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?
What problem is this site solving?
Is it that folks can’t find laravel PHP devs through traditional recruiting channels (LinkedIn, indeed, etc) and they desperately need to fill these positions and it’s taking forever?
I think you need to answer that first question very honestly.
Why would they use your site when they can use more established recruiting platforms? What are the chances LinkedIn will have a much better candidate pool vs your site?
You almost have a network effect situation in your hands. Personally, that’s a nightmare for me.
Why do people use Toptal if LinkedIn exists?
This solution reminds me of Toptal but it's focused on Lavarel developers.