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

myclean.com

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

#71

Post by ThomPete »

marcamillion wrote: post #69

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company. I never understood this. For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It's ignorant at best. The fact is, as has been shown time a…

I don't believe it's the MBA but rather the experience people have that make them able to do run a successful company.

MBAs aren't making you a good businessman anymore than studying philosophy is making you a good philosopher.

You still need the experience and the insights in order to create something like this.

But I wholeheartedly agree that you don't need to be a technical co-founder to do a company like this. However you do need someone to do it for you.

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

#72

Post by marcamillion »

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 they likely have repeat business (given that people always want to keep their place clean), it's definitely possible that with a $1.2M revenue growth yet per year - based on current traffic trends - that they could be doing $4M/year.

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

#73

Post by LordIllidan »

brador wrote: post #54
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!

It looks like a wordpress blog and so is non trivial to link to the main site. I have no idea why Wordpress made it so difficult to relink, but it's not easy to do.

It's just a matter of editing the theme files.

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

#74

Post by mkbrody »

marcamillion wrote: post #69

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company. I never understood this. For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It's ignorant at best. The fact is, as has been shown time a…

Thank you for the supportive comments Marcamillion. Mike Scharf hired me to offset his technical inefficiencies. He in turn is the type of entrepreneur and business visionary who is great to work with.

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

#75

Post by marcamillion »

ThomPete wrote: post #71
marcamillion wrote: post #69

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company. I never understood this. For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It's ignorant at best. The fact is, as has been shown time a…

I don't believe it's the MBA but rather the experience people have that make them able to do run a successful company. MBAs aren't making you a good businessman anymore than studying philosophy is making you a good philosopher. You still need the experience and the insights in order to create something like this. But I wholeheartedly agree that you don't need to be a technical co-founder to do a company like this. Ho…

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 business - when it is patently clear that is false. None of the AirBnB guys are geeks - they are designers!

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

#76

Post by mkbrody »

ThomPete wrote: post #71
marcamillion wrote: post #69

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company. I never understood this. For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It's ignorant at best. The fact is, as has been shown time a…

I don't believe it's the MBA but rather the experience people have that make them able to do run a successful company. MBAs aren't making you a good businessman anymore than studying philosophy is making you a good philosopher. You still need the experience and the insights in order to create something like this. But I wholeheartedly agree that you don't need to be a technical co-founder to do a company like this. Ho…

You are absolutely right ThomPete, you need to either employ or contract someone technically sound to build a great software product. Mike Scharf is a great evaluator and hirer of people. This has helped our business tremendously.

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

#77

Post by cpeterso »

There is no link from myclean.com/blog to the myclean.com home page. To read more about the company's services, I had to manually enter "myclean.com" in my address bar. Even the "© Copyright 2013 - MyClean.com" footer links the text "MyClean.com" to myclean.com/blog!

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

#79

Post by JimWillTri »

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?

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

#80

Post by nthj »

tejay wrote: post #4

Wow, fantastic. Cool story too. So, how often was your developer in Canada at the movies when you called? Haha

Clients who won't pay for retainers (with optional SLA attachments for emergencies, if required) shouldn't make public quips about their contract developers being at the movies. The market is such that I do not have to be available 24/7 for $100/hour, billable in 15-minute increments, no matter how much startup CEOs wish this wasn't the case.
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