Hi folks, hope you’re having a nice weekend so far 👋🏼
A couple of weeks ago I acquired a site that wasn’t turning over any revenue.
The site is Laradir.com, a directory of software engineers who predominantly use the Laravel PHP framework.
The acquisition was a completely private one - no third parties or platforms involved - and went through very smoothly. I’m very happy with the acquisition and how the process went.
I did the valuation myself on a costs-plus basis after having looked through the code and gotten a base understanding of all the assets. It was very much a “micro” acquisition
I relaunched the site after teasing/hyping on Twitter (~2.5k followers) for just over a week, and managed to get some decent exposure across the Laravel community.
Signups increased by 50% in just 3 days and I started to offer small ad spots for “sponsors” as well as reducing the fee for businesses to use the platform.
The site is now up to ~$200 MRR, which is all from the sponsorships, but no profit yet as I’m ploughing that and more into driving traffic to the site
I haven’t yet made any sales to businesses for the core service despite having made a handful of direct calls to potential customers (folks already in my contacts/network)
For most of these calls, the reason not to proceed falls into one of either: a) we’re not hiring right now, or b) we don’t use these platforms for hiring
I’m really happy with the acquisition and the initial progress, but obviously I’m keen to start proving traction from the business side as soon as possible.
What are my blind spots? What am I missing? What can I do to help convince businesses in/around the Laravel space that there is massive potential value here for them?
As the service is tapping into the “recruitment” sphere, one theory I have is that the winter slowdown and the somewhat uncertain jobs market are preventing teams from committing. Is this valid?
There is no Laravel market space. Just like there is no drill market space. There is a construction industry however. And nobody in it misses the point people do not want a quarter inch drill bit – they want a quarter inch hole.
Nows the time to retort, “Well, golly … I don’t want to limit my market because Laravel could do all sorts of things.” You have already limited your market to zero.
You are far too focused on the whiz-bang technology. Namely you figure you get a fair share of clients just for showing up in a browser. True enough for amateur hour, your fair share in capitalist system is zero.
Features are not benefits. Technology isn’t even a feature. You put out a white paper stating – over 174 projects in 18 industry sectors – Laravel cut development time by 33% and maintenance by 12.7%. Or develop a clue.
I would have thought that nobody gives two shits about the platform was obvious.
The drill is not the right analogy. This is more like hiring skilled labor, like carpenters. “People don’t want carpenters, they want a house” but to get a house the general contractor will look specifically for skilled carpenters.