Truemors: How Guy Kawasaki built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09

by Lid Print Print

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(Photo Credit: Karagos)

Guy Kawasaki talks lessons learned, and numbers involved in creating Truemors last night at PARC.

The Numbers 

0 - Number of business plan drafts

0 – Number of pitches made to venture capitalists

7.5 – Number of weeks from registering truemors.com to launching it

4,500 – Cost of software development by Electric Pulp

4,824.13 – Cost of legal fees to set up new company

399 – Cost of logo from LogoWorks

1115.05 – Cost of domain registration

55 – Total number of domains registered to “surround” truemors.com at Network Solutions

1.5 – number of full time employees

3 – Number of times Tech Crunch wrote about Truemors

261,214 – Number of page views first day

14,052 – Number of visitors on first day

0 – marketing budget

24 – Number of years spent to make $0 marketing budget possible

405 – Number of truemors posted on first day

218 – Number of truemors deleted as junk, spam, or inappropriate on first day

3 – Number of hours before the site was hacked

36 – Number of hours before Yahoo recommended that we do not use their hosting service

29.95 – Monthly Yahoo fee

150 – Monthly break even after switching from Yahoo

2 – Number of days before Truemors was labeled the “ Worst Website Ever”

246,210 – Number of page views on the day Truemors was labeled the “Worst Website Ever”

150 – Number of Google hits the week before launch

350,000 – Number of Google hits after 11 days

The Lessons:

  • The blogosphere is full of angry people
  • $12K goes a long way these days
  • You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away
  • Life is good for entrepreneurs these days

Questions?  Ask in the comments

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2 comments:

  1. Mark, 24 December 2007 2:25

    Boy does this give me hope! 2008 could be a very good year.

     
  2. Lid, 24 December 2007 11:19

    It does, doesn’t it?

    That was the whole point of his talk - anyone can build something nowadays, the technology is there - you just have to keep going with it and not give up.

    You know, I loved his $0 marketing budget - everyone was going “Yeah, well it IS Guy Kawasaki” - and he then spits out the number 24 - That’s how many years he’s had to “suck up” to get to the 0 marketing cost…he’s actually quite funny. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak - do it, it is really motivational.

    Also, just an interesting point - Guy replies to e-mails; which is pretty cool for someone who is working on his business, playing ice hockey and trying to hang out with his family at the same time - not all bloggers do this, so it’s a nice thing

     

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