3 ms·

I built review site ten years ago and sold it. It was profitable within 6 months off organic traffic and lead gen. Approximate revenue by year: $10k, 40k, 70k

by a5seo 15y ago

I built review site ten years ago and sold it. It was profitable within 6 months off organic traffic and lead gen. Approximate revenue by year: $10k, 40k, 70k, 100k, 150k, 250k, 500k, 750k, 1.5M, 2.5M. Built entirely while working for another startup (unrelated), first 3 years I was in graduate school, year 4 I was a product manager for another startup. Year 5 I finally took the leap to run it full-time. I was the sole owner, never had more than 7 employees, and I sold it for a bit over $10M (ttm revenue was around $700k at the time). Leading up to launch, I typically worked 10-7 at my day job, then wrote my code from 8p-1a M-F (20 hrs) and all day on the weekends (20 hrs), so 40 hrs per week. During school, my wife handled the sales part-time (16 hrs/wk), and I probably spent 8 hrs a week on it fixing bugs, implementing ad deals etc. In Year 4, I spent ~16 hrs a week on it outside of my day job (misc. tech upkeep, link building, PR, etc.). It's definitely doable, but your SO needs to be on-board because you'll be taking the time away from them. Or do it before you have a SO to worry about.

j45 15y ago
Regarding your SO, I agree that it's important to have someone that understands how you make money and what's required to build a business. The question I have is, how much more beneficial was it to have your SO involved at some meaningful level? Sales is an interesting spot because it makes a case for itself to justify the time required. Are there any pros / cons of involving your SO directly and at the core of your business that you'd be able/willing to share? I'd be really interested to know. Thanks for sharing.
- lsc 15y ago
  Several of my smaller suppliers have their SO do the books for the business. It's very common. It's really common to have a family member do bookkeeping, just because of the trust level involved. (My sister does my books.) My SO has done some programming for my company; some of it has been really great, some of it not. (She is generally way more competent than me or anyone else I can afford, but her background is embedded systems, you know, c, c++, vhdl; that sort of thing, and all the prgmr.com stuff is perl and bash, so you get a really good programmer writing stuff in languages they've never used before. It can be... interesting to read.) It really all depends on communication. Can you tell her (or him) that the thing they built isn't what you need and use something else? I mean, I'm the oldest of 6, and I've been hiring siblings for as long as I've had siblings, so I have a lot of practice saying "no, that wasn't what I wanted" and even "I don't need your help for now" without burning bridges, and I think my SO is willing to accept constructive criticism. I mean, the usual rules for hiring family apply, I think, only more.
  - j45 15y ago
    Cool. The trust factor makes sense. So does being the oldest and being able to say yes or no.
njstartups 15y ago
Would it be all right if I asked you some questions on the lead gen front? My email is in my profile. Thanks
jadoint 15y ago
I'm almost in the same boat right now. I built a niche Adsense-supported social networking site around mid-2009 and my approximate revenue by year is something like: $100 (Y1), $13.5k (Y2), $90k (this year). Assuming no growth next year, it should be around $130k. I hope you don't mind me asking these questions since I'm in the thick of it myself at the moment. I'm new here so I hope I'm not breaking etiquette. At what point did you realize you needed help and then decide that you can actually afford it? What made you decide to hire your 1st employee rather than a co-founder? What role did your 1st employee have? What kinds of employees did you end up hiring? How did you find your employees? Any insight would be appreciated!
- a5seo 15y ago
  We hired someone to handle customer service in the 2nd year. We also had some manual processes that they handled for building out the site. Since we'd been doing those things ourselves for a while, we optimized the processes a lot and had a bunch of templates, so training someone else was pretty easy. W/r to hiring vs. getting a co-founder... I strongly prefer hiring if at all possible. The rule of thumb I go by is that you should only use equity to get skills you can't rent/buy (e.g. a big network or personal brand). The skills we hired for, in order, where: Sales/account management as needed (wife) Accounting/bookeeping, part-time (wife) Customer service, part-time (stay at home mom; part-time) Sys admin, very part-time (did as much as possible myself) Project-specific Java developers, part-time/moonlighters All-around Java developer, first FTE (did everything including some light sys admin) Additional Java developers Additional customer service Product manager Most of our employees we found via Craigslist, or via our personal network. Later we used a recruiter to find Java developers. But hiring for developers was always a big problem. I think part of the reason recruiting is a unique challenge is that you'll (probably) never be the hot shiny new startup with pedigreed VC's vouching for you. It's lame, but employees rely on those signals to separate dead-end startups from something "real". Of course, the more likely scenario is that VC-backed company without revenue is far more at risk for being an elaborately doomed ponzi scheme than your profitable micro ISV. Whatever... You have to try harder with everything else you can control-- comp, office environment, developer-friendly culture, technology stack, profit-sharing if you're so inclined, etc. Good luck. You'll be glad you took this route down the line.

by a5seo 15y ago

j45 15y ago

Regarding your SO, I agree that it's important to have someone that understands how you make money and what's required to build a business. The question I have is, how much more beneficial was it to have your SO involved at some meaningful level? Sales is an interesting spot because it makes a case for itself to justify the time required. Are there any pros / cons of involving your SO directly and at the core of your business that you'd be able/willing to share? I'd be really interested to know. Thanks for sharing.

lsc 15y ago
Several of my smaller suppliers have their SO do the books for the business. It's very common. It's really common to have a family member do bookkeeping, just because of the trust level involved. (My sister does my books.) My SO has done some programming for my company; some of it has been really great, some of it not. (She is generally way more competent than me or anyone else I can afford, but her background is embedded systems, you know, c, c++, vhdl; that sort of thing, and all the prgmr.com stuff is perl and bash, so you get a really good programmer writing stuff in languages they've never used before. It can be... interesting to read.) It really all depends on communication. Can you tell her (or him) that the thing they built isn't what you need and use something else? I mean, I'm the oldest of 6, and I've been hiring siblings for as long as I've had siblings, so I have a lot of practice saying "no, that wasn't what I wanted" and even "I don't need your help for now" without burning bridges, and I think my SO is willing to accept constructive criticism. I mean, the usual rules for hiring family apply, I think, only more.
- j45 15y ago
  Cool. The trust factor makes sense. So does being the oldest and being able to say yes or no.

njstartups 15y ago

Would it be all right if I asked you some questions on the lead gen front? My email is in my profile. Thanks

jadoint 15y ago

I'm almost in the same boat right now. I built a niche Adsense-supported social networking site around mid-2009 and my approximate revenue by year is something like: $100 (Y1), $13.5k (Y2), $90k (this year). Assuming no growth next year, it should be around $130k. I hope you don't mind me asking these questions since I'm in the thick of it myself at the moment. I'm new here so I hope I'm not breaking etiquette. At what point did you realize you needed help and then decide that you can actually afford it? What made you decide to hire your 1st employee rather than a co-founder? What role did your 1st employee have? What kinds of employees did you end up hiring? How did you find your employees? Any insight would be appreciated!

a5seo 15y ago
We hired someone to handle customer service in the 2nd year. We also had some manual processes that they handled for building out the site. Since we'd been doing those things ourselves for a while, we optimized the processes a lot and had a bunch of templates, so training someone else was pretty easy. W/r to hiring vs. getting a co-founder... I strongly prefer hiring if at all possible. The rule of thumb I go by is that you should only use equity to get skills you can't rent/buy (e.g. a big network or personal brand). The skills we hired for, in order, where: Sales/account management as needed (wife) Accounting/bookeeping, part-time (wife) Customer service, part-time (stay at home mom; part-time) Sys admin, very part-time (did as much as possible myself) Project-specific Java developers, part-time/moonlighters All-around Java developer, first FTE (did everything including some light sys admin) Additional Java developers Additional customer service Product manager Most of our employees we found via Craigslist, or via our personal network. Later we used a recruiter to find Java developers. But hiring for developers was always a big problem. I think part of the reason recruiting is a unique challenge is that you'll (probably) never be the hot shiny new startup with pedigreed VC's vouching for you. It's lame, but employees rely on those signals to separate dead-end startups from something "real". Of course, the more likely scenario is that VC-backed company without revenue is far more at risk for being an elaborately doomed ponzi scheme than your profitable micro ISV. Whatever... You have to try harder with everything else you can control-- comp, office environment, developer-friendly culture, technology stack, profit-sharing if you're so inclined, etc. Good luck. You'll be glad you took this route down the line.