Month Two of TSF: 140,000 page views, $500 in revenue, and how I screwed up | Hacker News Reader

Month Two of TSF: 140,000 page views, $500 in revenue, and how I screwed up

thestartupfoundry.com

14 pointsg0atbutt11 comments

I cant wait to tell people in about 2 years time when TSF is a household name that ''I was there when these guys only had like 160k pageviews a month and only $500 in revenue''

I don't get this mentality. I heard a lot of this sort of speak when The Social Network came out about how so-and-so was an early adopter as if they somehow made history. I could understand if you submitted your startup or tipped off TSF to help them grow, otherwise you're just another consumer, but with an overinflated ego. I'd like to coin this behavior "Backseat Entrepreneurism".

I read your comment 4 times but i still dont understand its relevance.Bragging about being an early adopter is one of those ''Guy Things'', think ''My gun is bigger then yours''

And yet you can't wait to tell people in two years that you were one of the first 140,000 eyeballs to TSF. It's the same idea is it not?

Glad to see that the pageviews didn't dip after launch.

Question: how did you initially get advertisers? I'm assuming that the $500 ($462 last month) is from your sponsors adhering to something like this:

  monthly fee = pageviews * $X.

Did they pay anything up front, or do you charge at the end of the month? Feel free to not answer if these questions are too prying. [I'm launching a small (side project) content site soon, so I am curious]

Last month I used InfluAds (think along the lines of "The Deck") which paid on a CPM model.

This month I've switched to a flat rate for a 30 day run. I'm selling ads directly (AppSumo and MediaTemple), and through BuySellAds (no one has bought through this, but I think it's because I'm charging more).

If I know the sponsor well, I have no problem charging at the end of the month. If you have any more questions feel free to shout!

Very useful information. Thanks!

> Things I sucked at: > > 1. Article output has dipped: Situations arose in my life when I was unable to publish an article for the day. I should have had several stories in my backpocket that I could fill in the holes.

Lesser people would deal with this by still writing articles that are complete crap. Better not to write the articles when you don't have the time and energy for them, so you could have handled it much worse. :)

@g0atbutt - Speaking to bounce rate, the number 1 thing I see on TSF that discourages longer browsing is that, yes, you're absolutely meeting your ideal of 'more startup coverage', but I personally care less about the history of startups (day to day) than I do about NEW startups.

I'll typically hit TSF once per day, looking for something time-sensitive and, if I see it, reading that. If I don't, I'll bounce off. I usually visit the other articles on the weekend, which is where/when I read TSF the most.

What strikes me as odd though, is that 'coverage' is, I believe, a less time-intensive task than 'interviews', which is where you seem to be spending most of your time. While I value the in-depth articles, it would take less time to review new / launching / just-launched sites that I just happen to want to see more of.

Regardless, TSF is a staple that I recommened to all. I'm a little amazed to see that your revenues didn't increase more, month to month, but that speaks to the necessity of dogged persistence required of startup founders, I suppose.

I'll second this comment, I'd love to see more startups covered. New ones that very many people have not heard of.

I'm working on increasing coverage of new startups while maintaining the amount of interviews I do. I'm going to accomplishing this by streamlining the submission process for startups and getting most of the information I need right from that form. Thanks for your feedback. I always love hearing how people actually use the site!

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