Let's be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't have 500K users, you have 40K uniques. When we say users, we mean people who have signed up for acco

Let's be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't have 500K users, you have 40K uniques. When we say users, we mean people who have signed up for accounts. Uniques are unique visitors as measured by Google Analytics and such. Uniques are reported monthly, never annually. The numbers you mention are vanity metrics, the real number is 40K uniques, and it's a fairly low number. For a content site, until you have at least 1M uniques and growing very fast, there is close to zero change you will find a VC interested in you. As to your burning question: until you have 1M uniques/month, you will make low ad rates, perhaps $1 or $2 CPM. Once you get over 1M uniques/month, you could theoretically make higher direct sales ad rates, up to $10 or $20 CPM. But this requires sales people. Advertising on other sites most likely is a waste of money. Instead you should pursue social media and traffic deals for distribution. Good luck!