I launched Streamza in Jul 2013. It's a personal streaming service that does just a few simple things, but does them right:

1. It can get any torrent from the Bittorrent network into your Streamza account,
   
2. it transcodes video and audio into a streamable format (HLS)
   
3. It streams media to a range of devices: iPhone/iPod/iPad, AppleTV (via AirPlay), Android devices, PCs through a web app and Roku.

Streamza is my "pet project" and it can be described as a "BitTorrent client in the cloud" with extra streaming capabilities. It really fills a niche by providing a useful tool and it's good at it.

We were able to make quite a buzz with Streamza, see review on Torrentfreak: https://torrentfreak.com/search-and-stream-torrents-from-the-cloud-for-free-130928/

"BitTorrent streaming services have been around for a few years already, but newcomer Streamza is without doubt one of the most impressive we’ve seen thus far."

Streamza had a very good reception. The best proof is that we spend nothing on marketing, relying only on word-of-mouth advertising and user recommendations.

Here are a few highlights that make Streamza shine from the user perspective:

• allows to use BitTorrent even if ISP blocks it
• snappy, responsive HTML5 app
• finally, access torrents on iOS devices
• high-speed streaming and downloading
• fetching torrents often much faster than using a BitTorrent client
• integrated Torrent search
• OpenSubtitles.org integration
• sharing content with friends (within app)
• bonus features for referring friends
• privacy compared to using a BitTorrent client - all communication is done over SSL
• fair pricing
• "just works"

A couple of competitors to look at: put.io, cloudload.com, streamnation.com, hive.im.

Just a couple of tweets from our users:

@dufferzzzzz: Just watched my first video through @streamza I love it, the UI is very innovative, simple sleek and incredibly fast!

@GordPaul1: @streamza I just added streamza to my roku3 and it works great! Couldn't be happier!

@theminijohn: The best downloading service EVER made. Check and you'll never come back to classic torrents.

@vaughngovenor: I love your service within minuets I subscribed and haven't looked back it saves me so much HDD space you guys are amazing

@michuk: @Streamza is potentially the most disturbing internet video product since Youtube. #MegaUpload meets #PirateBay, done right.

Monetization

Streamza offers free "demo" accounts which allow users to preview first 5 minutes of video content.

Monetization is based on a subscription model. Streamza offers 3 plans: 5, 10 and 20 torrent slots, priced $6.99, $9.99 and $19.99. You can also pay with Bitcoin, which contributed to a few % of sales. Streamza has over 1,000 active subscribers and the number grows at rate of 4-7 a day.

Most of the subscriptions are $4.99 / mo because it was the only plan till mid February. The new plans were introduced in Feb and they guarantee long-time profitability.

March is about to be the first profitable month.

With current number of subscriptions Streamza should generate revenue of about $5,400 per month, growing with each new subscriber. The revenue should at least double within a year. Infrastructure costs are $4,200-$4,700 per month and should grow much slower than revenue.

Technology

Server-side is build on Amazon Web Services. The infrastructure is a top-notch, scalable design with auto-scaling features. E.g. number of encoding servers scales up and down based on number of files to encode.

Streamza uses the following AWS services: EC2 (computing and servers), S3 (storage), CloudFront (content distribution network to stream media), CloudFormation (to manage infrastructure), CloudWatch (to monitor multiple parameters and alert on errors), DynamoDB (database), SQS (queuing), SES (mailing), SWF (to manage downloading, encoding workflows). Node deployment is automated by Chef (via cookbooks and roles) and CloudFormation.

Streamza uses EC2 spot instances wherever possible to save costs. 

Server stack is built on Ruby Sinatra and a series satellite jobs/scripts. Whenever possible the code is asynchronous to avoid blocking and to save resources.

Front-end is a HTML5 app that works on PCs and mobile devices. It's a fully responsive design. It can install into a "Home screen" on iOS devices and act as a native app too.

The front-end uses: Bootstrap, Backbonejs, Coffeescript. It communicates with backend through a RESTful API that can be exposed to 3rd party developers. There is also a Roku app that allows app browsing and video playback.

The actual adaptive-bitrate streaming is done over the HLS protocol which is compatible with most devices, it's bandwidth-efficient and future-proof.

The backend/frontend can be easily handled by a smart developer. Not much maintenance is required.

I can assure you the infrastructure and coding is done right. My other company, Wikidot, was a finalist of AWS Global Startup Challenge last year and I myself am a professional developer with 10 years of experience building advanced web services.

What's included

I am including everything: code (5 git repositories), Twitter account (556 followers) and Facebook page (862 fans), current database, all domains (streamza.com, .net, .org), artwork, Roku app.

Transaction and transition

I prefer a wire bank transfer. I can issue an invoice upon payment if you wish. I can also accept Bitcoin payment (maybe with a slight discount compared to USD price) but I need to check if it's OK with Flippa terms.

The service is offered "AS IS", but I will work with the buyer to transfer the project to the new AWS account. I can also assist in migration and offer a reasonable support. It's all up to individual arrangements.

Handling current subscribers is up to arrangement with the buyer.

Why am I selling then?

There are two reasons actually. First, I am short on manpower to handle all my projects. This is correlated to my changing personal situation. The second, direct reason is that PayPal re-viewed my PayPal account and asked me not to use PayPal as a payment option for new subscriptions. Now this sucks and I am really annoyed because I have not prepared an alternative payment method in-time. I know it's only a temporary issue (I already started working with other payment solutions), but given my personal issues I would rather try selling the platform right now, even at a price that is below its market value.

The long story short - the buyer should take into account that he/she will have to work with a different payment solution, possibly re-establishing current subscriptions. 

The long-term plan has always been to move Streamza towards a personal streaming platform (photos, videos etc), the thing that has always been attractive for users (and investors). There are plenty of options for the new owner. You might build a million-dollar worth business on top of Streamza, at this moment I do not care. My loss is your gain.

Final notes

The starting price covers the cost of developing the service and initial promotion. If you take into account the number of subscribers (over 1,000), Twitter followers (556 real people) and Facebook fans (862 real folks), the complexity of the project - it should sound right.

Please do not postpone bidding till the last moment. I might close the auction early if I am satisfied with the price.

I will be happy to answer all the questions.

Try Streamza and see it in action!

Happy bidding! Cheers!