Thread by @thepatwalls

Yesterday, starterstory.com crossed $1.5M in revenue.

It took me 1,981 days.

Here are the 7 pivotal moments that got me here:

1: Early validation

In the first 90 days, I laser-focused on getting my site in front of as many people as possible.

I tried 12 channels and found one that worked: reposting our content on Reddit.

Everything changed the day I hit the front page of Reddit. I was validated.

2: I found my "X factor"

I needed something that would set my content apart from the rest...

I started requiring all businesses we featured to share exactly how much they were making.

Nobody else was doing this.

This made my content go viral.

3: Being vulnerable on the internet.

I documented my entire journey building Starter Story.

Revenue updates, the ups and the downs.

I started making friends online through my writing.

This put people in my corner - and I no longer felt like I was building alone.

4: I built a paid community.

I used to rely 100% on ad revenue.

As a bootstrapped company, I knew this wasn't reliable and I needed to diversify.

So I created my own product and started charging for it.

To this day, it's still our biggest source of revenue.

5: Always reinventing myself

Reddit was a short-term growth tactic - I knew we needed a better distribution channel.

So I went all in on SEO.

A few months later, we 10x'd our traffic and hit 1M visitors/mo.

My takeaway: what worked in the past won’t always work in the future

6: Think Week

In May 2020, I took a "think week".

7 days. No email. No social media.

It allowed me to zoom out and realize I needed to go ALL IN on one business.

I stopped tinkering around with different projects and committed to one thing.

That month, revenue doubled.

7: We found a home run acquisition channel.

In 2023 I decided to go all-in on video content.

Progress so far:

- YouTube: 1.5M views
- Instagram: 6.1M views
- TikTok: 6.5M views

This only feels like the beginning.

There it is.

1,981 days of building starterstory.com

I'm proud of this little website.

My next goal: To help 1 billion people make money online by 2025.

Currently: 41 million.

Thank you for reading :)

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