3 ms·

31 days, 120,000 hits, and $462 in revenue. The Startup Foundry’s story.

78 points by g0atbutt 16y ago

kristofferR 16y ago
This is great! I've been seeing links from The Startup Foundry a lot here already and it's just been a month. Keep it up and you'll soon get even more traction. In November 2010 I discovered Kinect hacking and created a blog with the latest hacks, http://KinectHacks.net http://KinectHacks.net, just for fun. Since it was the only blog about the topic at the time it grew quickly and the in the first month it reached 100 000 unique visitors and 300 000 pageviews. In the end of January it had gotten over a million pageviews. I eventually got tired of running it, it took time away from my real business, so I sold it on Flippa.com for $12600 (http://bit.ly/hBcQQb http://bit.ly/hBcQQb , requires login). One of the best tips I can give you is to invest in a realtime analytics service like Clicky, which I used. It's really helpful for immediately noticing when stuff go viral and take action on it. Another cool thing is that the new owner spent just $200 on Facebook advertisements and got over 10000 likes for the group (https://www.facebook.com/KinectHacking https://www.facebook.com/KinectHacking) in a week because of it. I've always heard that Facebook ads don't work, but it surely worked in this case. Just goes to show that you should never take stuff as granted before you've tested it yourself.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  I've always heard that Facebook ads don't work, but it surely worked in this case. My own (limited) experience is that Facebook as can be very effective at driving traffic to your Facebook page. To your website? Not so much.
  - seiji 16y ago
    You nailed it. Facebook ads work if you want to send people to a Facebook page or Facebook game where people will spend Facebook credits ending up back in your Facebook account so you can buy more Facebook ads.
    - ig1 16y ago
      I'm getting high-quality traffic from Facebook for a fraction of the cost of Google Adwords, it takes more work but it's definitely viable.
zaidf 16y ago
Let's officially replace the use of the word hits when citing traffic with something little bit less ambiguous;) Hits technically refer to each request for an item to your web server. So one page view can have 10+ hits if you take into account that each image can be construed as a hit. It doesn't help that some web analyzers still continue to measure and proactively show hits almost as synonymous to a pageview. It isn't.
- g0atbutt 16y ago
  The title was referencing page views. Sorry for the confusion.
  - zaidf 16y ago
    No worries. Congrats on such awesome traffic numbers! Of course, if you were following the true spirit, we'd see a hockey stick chat comparing TechCrunch's launch traffic to your projected traffic :)
    - g0atbutt 16y ago
      Ha, well played. In all seriousness I would love to see TechCrunch's traffic in the early days. A quick search primarily revealed other startups traffic after being featured on TC. Does anyone have a link?
sammville 16y ago
I am a big fan of TSF. REally love the interviews and would like to say a big thank you for the inspirations. My only problem is it seems you are already going the way of techcrunch. I would love to see TSf as a place for the small start-up guy and not the already made ones. I sent a tip about my start-up and even if a story would not be written about it, an email saying why you are not going to follow-up on it would be appreciated. I contacted you several times but was totally ignored..
- g0atbutt 16y ago
  Hi Sammville. Just so you know it's nothing personal, I just get a ton of emails each day from startups. If you drop me an email with a clear ask, I always try to at least respond. All the best, and keep kicking ass!
  - sammville 16y ago
    And that is the reason i love TSF!! i knew that was the case.. I would compose a good and clear email now..
roschdal 16y ago
TSF is great, but how is it different from Mixergy?
- AndrewWarner 16y ago
  Thanks. I don't report on startups. I interviews founders after they built their companies to find out what worked and what didn't.
  - iamjustlooking 16y ago
    Even if you were the same as Mixergy it wouldn't matter. There's plenty of room on the Internet!
    - chc 16y ago
      Just so everyone's clear, AndrewWarner is the man behind Mixergy. He's saying Mixergy interviews successful founders, whereas The Startup Foundry is more of a general startup info site. (I agree there's quite a bit of overlap, though, and I also agree there's nothing wrong with that.)
DevX101 16y ago
It's been a real pleasure to watch your work with Startup Foundry. I remember when you first came and floated the idea, and the top comments were that g0atbutt was a ridiculous name for a tech reporter. You ignored all that talk AND GOT IT DONE!! Talk is cheap. Anyone could SAY they are going to compete with Google, Facebook, or the whatever the biggest player in the game is. It's a whole lot harder to do it. You came out and boldly proclaimed that you were going to start an alternative to TechCrunch and you are well on your way to doing this. My one constructive criticism is that you spend some time getting more comfortable with your interviewee and with yourself. I've never met Andrew Warner but he's comes off as being very charismatic while being genuine at the same time. I can't imagine anyone watching him and not liking the guy. Part of this is probably his natural personality, but a big role is because he also comes EXTREMELY prepared to his interviews. I don't have any tips for you on increasing your charisma, but I will say that your on air persona is an important part of your brand/product and there's a certain something that's missing there although I can't name it. I expect to see you reaching greater and greater levels each month! Go GoatButt!
davidedicillo 16y ago
I'm a big fan of TSF, especially after seeing the quality of TC's articles degrading in the past year or so. I'm sure it won't be long before Paul will meet his goal.
atgm 16y ago
This is a great blog post. The rules given are great for anyone who wants to live a good life, not just startups and entrepreneurs.

78 points by g0atbutt 16y ago

This is great! I've been seeing links from The Startup Foundry a lot here already and it's just been a month. Keep it up and you'll soon get even more traction. In November 2010 I discovered Kinect hacking and created a blog with the latest hacks, http://KinectHacks.net http://KinectHacks.net, just for fun. Since it was the only blog about the topic at the time it grew quickly and the in the first month it reached 100 000 unique visitors and 300 000 pageviews. In the end of January it had gotten over a million pageviews. I eventually got tired of running it, it took time away from my real business, so I sold it on Flippa.com for $12600 (http://bit.ly/hBcQQb http://bit.ly/hBcQQb , requires login). One of the best tips I can give you is to invest in a realtime analytics service like Clicky, which I used. It's really helpful for immediately noticing when stuff go viral and take action on it. Another cool thing is that the new owner spent just $200 on Facebook advertisements and got over 10000 likes for the group (https://www.facebook.com/KinectHacking https://www.facebook.com/KinectHacking) in a week because of it. I've always heard that Facebook ads don't work, but it surely worked in this case. Just goes to show that you should never take stuff as granted before you've tested it yourself.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
I've always heard that Facebook ads don't work, but it surely worked in this case. My own (limited) experience is that Facebook as can be very effective at driving traffic to your Facebook page. To your website? Not so much.
- seiji 16y ago
  You nailed it. Facebook ads work if you want to send people to a Facebook page or Facebook game where people will spend Facebook credits ending up back in your Facebook account so you can buy more Facebook ads.
  - ig1 16y ago
    I'm getting high-quality traffic from Facebook for a fraction of the cost of Google Adwords, it takes more work but it's definitely viable.

zaidf 16y ago

Let's officially replace the use of the word hits when citing traffic with something little bit less ambiguous;) Hits technically refer to each request for an item to your web server. So one page view can have 10+ hits if you take into account that each image can be construed as a hit. It doesn't help that some web analyzers still continue to measure and proactively show hits almost as synonymous to a pageview. It isn't.

g0atbutt 16y ago
The title was referencing page views. Sorry for the confusion.
- zaidf 16y ago
  No worries. Congrats on such awesome traffic numbers! Of course, if you were following the true spirit, we'd see a hockey stick chat comparing TechCrunch's launch traffic to your projected traffic :)
  - g0atbutt 16y ago
    Ha, well played. In all seriousness I would love to see TechCrunch's traffic in the early days. A quick search primarily revealed other startups traffic after being featured on TC. Does anyone have a link?

sammville 16y ago

I am a big fan of TSF. REally love the interviews and would like to say a big thank you for the inspirations. My only problem is it seems you are already going the way of techcrunch. I would love to see TSf as a place for the small start-up guy and not the already made ones. I sent a tip about my start-up and even if a story would not be written about it, an email saying why you are not going to follow-up on it would be appreciated. I contacted you several times but was totally ignored..

g0atbutt 16y ago
Hi Sammville. Just so you know it's nothing personal, I just get a ton of emails each day from startups. If you drop me an email with a clear ask, I always try to at least respond. All the best, and keep kicking ass!
- sammville 16y ago
  And that is the reason i love TSF!! i knew that was the case.. I would compose a good and clear email now..

roschdal 16y ago

TSF is great, but how is it different from Mixergy?

AndrewWarner 16y ago
Thanks. I don't report on startups. I interviews founders after they built their companies to find out what worked and what didn't.
- iamjustlooking 16y ago
  Even if you were the same as Mixergy it wouldn't matter. There's plenty of room on the Internet!
  - chc 16y ago
    Just so everyone's clear, AndrewWarner is the man behind Mixergy. He's saying Mixergy interviews successful founders, whereas The Startup Foundry is more of a general startup info site. (I agree there's quite a bit of overlap, though, and I also agree there's nothing wrong with that.)

DevX101 16y ago

It's been a real pleasure to watch your work with Startup Foundry. I remember when you first came and floated the idea, and the top comments were that g0atbutt was a ridiculous name for a tech reporter. You ignored all that talk AND GOT IT DONE!! Talk is cheap. Anyone could SAY they are going to compete with Google, Facebook, or the whatever the biggest player in the game is. It's a whole lot harder to do it. You came out and boldly proclaimed that you were going to start an alternative to TechCrunch and you are well on your way to doing this. My one constructive criticism is that you spend some time getting more comfortable with your interviewee and with yourself. I've never met Andrew Warner but he's comes off as being very charismatic while being genuine at the same time. I can't imagine anyone watching him and not liking the guy. Part of this is probably his natural personality, but a big role is because he also comes EXTREMELY prepared to his interviews. I don't have any tips for you on increasing your charisma, but I will say that your on air persona is an important part of your brand/product and there's a certain something that's missing there although I can't name it. I expect to see you reaching greater and greater levels each month! Go GoatButt!

davidedicillo 16y ago

I'm a big fan of TSF, especially after seeing the quality of TC's articles degrading in the past year or so. I'm sure it won't be long before Paul will meet his goal.

atgm 16y ago

This is a great blog post. The rules given are great for anyone who wants to live a good life, not just startups and entrepreneurs.