Starter Story Sunday Breakfast #9

Updated: September 6th, 2022

This is an archive of the Starter Story newsletter, which is read by 207K people every week.

In each issue, we share the biggest business ideas that are working today, along with case studies of founders who are making millions every month. Sign up today ➜


Sponsored by Semrush

How this website went from side project to 5M visits and $200K/year

They took these 3 key steps:

#1. Used Semrush Backlink Audit to remove links from spammy websites. 

#2. Targeted relevant low-competition keywords; to quickly grow traffic and build site authority.

#3. Achieved a 2.5X increase in page views using Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant.

>> Try these Semrush tools FREE for 14 days and start growing your website.



1. The orange juice 🍊

These 3 friends turned a fun side project into a $120K/year solution

Why I love this story:

(a) Spotted how the owner of the facility where he trained kept complaining about how much work it was to manage it.

(b) Lean approach. Showed a mockup and gathered feedback before building the whole thing.

(c) Not afraid of cold calling. Besides being tech people, they each call 30+ people per day.

--

2. The coffee  ☕️

This guy grew his income to $70K/month after acquiring a couple of websites

With two travel deals websites that at some point were generating $140K/month but were hit hard by COVID, this founder decided to build a portfolio of websites that made money with ads.

Not every entrepreneur has to start from scratch. In the past, we’ve talked about the benefits of buying a business instead of starting it.

And despite what you may think, is not necessarily as expensive as it may seem.

Why you should read this? The guy provides incredible insights on where to buy a business and what to look for to avoid getting scammed or ending up disappointed.

--

3. The eggs 🍳

This gifts business doubled revenue in one year and reached $200K/month

It’s exciting to see how a business that started 5 years ago in a dining room using a Windows ‘95 engraving machine is now a multi-million dollar company.

The craziest thing is that they hadn’t posted a single pic on Instagram until a year ago.

How did they grow so much? Finding early success on Google Ads kinda made them neglect other channels. Now they’ve different dedicated websites, presence on marketplaces, etc. And they still have so much unlocked potential to keep growing!

--

4. The toast 🥪

This very specific online tool gets 250K visits per month

After a life of working on side projects, this one it’s going so well that it made the founder leave his full-time job despite not generating enough money to make a living.

I love these niche online tools that do one thing only and they focus on growing them using also one channel only. Focus always wins.

The best thing about this story? With a history of a seemingly never-ending stream of half-finished projects (Sounds familiar?). This guy decided that in order to succeed, he needed to pick something and stick with it. To do so, wrote down criteria and evaluated all the ideas based on them.

--

5. The pancakes 🥞

This former professional ballet dancer makes $25K/month creating TikToks for DTC brands

He started ignited by a passion for photography, but after speaking to lots of businesses desperately trying to sell a photo shoot, he understood what were the business owners' content creation problems.

This guy literally emailed thousands of businesses before landing a customer. He would pick a street on Google Maps and email every business there.

What can you learn from him? The power of perseverance. How someone with zero experience in the business / corporate world has been able to pursue his passion and hustle until he’s able to make a living with it.

--

Thanks for reading!

meet the author
David Bustos

Hey there! 👋 I'm David, and if you ever got an email from Starter Story, I probably wrote it. With a background in working with startups and writing, being part of this team is kind of a perfect fit for me.