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Comment by adamqureshi | Hacker News Reader

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adamqureshi

I run https://onlyusedtesla.com/ its an online marketplace to buy / sell a Used Tesla.

I have been living off the income this whole year. This is my bread and butter. I do not have a 9-5.

I launched the business with 4 listings in 2016. I live in New York. My main goal is building brand equity.

Business Model.

Private Seller

$199 to list

$299 to list with a social boost

Dealer: $99-list

I do not use cookies. No Tracking. No google adsense.

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> I do not use cookies. No Tracking. No google adsense.

Very cool. The whole thing is cool but I like that best of all.

What's involved in building a site like this? I am subscribed to an industry forum in the beverage space where people buy and sell equipment using forum posts - t's really inefficient and I often think they could use a simple marketplace site.

You should build a landing page for your idea and start testing. Spend your money to find a legit copywriter, have him write out the copy to communicate your business value prop ( clearly). You need a logo. Design, Dev, CMS ( wordpress) for payment processor use STRIPE. Make sure your site is stupid fast and keep it simple with a focus on clarity. Next, you need to start testing, testing , testing and then iterating weekly or monthly until you start making money. Try to make money from the jump.

Mate, the first thing you do when you find a forum that sells things where there is no actual market place, you build that marketplace!

Flippa is one example. There used to be a forum where users used to buy/sell websites. Forum admins saw an opportunity and built flippa (it was called something else before that, can't remember what it was) and now raking in the dough.

Great site. For some reason, when I switch listings to "for sale" I still see one "sold" in the list.

Thank you. It maybe a bug i told my dev. I am working on the v2 so should work out some of the kinks on the site.

How do you drive traffic to the website?

To be honest, The customers do that now. they share my site whenever they see someone looking for the best spot to sell a Tesla. I don't sell personal info to marketers. I also have a guy to write a blog post a few times a week.

How did you gather teslas to have something to sell on the website initially?

I hit up a bunch of forums where tesla owners hang out , ask for help like best spots to sell thier teslas without being tracked and i listed for them for free and asked for $50 when / if they found a buyer. This was back in 2016. It was all the honor system. I actually didn't plan anything. I just kept experimenting over and over and over jacking up the price / testing all day and night. I think there was a LOT of luck too.

Awesome work. What does your overhead look like roughly?

Rent. Food. Utilities. $3,500-month Server $150-month Facebook $35/month

I had to read your comment 3 times before pressing “reply” asking you how do you spend $3.5k a month on a server, then realising it’s for rent, food and utilities. May the commas be with you

Same here, my heart skipped a beat when reading that.

Even $1800/y seems high, but I can't argue with success.

Very impressive, any reason you haven't cloned the site for other car makes? Porsche, BMW, Audi...

Yes I am working on it. https://onlyev.com/

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