Success story of a startup MyBlogLog, or $ 10 million for three
Success story startup MyBlogLog
MyBlogLog was originally launched in March 2005 as a blog analysis service, but became popular by creating an online blogging community.
MyBlogLog has provided bloggers with the opportunity to contact readers, on a more personal level, creating reader profiles and combining them with social networking features.
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On February 16, 2007, MyBlogLog had 70 thousand registered blogs. Approximately 14,000 blogs used the popular “Reader Roll” widget. In January 2007, Yahoo! acquired this young company for about $ 10 million
The company developed without attracting third-party investments, eventually making three of its founders rich.
Interview given by: Scott Rafer (Scott Rafer), CEO of MyBlogLog.
Key success factors
Popularity of the “Reader Log” widget
The popularity of the widget showing the mini-profiles of the most recent readers, has become the main factor predetermined the success of MyBlogLog. The widget was used as free advertising, providing zero costs for attracting users. By mid-February 2007, MyBlogLog served more than 2.5 million readers per day, for 14 thousand sites.
Fred Wilson (Fred Wilson) wrote a post in which he calculated the cost of this widget in the amount of $ 300 thousand per month as a means of advertising (starting from CPM at $ 10 and 1 million hits per day). Even with calculations of $ 1 CPM and 2.5 million hits per day, this is equivalent to $ 75 thousand of advertising investments (per month).
It is also important that the widget skillfully and skillfully seduced both bloggers and readers to register on the service. Widget appealed to people on an emotional level. Very good move, use human faces to attract user attention.
Clearly shared responsibility between the three founders.
Scott (CEO MyBlogLog) considers a big part of the success of MyBlogLog team work methods. Each member of the triumvirate had responsibility and full authority over his own region.
Eric Marcoullier was in charge of the product, technology for Todd Sampson, and Scott for all business decisions.
Interestingly enough, Scott did not at first consider that the “Rea der Roll” widget, as an idea expressed by co-founder Eric, would be key to the company's success.
For Erik, control over product decisions was given, so Scott did not stand in his way. This does not mean that the team did not cooperate in making decisions in each area of ​​responsibility, but giving all the powers over their area brought huge
dividends for MyBlogRoll.
In another success story (UserPlane), CEO Mike Jones (Mike Jones) also paid tribute to the division of the company's tasks into three parts (technology, product, marketing).
Identify the problem.
MyBlogLog was founded in January 2005 to help bloggers get to know their readers better. Initially, the product began as a means of helping bloggers to make it clear from what links the readers leave their sites. Scott entered the company later, in March 2006, bringing a simple idea that bloggers would rather know their readers in a social context than in aggregated analytics of user visits.
Scott made a suggestion - just show bloggers and readers in retrospective order. Later, several readers suggested the idea to clothe the list in a widget, then Eric realized that this was a great idea.
If you really understand the problem to be solved, what the added value is, listen carefully to the feedback from users, and are not too tied to the original Vision of the product, then you have much greater chances to succeed.
MyBlogLog team accurately identified the problem, and through several iterations found the right solution.
Startup strategy and marketing.
The key to the success of MyBlogLog when launching its network service is that their analytical service was installed by thousands of bloggers. MyBlogLog was founded in January 2005 and launched an analytical service for blogs in March 2005. Therefore, when they launched the beta-version of social service in July 2006, they had 14 thousand registered bloggers, who were asked to create a profile.
MyBlogLog has gained support from influential tech bloggers such as Brad Feld and Fred Wilson.
Analytics exit.
Yahoo acquired MyBlogLog for about $ 10–12 million in January 2007. There was a big discussion on Don Dodge's blog about pricing for MyBlogLog. Although Don’s book analyst looks good, what really moved the price up was a bear market.
The team had offers from venture investors offering high ratings for the company, but chose Yahoo because it offered more.
According to Scott (CEO MyBlogLog), several factors led to the purchase of Yahoo. First, they liked the product, simply and clearly. Because it has an emotional burden to attract people. More rational reasons for the purchase are how this acquisition could have contributed to Yahoo's two big initiatives - with respect to off-network distribution and social services.
A key part of Yahoo’s monetization strategy is to build behavioral targeting options for advertising.
MyBlogLog profiles, as well as many cookies (100+ million at the moment) can add revenue to the Yahoo advertising engine at the expense of increasing the CTR.
When asked why the company chose to sell, rather than receive investment from VC, Scott replied: "strike while the iron is hot." The founders invested in MyBlogLog about $ 200 thousand in the form of hours spent on coding, Scott also added $ 24 thousand to cover the cost of hosting, when traffic began to grow.
The 50th return on investment in two years is hard to argue with. Without loss of control, without hesitation about possible buyers.
MyBlogLog was originally launched in March 2005 as a blog analysis service, but became popular by creating an online blogging community.
MyBlogLog has provided bloggers with the opportunity to contact readers, on a more personal level, creating reader profiles and combining them with social networking features.
')
On February 16, 2007, MyBlogLog had 70 thousand registered blogs. Approximately 14,000 blogs used the popular “Reader Roll” widget. In January 2007, Yahoo! acquired this young company for about $ 10 million
The company developed without attracting third-party investments, eventually making three of its founders rich.
Interview given by: Scott Rafer (Scott Rafer), CEO of MyBlogLog.
Key success factors
Popularity of the “Reader Log” widget
The popularity of the widget showing the mini-profiles of the most recent readers, has become the main factor predetermined the success of MyBlogLog. The widget was used as free advertising, providing zero costs for attracting users. By mid-February 2007, MyBlogLog served more than 2.5 million readers per day, for 14 thousand sites.
Fred Wilson (Fred Wilson) wrote a post in which he calculated the cost of this widget in the amount of $ 300 thousand per month as a means of advertising (starting from CPM at $ 10 and 1 million hits per day). Even with calculations of $ 1 CPM and 2.5 million hits per day, this is equivalent to $ 75 thousand of advertising investments (per month).
It is also important that the widget skillfully and skillfully seduced both bloggers and readers to register on the service. Widget appealed to people on an emotional level. Very good move, use human faces to attract user attention.
Clearly shared responsibility between the three founders.
Scott (CEO MyBlogLog) considers a big part of the success of MyBlogLog team work methods. Each member of the triumvirate had responsibility and full authority over his own region.
Eric Marcoullier was in charge of the product, technology for Todd Sampson, and Scott for all business decisions.
Interestingly enough, Scott did not at first consider that the “Rea der Roll” widget, as an idea expressed by co-founder Eric, would be key to the company's success.
For Erik, control over product decisions was given, so Scott did not stand in his way. This does not mean that the team did not cooperate in making decisions in each area of ​​responsibility, but giving all the powers over their area brought huge
dividends for MyBlogRoll.
In another success story (UserPlane), CEO Mike Jones (Mike Jones) also paid tribute to the division of the company's tasks into three parts (technology, product, marketing).
Identify the problem.
MyBlogLog was founded in January 2005 to help bloggers get to know their readers better. Initially, the product began as a means of helping bloggers to make it clear from what links the readers leave their sites. Scott entered the company later, in March 2006, bringing a simple idea that bloggers would rather know their readers in a social context than in aggregated analytics of user visits.
Scott made a suggestion - just show bloggers and readers in retrospective order. Later, several readers suggested the idea to clothe the list in a widget, then Eric realized that this was a great idea.
If you really understand the problem to be solved, what the added value is, listen carefully to the feedback from users, and are not too tied to the original Vision of the product, then you have much greater chances to succeed.
MyBlogLog team accurately identified the problem, and through several iterations found the right solution.
Startup strategy and marketing.
The key to the success of MyBlogLog when launching its network service is that their analytical service was installed by thousands of bloggers. MyBlogLog was founded in January 2005 and launched an analytical service for blogs in March 2005. Therefore, when they launched the beta-version of social service in July 2006, they had 14 thousand registered bloggers, who were asked to create a profile.
MyBlogLog has gained support from influential tech bloggers such as Brad Feld and Fred Wilson.
Analytics exit.
Yahoo acquired MyBlogLog for about $ 10–12 million in January 2007. There was a big discussion on Don Dodge's blog about pricing for MyBlogLog. Although Don’s book analyst looks good, what really moved the price up was a bear market.
The team had offers from venture investors offering high ratings for the company, but chose Yahoo because it offered more.
According to Scott (CEO MyBlogLog), several factors led to the purchase of Yahoo. First, they liked the product, simply and clearly. Because it has an emotional burden to attract people. More rational reasons for the purchase are how this acquisition could have contributed to Yahoo's two big initiatives - with respect to off-network distribution and social services.
A key part of Yahoo’s monetization strategy is to build behavioral targeting options for advertising.
MyBlogLog profiles, as well as many cookies (100+ million at the moment) can add revenue to the Yahoo advertising engine at the expense of increasing the CTR.
When asked why the company chose to sell, rather than receive investment from VC, Scott replied: "strike while the iron is hot." The founders invested in MyBlogLog about $ 200 thousand in the form of hours spent on coding, Scott also added $ 24 thousand to cover the cost of hosting, when traffic began to grow.
The 50th return on investment in two years is hard to argue with. Without loss of control, without hesitation about possible buyers.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30915/
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