How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business • Hacker News Board

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#91

Post by _sentient » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:04 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #8

Good read. I recently became a father and suddenly the need for hiring baby sitters,nannies, house cleaners is critical and like the blog says "it is not rocket science but not as easy as ordering book on amazon", I totally concur. My wife and I have been struggling to find "good" and "reliable" cleaners, or babysitter even though we have tried craigslist, care.come (for nannies) etc. Basic household needs have many…

I can't help you with the rest of your pain points, but I do own a great house cleaning service. We cover the San Diego, LA and Orange County areas, and we'd love to see if we can take care of item #1: http://goldenshine.com.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#92

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:06 PM UTC

JimWillTri wrote: post #79

ovi256 wrote: post #7

Would love to hear more about the first part of the trip: how they got to $15k per month. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Crunchbase shows the company took $270k in seed 3/1/13. Why would you take the seed funding when you were doing so well?

Hello JimWillTri, we have incurred a ton of technology costs in relaunching the site and wanted to make some strategic hires. We received a fair valuation for the raise and believe this capital will be enough to propel us to the next level.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#93

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

Aco- wrote: post #56

mkbrody wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello ovi256, we received some excellent press early on (Thrillist was huge for us), ran a Gilt campaign, and listed ourselves on free directories. We did not spend any money (outside of the money we lost with Gilt) in customer acquisition to begin with.

the money you "lost" with gilt? did the promotion not pay for itself in volume and repeat customers?

Hello Aco, we have an excellent relationship with Gilt and value them as a partner. I just meant it was an out-of-pocket expense initially.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#94

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #88

>>>>"choosing to focus on their strengths instead of role-playing Steve Jobs paid off." This a thousand times. Too many times I've heard founders bragging to me about how awesome their website looks while completely missing how crappy the user experience is which is driving away business. Good to hear these guys really focused on the core of the business and what made it great.

Thanks at-fates-hands, we're a service business and care about our clients. Mike preaches this quote: “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” ~ Sam Walton

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#95

Post by jeffyee » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #8

Good read. I recently became a father and suddenly the need for hiring baby sitters,nannies, house cleaners is critical and like the blog says "it is not rocket science but not as easy as ordering book on amazon", I totally concur. My wife and I have been struggling to find "good" and "reliable" cleaners, or babysitter even though we have tried craigslist, care.come (for nannies) etc. Basic household needs have many…

Working on addressing 'Food and Cooking', would love to get your feedback. Send me a note, email in profile

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#96

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

marcamillion wrote: post #72

sixQuarks wrote: post #70

I'm not convinced the web site drives the revenue. Alexa rank of 1 million. That means there's probably less than 30,000 visitors per month. I bet the company does most of their marketing offline, and the site is more of a brochure. So it's a bit misleading to say that a $20k bootstrapped web site led to all the growth in this business.

Ok let's use your math. So assume they only get 30K visitors/mo. At a 7% conversion rate (which is listed in the article), if you assume that each clean is on average $50. That's a cool 30,000 * .07 * $50 = $105,000 in revenue from NEW customers every month. - i.e. $1.2M in new revenue per year. If you also assume that what they have been doing in the article is true (i.e. working on keeping customers happy) then the…

Hello Marcamillion, without going into too many specifics about our numbers we actually get a lot less than 30k unique visitors per month. However, 80% of our business is from repeat customers and our customer retention numbers are very strong. This is the core of our business and how we plan to grow. We have done basically zero off-line marketing.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#97

Post by dkrich » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #82

marcamillion wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...my point was simply that there is no silver bullet other than a dogged will to get it done. There are many brilliant programmers who will never build a sustainable business because they just don't have the will to get it done. Likewise, there are many MBAs that will be middle management in LargeCo. all their lives for the same reason. It has become Valley lore that u need to be a geek to build a successful bus…

I think it has become the lore that you need to be a geek to build a successful software business. There are always exceptions. With regards to MBA's is there any evidence that getting one makes people more sucessful in their careers? I know it helps if you already have a job to climb the ladder, but I don't think there is much in an MBA that isn't covered in a book like "The Personal MBA" and isn't much you will lea…

Do you have an MBA? I'm not trying to sound like a dick- that's an honest question.

I do have an MBA and while I definitely think it was overpriced, the relationships with top faculty, in-depth case studies, and lasting friendships that I got out of it is definitely beyond what you will get from a book.

That said, experience is and always will be the best teacher. There is only so much you can get from relationships, classrooms, and personal accounts described on blogs. At some point you have to find out for yourself by doing. Doing is the hardest part and it constitutes about 99% of success, which is why so few people ever succeed or even try.

I know people who are not at all "technical" or "businessy" who run wildly successful small businesses because they just did and didn't know any better. Of course there were other things they had going for them- they were personable, had large networks of friends, etc., but my point is that there isn't a formula for success, but you do have to get shit done.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#98

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

jazzychad wrote: post #40

yet another sinner of linking the main site logo back to the blog: http://blog.jazzychad.net/2012/05/28/startups-fix-your-blog-... - please fix!

Sorry Jazzychad, all will be fixed with the new site! Michael Scharf also sends his apologies to all reading this.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#99

Post by mkbrody » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

_lex wrote: post #14

[deleted] wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

We're building a company in a similar, but different space ( http://www.massagejoyspa.com : in home and office massage therapy), and I'd love to spend 15 minutes on the phone with you picking your brain - can you add a contact email on your HN account, or shoot me an email at lexsebro@stanford.edu? Thanks!

Best of luck with your new business lex. Michael Scharf will be reaching out to you shortly.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#100

Post by mbesto » Wed, Apr 17, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

jazzychad wrote: post #40

yet another sinner of linking the main site logo back to the blog: http://blog.jazzychad.net/2012/05/28/startups-fix-your-blog-... - please fix!

Chad, I'm in total agreement. Curious, what do you (not just you, but anyone) think of how we implemented it on our site?

http://blog.competehub.com/