IHers who have made it past $1mil accumulated revenue - what's your story?
I love the IHer community. No doubt it has been a major driving force to help me succeed and get to where I am today.
I know for a fact there are quite a few members who, like myself, have been part of this community for several years and who have been rather succesfull.
I would love to hear from those who were able to get past that magic $1mil in total accumulated revenue (purposely not going for an MRR metric to allow for non-saas businesses).
Some questions to answer, as a source of inspiration for others:
- How many years of hacking did it take to get to that first $1mil?
- How old were you when you reached it?
- Was it from a single business? Or multiple?
- If multiple, how many businesses did it take to get to that first $1mil?
- How has your life changed since, if it all?
And feel free sharing whatever else you think might be off interest. I'll share my own experience in the first comment.
@joehhoward Thanks for sharing! Love your WP Buffs business btw. Coming from a Wordpress background myself, I can totally see this work (as we all know, maintaining a WP site is often the stuff straight out of nightmares). Driftly looks promising as well! As I mentioned below, I don't own Pagestead anymore, but if the opportunity presents itself in a future project, I'll definitely give it a try!
Guess you beat me to that first comment lol. I hit the "post" button and then got distracted and completely forget about it... Anyhow, unfortunately the post didn't get the steam I hoped it would. Would have been nice to see some more stories about reaching that first $1mil...
Here I go:
For me took a few years more and a number of businesses to get to that point. I started out, way back when, selling digital products on Themeforest and CodeCanyon. Initially it was mainly website templates/designs and Wordpress templates.
I then started selling PHP scripts alongside of the other stuff. Scripts that would make database management easier, a self-hosted form submit API, etc. My first "big" hit was a simple website builder (which I'd license out to other HTML template authors on Themeforest who would bundle it with their HTML templates, allowing their customers to easily customize their template).
That website builder took on a life of its own and became a separate business: Pagestead. The first $1mil of accumulated revenue came while running Pagestead. At that point, I'd sold well over $500.000 of digital products on Envato's websites and did over $500.000 in revenue with Pagestead (which I have since sold). I reckon I was around 36 at the time.
I guess the above is a typical example of Rob Walling's "stair stepping" approach. It took me a bunch of businesses (I also did contracting work during these years) and products to get to that first $1mil.
But it allowed to me continuously morph into something bigger and better. After selling Pagestead, I started a marketing software company that ended up growing to millions of $ in revenue within roughly 24 months (the whole Covid thing was a blessing for us).
Sold that business last year and now looking for the next challenge.
Obviously reaching that $1mil in revenue does not really chance anything, but it's wonderful to have that financial security allowing to dive into the next project without having that pressure of needing revenue as soon as humanly possible.
Thanks for sharing, Matt! Cool story.
I don't want to think about how much you paid them in fees for these sales!
Yeah, I think this approach is very common. I'd even split it into 2 categories for folks who make it to $1M in revenue...
No right way to do it, but I'd still consider my success in the stair-stepper category b/c I'd already climbed a few stairs before WP Buffs. Just didn't have much to show for it haha.
Nice! I still own WP Buffs but have stepped outside of day-to-day operations. My old COO is now CEO and runs the company. I might consider selling it in the future but it's still growing and continuing to mature so there didn't seem like a need to right now.
I'm on to my 2 new challenges as well: Driftly and Paternal!
Where would you say are good early stair-steps now? Substack newsletters and Shopify plug-ins maybe? Roblox assets?
I couldn't comment on what in general is a good stair-stepper project. I think these will be different for everyone.
What's most important is it's something you learn from. Anybody who's been successful at something has past learning (often from failure) to thank.
So work on interesting challenges for a while and eventually you'll figure out a business that works. The failures are just results of putting in enough efforts and perseverance.
Okay! I'll keep studying and learning and persevering into my 90s and beyond!
LFG!
Lol, neither do I. Fortunately, as you rose through the ranks at Envato, the more you generated in revenu, the smaller the percentage of earnings you'd had to fork over to Envato. But it was still a sore point, especially in the early days. Then again, they'd pretty much handle all the marketing and allow us to just code and sell (back then, won't work anymore now).
Very true. I think most of us go through multiple projects. The only difference is that for some success comes gradually with each new project, and for other it comes at once with a big hit. Either way, we all go through the same steps (most of us anyway) to reach a certain level of success.
Sounds like you're in a pretty sweet spot! Best of luck with both Driftly and Paternal. Looking forward to seeing some updates in the near future :)
Onward and upward! 🚀
Love this post, Matt! Excited to read what other write here as well.
~4 years to hit $1M in total revenue generated. 5 to hit $1M ARR and $100,000 MRR.
Just from WP Buffs but plenty of smaller failed businesses, projects and ideas came before.
NA, but 4-5 failures (at least) before getting this one right!
I come from a very privileged background so while building a successful business wasn't easy, it is easy to work hard and take risks when you have an advanced starting position. I definitely have fewer financial worries now. Have been able to take time off for bigger trips and most importantly lots of time off when my son was born. (he's 2+ now).
Now starting over with Driftly (let me know if you want to chat about it for Pagestead!) after 6 months off from indie hacking.
First! 😛