jackcolton
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New to the Fastlane Forum community and wanted to introduce myself, get feedback and maybe offer something to others that they can learn from.
I'm the classic "dot com" guy, it's all I know and all I've ever done. My license plate is literally "dot com". So when i'm into a certain thing, I try to make money on it with a dot com. From 2006 until 2014, when I enjoyed partying, I ran a really popular travel site that focused specifically on Vegas nightlife. It grew to about $150,000 in revenue within it's first year and basically capped out around there up until I sold it last year to an equity firm.
So then I'm flush with some cash (not millions, but enough to buy some time) and looking for something new to do. Since I'd been working out a lot with a personal trainer, I had the idea to develop with him a fitness website that would sell online training programs through the affiliate world. A year later, we're still working on the damn thing and I'm already in it about $50k (LeanMass.com wasn't a cheap domain, and I went a little overboard on the HD videos).
Separately, I'd started a viral site called Unlooker that hit pretty quickly and enjoyed about 25 million page views in it's first few months, but it fell off after Facebook change their algorithm regarding how many views an outbound link post would get. Our numbers plummeted and it died out for a while. To make matters worse, my partners on that site stubbornly wouldn't take the 7 figure acquisition offer that was tossed our way.
I bought everyone else out on that site and have recently converted it into a political site, with the idea being that anyone who can write can contribute....so it can serve as a neutral voice leading into the 2016 election (and get traffic, because everyone loves to argue politics). Traffic is sloooooooowly starting to ramp up. Up to 2k daily visitors, which is a little far away from the 16,000 currently active users that it used to get. :-(
So that's kind of where things currently are. Finishing the product for LeanMass before that one can launch, just working on building traffic up for Unlooker before it can again be a valuable site.
Lessons I've Learned Post Sale:
1) Be hyper selective of what business partners you bring into something that you already own, make equity based on actual contribution to the bottom line. And, if possible, don't give it out at all until certain benchmarks are met.
2) Unless you have complete and total faith that a person has a better frame of mind than you do, be weary of giving up final say in anything. Similarly, the more cooks in the kitchen...the slower the meal takes, so operating based on a democracy isn't super useful for a startup.
3) Be as cheap as possible when it comes to testing ideas, features and the like before you jump in and pay a bunch for development, advertising, or....anything. Test, scale. Test, scale. Test, scale. There are so many things I've paid for that haven't ended up being necessary, or that could have been cheaper. Again, test, scale.
4) When I had my travel sites, there wasn't a person out there who wouldn't take my call or schedule a meeting. And if I offered them something, they'd do it. Starting back from square one in two new industries? I'm a nobody. Getting anyone's attention is tough. Until I have tons of traffic to my new sites, I'm having to be creative in getting responses from would be vendors / press / etc.
5) You have to stay focused on one thing. When a project is profitable, it's easy to plug away at it day in and day out. When you're finding something new to catch on, it's easy to be a space cadet and not work as diligently on a specific project as you should.
6) To be determined...
Past that, I'm not sure what the communication rules are for this forum, but if anyone has insight into getting traffic to a political site and / or launching a fitness product within the affiliate realm....i'm always interested in talking. - Jack
I'm the classic "dot com" guy, it's all I know and all I've ever done. My license plate is literally "dot com". So when i'm into a certain thing, I try to make money on it with a dot com. From 2006 until 2014, when I enjoyed partying, I ran a really popular travel site that focused specifically on Vegas nightlife. It grew to about $150,000 in revenue within it's first year and basically capped out around there up until I sold it last year to an equity firm.
So then I'm flush with some cash (not millions, but enough to buy some time) and looking for something new to do. Since I'd been working out a lot with a personal trainer, I had the idea to develop with him a fitness website that would sell online training programs through the affiliate world. A year later, we're still working on the damn thing and I'm already in it about $50k (LeanMass.com wasn't a cheap domain, and I went a little overboard on the HD videos).
Separately, I'd started a viral site called Unlooker that hit pretty quickly and enjoyed about 25 million page views in it's first few months, but it fell off after Facebook change their algorithm regarding how many views an outbound link post would get. Our numbers plummeted and it died out for a while. To make matters worse, my partners on that site stubbornly wouldn't take the 7 figure acquisition offer that was tossed our way.
I bought everyone else out on that site and have recently converted it into a political site, with the idea being that anyone who can write can contribute....so it can serve as a neutral voice leading into the 2016 election (and get traffic, because everyone loves to argue politics). Traffic is sloooooooowly starting to ramp up. Up to 2k daily visitors, which is a little far away from the 16,000 currently active users that it used to get. :-(
So that's kind of where things currently are. Finishing the product for LeanMass before that one can launch, just working on building traffic up for Unlooker before it can again be a valuable site.
Lessons I've Learned Post Sale:
1) Be hyper selective of what business partners you bring into something that you already own, make equity based on actual contribution to the bottom line. And, if possible, don't give it out at all until certain benchmarks are met.
2) Unless you have complete and total faith that a person has a better frame of mind than you do, be weary of giving up final say in anything. Similarly, the more cooks in the kitchen...the slower the meal takes, so operating based on a democracy isn't super useful for a startup.
3) Be as cheap as possible when it comes to testing ideas, features and the like before you jump in and pay a bunch for development, advertising, or....anything. Test, scale. Test, scale. Test, scale. There are so many things I've paid for that haven't ended up being necessary, or that could have been cheaper. Again, test, scale.
4) When I had my travel sites, there wasn't a person out there who wouldn't take my call or schedule a meeting. And if I offered them something, they'd do it. Starting back from square one in two new industries? I'm a nobody. Getting anyone's attention is tough. Until I have tons of traffic to my new sites, I'm having to be creative in getting responses from would be vendors / press / etc.
5) You have to stay focused on one thing. When a project is profitable, it's easy to plug away at it day in and day out. When you're finding something new to catch on, it's easy to be a space cadet and not work as diligently on a specific project as you should.
6) To be determined...
Past that, I'm not sure what the communication rules are for this forum, but if anyone has insight into getting traffic to a political site and / or launching a fitness product within the affiliate realm....i'm always interested in talking. - Jack
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