While the 10x net isn't an unusual valuation for an established business, it's not even close to accurate for a startup business, especially ones in a high risk environment like Bitcoin. You'd be looking more at a valuation of 1-2x annual net, if that.
Very true, I thought about this fact while I writing the example. But as pointed out, I don't think any mining pool operators are in a hurry to offload their business to someone else; so I left my valuation high for the hypothetical ACME Mining Pool, because to really buy an existing pool you'd have to bid high enough to make the owner consider selling.
How about hiring a developer or two to make a brand new pool? How much would that cost?
Why re-invent the wheel? There are a lot of different open source mining pools, you can install on a server.
I agree. There's plenty of resources available out there to setup [at low cost] the foundations for a mining pool operation. The hard part is marketing your business at miners so they feel compelled to move some of their hashing power to your pool. The incentives are probably going to be the expensive / risky part of the operation.
You'll probably need to purchase some of your own mining gear with some "heavy" hashing power, or a big investment in cloud hashing. Without some anchor hashing power I think you'd struggle to achieve any gravity. You're going to have to set your payout % really high or have some other bonus incentives to lure in the miners, but you'll also need to convince them to stay after your start-up capital has been expended on pulling them in with bonuses.
I've thought about doing some market research on this subject before, but have yet to commit the time to it.
Good luck in your endeavors!