How We Grew Our Website Traffic By 120% And Found A Co-Founder [Update]
This is a follow up story for SolarFeeds. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
I am Willie Jiang, the CEO/Co-founder of SolarFeeds.
SolarFeeds.com is a wholesale solar equipment marketplace to help solar contractors save time and compare prices, and find better matches.
Our revenue has been growing around 50% MoM since early this year, but still not significant revenue by our standard.
I wish I found a suitable co-founder before starting SolarFeeds, we could have avoided so many pitfalls and closed sizable sales a long time ago, hence accelerating our growth and fundraising process.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Since we last spoke, our website traffic has reached 110,000 page views per month (around 120% growth from last year), started to add Google AdSense revenue, closed several solar panel deals, and most importantly, found a co-founder.
We’re still laser-focusing on SEO because it fits our buyer persona and buyer’s journey. This year, a big part of our web traffic growth comes from a new feature called Solar Panel by Watt which is a manually curated database of solar product specification sheets.
A unique kind of SEO: Structural SEO
We didn’t publish a lot of content last year, and nor did we build backlinks. Instead, we did “Structural SEO”.
Structural SEO structures an online platform’s a product/service listing pages in a way that its filter-pages rank well on Google for keyword combinations systematically. In the example of Yelp, the keyword combination format would be [city name] + [service].
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
Finding a suitable partner (ideally a co-founder) was my single biggest challenge.
From very early on, I understand that for the B2B marketplace replace/disrupt the existing participants, the founding team needs to have in-depth industry-specific expertise.
I have been looking for someone who: 1 was willing to put in at least a small amount of personal money----the single biggest indicator of commitment; 2, has complementary skill sets(ideally solar supply chain experience); 3, has the same goal to build a unicorn together.
Luckily, I found someone exactly like that. So we agreed to work on a “trial period” to see whether we function well as a team. Thank God, it worked and we just finalized our agreement last month.
How did I find my co-founder?
For me, it’s a trial and error within a relatively safe framework, binding by a contract. In the last 3 years, I have tried to work with 4 potential co-founders before Steven. Things didn’t work out but all of them stay friends with me.
Here are the steps that I wish I knew from the get-go:
- First step: Know what you are looking for. So having solar supply chain sales experience was the NO.1 requirement, along with other attributes.
- Second step: network where they are. I couldn’t attend trade shows amidst the global pandemic. So I used LinkedIn and phone calls extensively.
- Third step: Give it a “test drive”. Come up with something that you guys can work on together. It’s important to conclude whether you two can work well together.
- Fourth step: Get a contract that specifies the rewards for “cash investment” and “sweat equity” respectively.
- Last but not least: Prepare to fail and repeat this for a long time.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
I wish I found an ideal co-founder before starting SolarFeeds. Knowing what I know now, I wish I spent more time and effort on this. If I found a suitable co-founder earlier, we could have avoided so many pitfalls and closed sizable sales a long time ago, hence accelerating our growth and fundraising process.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
My co-founder and I are convinced that we can build SolarFeeds into a unicorn in 5-10 years.
Eventually, we want to become the "Amazon for the solar industry" that offers 1) a SaaS workflow tool that digitizes the procurement process; 2) embeds financial products to both sides, and 3) someday hopefully build distribution centers to fix solar supply chain domestic and cross-border logistics pain points.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
For any marketplace startup founders out there, I think Andrew Chen’s The Cold Start Problem is by far the best book on building network networks.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their businesses?
Running a startup is like running multiple sprints in a marathon.
I can’t think of a better way to reenergize your body, relax, and increase mental health at once than physical exercises. So put some workout time slots on our calendar.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I am hiring a Content Manager to run our SolarFeeds Magazine. I like how Starter Story creates unique content by interviewing experts. I want to do the same in the solar industry too.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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