audience
- Some kind of e-commerce platform (not yet a business)
To your point, if they were not already actively trying to market the code as a platform, this is an EXTREMELY hard reset for the second project and your best hope (if you're going to continue this path) is negotiate an acqui-hire.
Speaking as an investor again, the commercial side of the second project sounds like a potential goat rodeo. You're basically dealing with the sales cycle for selling a B2B infrastructure product (specialty e-commerce backbone) to small companies...
Guessing at the market size, you would need an average installed price north of $5 K to make a business viable which means you need a B2B outside sales team. Given that you're selling to startups, suspect getting above $100 K ticket price is a challenge. Strong likelihood of issues with customer acquisition costs > contribution margin.
Again... hand waving BS about the business I haven't seen, but much caution would be advised. The other guy definitely grabbed the crown jewels of the remaining business.
Actually, there is a market for used underwear. Look up the rag trade - industrial rags and the like. They shred old fabric for use in workshop and industrial applications.
Speaking as someone who not only invests in websites but authored some early studies on the fair value of micro-sites (back in 2012) that deal is utterly bogus.
The value of the business is in the traffic and audience, not the code. To be honest, getting rid of the legacy code and moving the site onto my standard platform is a major goal of the early integration process. I do not pay for code (sorry).
What you have been handed is the back-end of a potential product, the market value of which is unproven (since you haven't been given the customers). While I'm sure the technical quality of the work is excellent, there are multiple strikes against it from a business valuation perspective. Fight for your share of the store profits.
I've had two of these in my career - extended stays in a role which is "naturally prestigious" but had minimal actual challenge or operational responsibilities. They're fantastic...
The first one (at about your age) I used to court my wife and read / think EXTENSIVELY about business and life. It let me get my shit straight before the next leg up.
Rolled off that into a super-intense turnaround role and fatherhood (also super-intense) which took about 5 years. At the end of that, wound up as an "executive caretaker" managing group with instructions not to disrupt anything while they sold the company. So 3 - 4 years of sideways action with no meaningful opportunities for promotion.
Which turned out to be a MASSIVE gift. My bosses basically didn't care what I did with my time, so I learned how to code (full stack + database management) on company time and leveraged that into a successful side business. They funded me through the low-return slog of learning a new industry and starting a new business....
THANK GOD they didn't make me a fucking VP....