"Building in private" for 9 months: all the numbers

[clmorgan]

I built in private for 9 months.

Got the following stats I can share (pics for proof in links):

• SEO: 91,000 clicks + 6M impressions
• Got backlinks from 4 Wikipedias:
  • Swedish Wikipedia
  • Ukrainian Wikipedia
  • Azerbaijani Wikipedia
  • Arabic Wikipedia
• Got organic backlinks from websites with DR (Domain Ratings) e.g. DR91, DR86, DR84
• Got to Domain Rating: 44
• Most SEO traffic in a day: 2,997 unique
• 1,141 unique pages created. Most (if not all?) manually created
  • More context on this Reddit post
• 1,553 emails collected
• 4-5 side-product drops, that will/have helped with more promotion
  • Example: A collection of 100+ free contract templates
  • More context on this Reddit post
• Money made: $0 lol
• Money spent: some $50,000 to $100,000, if we're being honest

As of this week, we launched - but I didn't yet send any announcement email. Let's see how all these marketing efforts will pay off.

Context: my brother and I are the 2 co-founders. We're not technical. We pay for technical development, so with all that time on our hands, we tried doing our best when it comes to building distribution/marketing.

 

[vasiliosg]

@clmorgan If you made that whopping sum, I think that's testament to Not build in private then lol.

 

[lovegodhatesin]

@vasiliosg Yah basically.

 

[jjc911]

@clmorgan Looks cool. Good luck!

 

[anon45852]

@clmorgan In public or private ? I saw u said in public in your profile

 

[clmorgan]

@anon45852 It's in public now, as of recent!

But it was "in private" for some time

 

[613jono]

@clmorgan Love the website and branding - not sure how you haven't made money with this yet lol it looks fire

 

[clmorgan]

@613jono We just didn't have any payment link/button/etc up!

 

[derekb]

@clmorgan So are you writing a blog or something? At least put some google adsense on it.

If this is a SaaS (because, you know, r/SaaS subreddit) how many non-paying users do you have? Which core features do they use the most? What are the non-core features that many people are using?

I think you should monetize something in your product, there’s no way you have that much traffic and 0 revenue.

 

[philip33]

@clmorgan Dude, you have a strong SEO game. I wish I could do that haha.

 

[donaldcoomer28]

@clmorgan Can you share your project?

 

[clmorgan]

@donaldcoomer28 Sure it's http://usesignhouse.com/

 

[giftofmine51]

@clmorgan Wow, are you an SEO expert?

BTW, how did you manage to generate as many pages?

 

[clmorgan]

@giftofmine51

Wow, are you an SEO expert?

Wouldn't really call myself that, but out of all things, I like distribution building the most. If there's something I want to max out in terms of skills, as a founder, it's that

BTW, how did you manage to generate as many pages?

Manual work tbh. No AI. Just day in day out creating pages, between myself and my brother (co-founder)

 

[giftofmine51]

@clmorgan Impressive work! I’ll try to do the same with my new blog, but not sure i’m good enough to target the right keyword!

 

[deepwound]

@clmorgan How come you spent that much money after 9 months?