By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09

Because of Truemors, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.”

1. 0. I wrote 0 business plans for it. The plan is simple: Get a site launched in a few months, see if people like it, and sell ads and sponsorships (or not).

2. 0. I pitched 0 venture capitalists to fund it. Life is simple when you can launch a company with a credit-card level debt.

3. 7.5. 7.5 weeks went by from the time I registered the domain truemors.com to the site going live. Life is also good because of open source and Word Press.

4. $4,500. The total software development cost was $4,500. The guys at Electric Pulp did the work. Honestly, I wasn’t a believer in remote teams trying to work together on version 1 of a product, but Electric Pulp changed my mind.

5. $4,824.14. The total cost of the legal fees was $4,824.14. I could have used my uncle the divorce lawyer and saved a few bucks, but that would have been short sighted if Truemors ever becomes worth something. Here’s a breakdown of what I got for this amount of money.

6. $399. I paid LogoWorks $399 to design the logo. Of course, this was before HP bought the company. Not sure what it would charge now. :-)

7. $1,115.05. I spent $1,115.05 registering domains. I could have used GoDaddy and done it a lot cheaper, but I was too stupid and lazy.

8. 55. I registered 55 domains (for example, truemors.net, .de, .biz, truemours, etc, etc). I had no idea that one had to buy so many domains to truly “surround” the one you use. Yes, I could have registered fewer and spent less, but who cares about saving a few hundred bucks compared to the cost of legal action to get a domain away from a squatter if Truemors is successful?

9. $12,107.09. In total, I spent $12,107.09 to launch Truemors. During the dotcom days, entrepreneurs had to raise $5 million to try stupid ideas. Now I’ve proven that you can do it for $12,107.09.

10. 1.5. There are 1.5 full-time equivalent employees at Truemors. For me, it’s a labor of love.

11. 3. TechCrunch wrote about Truemors 3 times: the leak, the leak with a screen shot, and the opening. I wish I could tell you I was so sly as to plan this. Michael Arrington thought he was sticking it to me. Don’t stop, Michael!

12. 261,214. Much to my amazement, there were 261,214 page views on the first day.

13. 14,052. Much to my amazement, there were 14,052 visitors on the first day.

14. $0. I spend $0 on marketing to launch Truemors.

15. 24. However, I did spend 24 years of schmoozing and “paying it forward” to get to the point where I could spend $0 to launch a company. Many bloggers got bent out of shape: “The only reason Truemors is getting so much coverage is that it’s Guy’s site.” To which my response is, “You have a firm grasp of the obvious.”

16. 405. Because some people had nothing better to do, there were 405 posts on the first day.

17. 218. We deleted 218 of the 405 posts because they were junk, spam, inappropriate, or just plain stupid. Interestingly, half the bloggers complained the site was full of junk. The other half complained that I was deleting posts. :-)

18. 3. A mere 3 hours went by before the site was hacked, and we had to shut it down temporarily. I was impressed. The hacker who did this might be the next Woz. Please contact me if you are.

19. 36. A mere 36 hours went by before Yahoo! Small Business told us that we were inappropriate for this service because of our traffic.

20. $29.96. Our monthly break-even point was $29.96 with Yahoo!

21. $150. Because Yahoo! evicted us, our monthly break-even point quintupled to $150. If you’re interested in buying a monthly sponsorship for $151, you’d make Truemors profitable. :-)

22. 2. A mere 2 days went by before Truemors was called the “worst website ever” by the Inquirer.

23. 246,210. Thank you God for the Inquirer because it caused 246,210 page views. Yes indeed, there’s no such thing as bad PR.

24. 150. A week before we launched, if you typed “truemors” into Google, you would have gotten 150 hits.

25. 315,000. Eleven days after the launch, “truemors” had 315,000 hits in Google. I can’t figure out how this can be, but I’m not arguing.

26. 4. I learned four lessons launching Truemors:

    1. There’s really no such thing as bad PR.

    2. $12,000 goes a very long way these days.

    3. You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away.

    4. Life is good for entrepreneurs these days.

---

I recently saw a presentation called Meet Henry and loved it, so I asked its creators, Ethos3 Communications, to help me create a presentation based on these experiences. Here are the slides that go with this speech.

---

As part of the growing world of Truemors, there are two Truemors add-ons to announce:

• Trickler is a standalone application that provides a ticker-tape interface to Truemors.

• AffinityBar is a Truemors toolbar for FireFox and Internet Explorer.

---

Here’s the bottom line: Whether Truemors succeeds or not, I learned a helluva lot. One thing is for sure: no entrepreneur can tell me that he needs $1 million, four programmers, and six months to launch this kind of company. With products like WordPress, MySQL, and Salesforce platform, things are a whole lot cheaper and easier these days.

For not a whole lot of money and time you can get something out there and see if it works. If it does, hallelujah: there’s no better time to raise money than after your prototype is scaling up. Indeed, you may not ever need to raise money. Fyi, there is no worst time to raise money than when you have nothing but an idea. Actually, there is a worst time: When you’ve burned through the first million, and you haven’t shipped or gotten any dogs to eat the food.

I end with a truism (as opposed to truemor): There’s only one way to find out if your idea will succeed, and that’s to try it, so go for it.

---

PS: We’d love to have a few more “truemorists.” These are folks with “accounts” at the Truemors site. Anyone can post via voicemail, text, email, and online submission, but truemorists can create, edit, save, and delete their truemors. Also, their names appear in green to distinguish their posts from those of non-truemorists.

Comments

[Sally, web designer]

Electric Pulm staff is really very good. They provide high quality and professional help. I've contacted them when I couldn' solve some problems with necessary software and they gave a full explanation and found an affordable solution (I mean the prices).

http://www.ecommerce-land.com

[go_free]

anyway, why the comments using nofollow :(

[Forex]

Nice to read. Check out Forex Trading Software

[Jack]

I have over 15 Web-sites I have started over the past two years all under $50. Buy a couple of HTML and PHP books and learn how to build your web-site yourself. You can save so much money. Two years ago I didn't know anything about building web-sites. I went to Borders purchased a couple books and signed up to a couple webcoding forums and here I am. I don't pay for any web coding. The forums were a BIG help. Just ask your questions and people are willing to help you out.

[gowri]

The stock has gained 150% from Oct 8, 2007 to Oct 22, 2007.
By the way check this company MDFI. Their stock is set to increase because of their association with Apple iphone and Complete Care Medical. Find more about this company and stock http://www.growurmoney.com/medefile/

[Vytek]

I questioned whether there still room for a design vision in a business environment. Very important to think about it.

[GOWRI]

The stock has gained 150% from Oct 8, 2007 to Oct 22, 2007.
By the way check this company MDFI. Their stock is set to increase because of their association with Apple iphone and Complete Care Medical. Find more about this company and stock http://www.growurmoney.com/medefile/

[Albert]

That is why when I read about all this web company's taking in tons of venture money, somtimes I am confused as to why they need all that money.

[Viktor]

It would seem to me that Web 2.0 is all about hype - getting cheap eyeballs and selling them!

[Articles]

I LOVED this post. It is timely for me as in Feb. I started working on a similar project....we utilize a european programer, have only paid him about $100, and have had about 25,000 hits since mid march.

It hasn't made anyone rich yet, but it also hasn't made any of us broke!

Articles Submission Directory

[Commodity online forex trading]

very imformative post!
By the way, take a look for this commodity online forex resource website... I learned there a lot! Its how to become successful forex trader:

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[Steven]

Company Formation UK - http://www.accounting-on-line.com

[Sally, design guru]

405 post for a first day - that's great. Really, a lot of people in our country have nothing to do :)

http://www.designers-city.com

[GREGG]

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[ogaden]

Thank you for your insight, it was worth reading!

I wouldn't have to pay the cost of the logo since i am a designer and a proficent user of fireworks! ;)

Thanks again.

[ron teulon]

Its often amazing the amount of funds that can be spent on these projects
The efforts seem to run away with the organizations and committees which can be more than self serving
Its as if they would eat their young

[gowri]

By the way check this company MDFI. Their stock is set to increase because of their association with Apple iphone and Complete Care Medical. Find more about this company and stock http://www.growurmoney.com/medefile/

[gowri]

By the way check this company MDFI. Their stock is set to increase because of their association with Apple iphone and Complete Care Medical. Find more about this company and stock http://www.growurmoney.com/medefile/

[gowri]

By the way check this company MDFI. Their stock is set to increase because of their association with Apple iphone and Complete Care Medical. Find more about this company and stock http://www.growurmoney.com/medefile/

[seriously funny videos]

What a great business concept. Very nicely done. Cheers!

[love-Planets]

The Regard, good site.
Beside me request unless it is difficult, vote for me on put love-planet.ru my questionnaire already on 2 places in erotic rating TOP-100.
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[majid]

Please tell me how much should I charge for:
1-a Business plan (executive summary)
2-a general CPM (action plan) for starting up and one year running of a representative co in another country (containing nearly 200 tasks)
3-expences forecast for that (1 year)
4-sales & cashflow forecast (1 year)
Thanks

[latinspace.com]

Guy,

Great story. Too funny to read the bashing about how others could do it for so much less. I wonder if they are able to find 350,000 hits by spending less. I am building a social network for the Latino market bootstrapping all the way! Love to see you again. I buy your books and give them to new clients and prospects everyday.

www.latinspace.com

Our site launch is less than 81 days out. It should be a fantastic ride...

**************

My best wishes to you. Don't let the bozos grind you down!

Guy

[kalpesh]

It is quite intriguing that you spend a fortune for online launch. Though it has paid off you better keep costs under control, web sucks money faster than you can breathe.

[elushka2]

Hi Guy, question, why did you not patent the idea behind Truemors? I love the site by the way.

[Carson Danfield]

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[James Brown]

Does the $120M from Spinvox investors count in the $12K?

You should share all the facts.

[Yadira]

I really like your post, you show how to do some thinks great and how to improve another, this learning process done by you can help to other to make things better and easiest.
Thanks for taking your time to explain it to all of us.

[B Kurlek]

It all goes to show you the power of technology as compared to the old norms.
Blogs have democratized the web to a great degree as have other more recent forms of technology.
A blog means that most people can now have a webpage. No hosting arrangements . No ftp etc etc. People in the third world with some internet access can now publish worldwide their point of view.
Rather amazing when you consider it was not long ago that the berlin wall was a dividing zone.
To put it into perspective one little ad in a small country newspaper costs more than a year of moderate premium hosting for most with 24/7 tech support and advanced features.
www.bayareaword.com

[boo]

sososo! How does one create this type of site or a religious site like i am creating for my MSc in the UK, i am really interested. please help because i am also a believer bot h in you and my faith.

Thank you

boo!

[Jakob]

Hi Guy,

Your site is now about a month old. Could you let us know a little about your traffic during this period?

[Adam]

My god, how ignorant are people on the internet, $12,000 bloody hell you have 0 business sense.

[jones]

Guy took a lot of heat on this one, but you have to give him credit for taking it like a man. Many bloggers (Presentation Zen, for example, or Tim Ferris) in his situation would have deleted the posts that they considered 'abusive' or even mildly critical.

I commend Guy Kawasaki for showing us what it means to be a man!

[Traderhut]

Hi,
I've created a site (http://www.traderhut.com) , and have product to sell (some of it unique, that you can't get ANYWHERE else, such as a Wordfare! game) - but the thing that I've not figured out is how to get 26,000 hits "the first day" It seems to me that mostly you got lucky / were well known and as such, sure, it cost *you* $12K to start the site, but for a 'normal' unknown person such as myself, I'd spend that $12K on advertising and still not be able to drive 26,000 people per *month* to the site.

Do you have any suggestions for generating traffic to a site?

-Thanks,

-Chert
---
http://www.traderhut.com
All sorts of cool things...

[Denis]

Hello Guy,

Great story. I am on a mission. I want to start my own startup on a 1000 bucks budget...

Here's my story: http://quebecvalley.com/2007/06/20/the-1000-challenge/

Wish me good luck :)

[Dan Lester]

In saying "there's no such thing as bad PR" you really are falling for venture capitalist style hype over stats and figures.

Just because you get a quarter of a million hits, you consider the inquirer article to be "good". Talk about good/bad traffic - these armies of visitors are being directed to your sight precisely just to laugh at it. Waste of your bandwidth!

Of course, it generates hype for genuine users, and some readers of the article will be sympathetic, etc. But I think your assessment that it was "not bad PR" was a bit premature as soon as your hits went up.

[Wayne]

yah, i was thinking about CSC.
at least you have prepare $12k to burn for a year though (not including SMS traffic)

[Nikolaj de Fine Licht]

truemors.com looks horrible in Firefox/Mac. I'm not impressed. May be a good idea effectively brought to the market, but does it make a difference? No, not at all. First time you disappointed me, Guy!

[Shankar]

Guy, as you mentioned in another post of yours, each company needs to associate itself with one value/service. That is not coming out clearly in this case. Assuming you want to run it for a few years, it will evolve with the type of people who like to use it most - a core Web 2.0 feature - something Digg learnt the hard way recently. How you will let it evolve is upto you.

[Wayne]

Guy, could you say some more details how the coder hacked your site?

[Mike G]

Great post. Now I'd challenge you to us Micro-preneurs (did I just invent a buzzword?) how to generate buzz and traffic for free if we're not Guy Kawasaki!

[www.JerryWFranklin.com]

Hi, Guy:

Is there any food left? Sorry I'm late to the party.

Great stuff! Launching a site is "all of the above." Your concept is great!

All the best! Jerry
PS: I love leftovers....go any?

www.JerryWFranklin.com
www.BlueSkyBrothers.com

[Christie]

Love it!

Cheers-

Christie

[Daryl Chia]

Good infor there, I like the details of your site, pretty much explains your steps in creating your own site

hows your earnings so far?

Regards,
Daryl
Free Gifts
http://www.jobscreation.com/optin3/TAF-Step1_3.html

[Susan carter]

this was quite funny, believe you spent way to much, have a look at a real web 2.0 applicaton

http://www.sogrimey.com

if you need designs in the future we will be more then happy to take your money

[Wallace]

it is not worth to pay $399 for the logo i think.

[Marc]

I think you just discovered what many of us independednt webmasters have known for years.
Quietly making a nice chunk of change out of the limelight. I think you still spent way too much though.

[Rafael Imas]

There's no doubt that you could launch a web 2.0 company and maybe even make a lot of money, but you can't believe you'd get any innovation from this ammount of effort.
Not far in the future we'll be able to build this kind of websites with one click and $9.99, but the next google won't be comming out of this.

[zakky]

Thank you for this post Guy. Makes me wanna just go out there and try stuff out.

Thank you so much.

[Jeff the Great]

I LOVED this post. It is timely for me as in Feb. I started working on a similar project....we utilize a european programer, have only paid him about $100, and have had about 25,000 hits since mid march.

It hasn't made anyone rich yet, but it also hasn't made any of us broke!

[Steven C.]

LOL
That was a hilarious read.

Quite inspirational as well. Perhaps I should just clear my weekend and stop making excuses :)

[tehnyit]

I wonder if you got the services of ElectricPulp and Logoworks cheaper because of the PR that this project would generate for them? Those figures that you mentioned seems quite cheap.

[scoocher]

Guy - I admire your verve and as for your basic post: I am not impressed.

I think the site is below par (I'm not a tech-industry guy - have no scores to settle or ego's to boost). And it's not apparent from your post that any real money will be made or, more accurately, that you have created a sustainable business model(I may be,heretical, may be proved wrong).

The reason for my comment is the broad and sacred space given lately to 'bootstrapping' in entrepreneurial lit. and especially in the developer world. Much of the buzz seems to be constructed around a false dichotomy, i.e., you either bootstrap your way to success (with the moral righteousness of being frugal) or you mindlessly blow a bunch of investor money. My view is that BOTH options are concurrently available: be intelligently scrimpy and wise about where every dollar is going AND at the same time invest heartily in a great idea that has been properly vetted and staffed with world-class talent (even if outsourced). What you did was cool, but I propose that you could have exponentially multiplied the posted numbers by investing more $$ in a few carefully selected areas (e.g. site design,"good" PR, etc.).

The story could have been better. Just because it was cheaply implemented doesn't mean it's high-value. I guess your emphasizing how much closer so many aspiring entrepreneurs are than they think to getting a product out there (specifically in the web 2.0 world).

My take is that it's just as risky, if not moreso, to UNDER-INVEST in your idea than it is to overinvest....

Would love to hear other views....

[iTodo team]

Guy, could you describe, how the coder hacked your site?