B
Black Magic
👤 Tony Dinh (Solo Vietnamese dev who built a 100K+ X following in public, then sold that audience the analytics tool they were asking for.)🌐 site𝕏
He grew an audience in public, sold it a Twitter tool, hit $14K/mo — then Twitter's API bill ended the whole thing.
Will it work? · our read
Sellable, then dead. Recurring revenue made it sellable in two weeks under a death sentence — but platform risk capped the price at 0.76x ARR, and the API bill killed it anyway.
01How the money moves
Build in public, grow an X audience
→
Ship Black Magic to those followers
→
$14K/mo subscriptions
02The numbers
$168K ARREstimateat sale · 90% margin
Apr 2023
Sold at 0.76x ARR, far below SaaS norms — a platform bill made a profitable tool nearly worthless. founder newsletter
$14K MRR at about 90% profit, solo and bootstrapped.
🔒
You have the verdict. Members get the work behind it.
- The CENTS scorecard — where it's strong, where it's soft
- The founder's key move, and the counter-move
- How it could die — the evidence, and how sure we are
- The case against our own call
- A 🚀 launchpad prompt — the case, as a plan for your business
We rate our own confidence — and argue against ourselves. Nobody else in this category does.
Sources always public on all 492 cases · cancel anytime · 14-day refund
See a full teardown, free → Transistor.fmSourcesSources last checked 27 July 2026
Tony Dinh newsletter — "I sold my 2 years old business for only $128K" (sale price, $168K ARR, declined $500K offer)Tony Dinh — "I sold Black Magic" (Twitter API repriced to $42K/mo minimum)blackmagic.so — official shutdown notice (July 1, 2026)The Bootstrapped Founder — Tony Dinh interview
Revenue and sale figures are STATED first-party by founder Tony Dinh in his own newsletter (May 2023 post: $168K ARR / $14K MRR at about 90% margin at sale, $128K sale price, an earlier $500K offer declined) — all confirmed in the page's raw bytes. Twitter's $42K/mo API minimum is from his Apr 2023 post. The 0.76x ARR multiple ($128K / $168K) is our arithmetic. Buyer Hypefury is confirmed by blackmagic.so's own notice; the same domain now carries a July 1, 2026 shutdown notice. USD throughout, no conversion. verified:true. We never score you.