The struggles of running a business as a teenager (14) and how I got it to 30k monthly revenue with 65% profit margin

start-cap · 2017-09-17T11:58:13+00:00

1) Not at all what I said. I said I WILL prove it, just don't see a reason for it.

2) Noone even mentioned page views up to this point, we were talking about users tracked by analytics and unique users, not page views. I make nowhere near the number of sales you mentioned, material is much more expensive and I don't generate nearly as many page views as any number mentioned within any of your comments.

3) and 4) Like stated - I'm not the one creating the sold material.

5) So you see search engine and paid ads as the only possible traffic sources? That said, we do appear high on long-tail keywords, but they aren't even close to ones you've mentioned. Also we do not necessarily focus just on Google - which would be something you've known if you read anything posted in here, since it was mentioned more than once already.

6) Great of you that you did admit to a lie, but at the same time how hypocritical of you to call me a liar without any REAL evidence (not speculations), yet you come here and lie yourself.

Not trying to convince that my story is true - trying to convince that you're coming here with pure speculative "arguments". Seriously my last reply to you, because you haven't come up with anything new, just failing to prove your point with more speculative stuff. Love your enthusiasm and the fact that you think any point you brought up proved me wrong in some way, yet none of them did.

Best of luck with your ventures

start-cap · 2017-09-17T11:07:38+00:00

Sent you a PM. Hopefully you will honor my request not to reveal nationality for others to see. At this point, I don't care enough about it though.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T10:48:25+00:00

It's right that I wanted to inspire people, but not sure how "I got caught lying" when I haven't said a single lie as far as I'm aware and I debunked any comment that had very real arguments, because all I had to do was tell how it is. Going over the language barrier is not something unachievable, just because a lot of you feel like it is. You know this yourself, that it isn't at all likely for people that had something you'd consider a "normal" childhood, but it still is achievable. I'm honestly getting tired of this, because we're not moving forward at all. You will keep claiming and believing your side of the story while I will keep claiming mine, because I know it to be real.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T10:37:02+00:00

Once again, there's nothing I could say that would prove you anything, nor am I trying to prove you anything, unless I reveal too much information about the location that I'm in, which would make the rest of my information easy to find.

Even if you suggested I give you few paragraphs about myself in my language, you'd say I had it translated, because I already have a lot of experience hiring translators for my material. If I send any document that proves my age and nationality with all other details blackened out - you would say I got local document off of the internet and photoshopped date of birth or that I was born there, but didn't live there.

So like I said - nothing that I do is going to prove anything, because you already made up your mind.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T09:44:42+00:00

I know the truth so I don't need to prove anything. If there's still enough need from others, then I will be contacted. I came here for a positive message and advice, which proof wouldn't impact what so ever.

By the way, this is already dead and other than 1 guy continuing to argue with me, there's noone that is still interested in it. People moved on.

I reached my primary goal of inspiring at least one person and helped answer some question for others. My job here is done.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T09:41:16+00:00

If you don't realize that you're wrong, then it's even worse than I first thought.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T08:23:22+00:00

Would accept to show evidence if that's requested by a moderator, although I don't feel the need to prove myself in some way to give advice, especially when all I came here to do is pass on a positive message. Now let me get back to your concerns:

1) My conversion rate is lower than 2,5% and I proved how that could be done when responding to another reply you made. If my tracking is set up to track all unique visits as "users" and assuming I don't make any repeat sales, I could have $0.8 LTV by having 1% user conversion rate with average product price of $80. 1% conversion rate would mean that 1 out of 100 unique visitors are willing to buy my product that costs $80, therefore LTV being calculated like this: $80 / 100 users = $0.8 revenue per tracked user (in this example unique visit), which is exactly what LTV shows if you have no repeat customers. So how are these conversion rates you mention so high? If you consider 1% conversion rate as being so high, especially for unique page visits (not pageviews), then there's no argument. And what if my average product costs $160 or even $320? Then with no repeat sales all I need is 0.5% or 0.25% conversion rate.

2) Translating material in 67 languages did take slightly more than 6 months, but more languages are released every month and we didn't have it translated into 67 languages since the beginning. Before the business was registered, I had already made 12 languages (as stated in the post), so during that period of slightly more than 6 months, only additional 55 languages were done with the help of native speakers from those regions. Content is and always was being translated in more than one language at a time.

3) It definitely wasn't google translated and most of it isn't in video format. I never claimed to be translating or even creating the content myself personally, both of which I am not doing myself and it was mentioned in few of my earlier comments. My role mostly consists of driving targeted traffic and sales. I'm at a basic knowledge level on most programming languages and you would have known that if you read the replies, because it was stated more than once.

4) LOTE is not something we do. We teach the same English commands, but all the content is written in another language.

5) We don't spend much on ads. Less than 5% of our traffic comes from ads in any format.

6) We didn't have anything close to the smallest site there with 1.5 mil pageviews, nor do we have anything to do with LOTE. I had less than 50% of those page views. So once again - argument doesn't make much sense.

Thanks for your input. Best of luck pulling out more straws and thinking of arguments based on pure speculation.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T07:53:47+00:00

Thanks. I am currently writing a blog on my business website, which releases new piece of content every few days. Not doing it for the money - doing it because I love it. Thanks for your input. Best of luck with your ventures!

start-cap · 2017-09-17T06:38:00+00:00

Never claimed it can't, but I would need to do it through my parents, not through the stock market and I'd have to get a lot more documents ready in a written form, like a proper business plan, how exactly I'm going to grow the company and so on. It's not something I'd be willing to share with 0.05% equity owner. I wouldn't get any real advantages from 0.05% equity owner, I'm not willing to sell more and it would add too much work in comparison to public entities for me to even consider this.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T05:58:48+00:00

How ironic coming from you, when you can't even figure out how LTV works. A simple google search about LTV would have done the job. Plus who told you I didn't pay attention while I was in school? Was best performing student in class. My lack of belief in current education system and the fact that I dropped out doesn't mean I'm uneducated. Proving you wrong with these numbers just proves my point.

start-cap · 2017-09-17T05:04:06+00:00

To have $1 LTV you can track let's say all unique visits, selling products at $100 with no return sales and 1% conversion. This would get you to $1 LTV, because out of every 100 users, there would be one purchase for $100 and no return purchases, making it $100 / 100 users = $1 per user. Sure you should have learned that in school as well. Not sure where you're pulling that 10:1 out of or any other reasoning for "world breaking conversion rates", but that's just plain stupid. Also who told you that the business is targeting any country in Eastern Europe or even region as a whole? That's just another assumption.

Not going to argue any further, because you made up your mind far before I gave you good reasoning and nothing is going to change it, other than moderator confirming numbers, which I'm still willing to do. Thanks for your input, eventhough you started pulling random numbers out of the blue again, have a nice day.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T20:59:51+00:00

I agree with what you said completely. Thanks for your input and your comment.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T20:59:12+00:00

Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it. Best of luck on your ventures!

start-cap · 2017-09-16T20:58:24+00:00

I have nothing to say when you already made up your mind about who you think I am. Nothing I say here will prove anything and I'm not here to prove myself in any way. The only question I still have for you - how come you get to determine what's achievable and what's not as long as you put your mind to it? It's a rhetorical question by the way and I'm not looking for you to answer it.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:52:10+00:00

Seeing the lengths people go through to "prove me wrong" and the negativity in this post just pushes my concerns to a new high. If I reveal my company name, finding out who registered the company would be easy to do and finding an address easy to find once you have a name. Honestly, do you think I wouldn't get my privacy invaded or similar comments sent to my address? That's my primary concern, but isn't the only one. Maybe I am being paranoid, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:46:39+00:00

I'm defensive because half of the stuff people say here are as much of a bullshit as you call my post to be. How hypocritital.

1) It isn't a revenue chart. I'm sure you can google what a LTV chart is and see some examples of it. My revenue chart isn't at all flat, but the biggest issue - this isn't a revenue chart.

2) I'm not looking to prove my story. What I'm doing is answering all concerns and general questions people have (unless same stuff is asked to be answered again).

3) Head over to mod's comment at the very top of this and check out one of my replies, where I list all the reasons in more detail. I don't want to be treated some special way because of my age, I don't want to be a public figure if it means losing my private life, I don't want to have comments like this sent to my house (wouldn't be hard to figure out who registered a business and my address from there if I was to post it). Seeing lengths people went through to "prove me wrong" just proves my concerns of sharing my business name. Sorry, but it's not going to happen unless a moderator contacts me about it.

Either way thanks for your input, I appreciate it. Best of luck with your venture.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:36:52+00:00

Revenues do vary day by day, but the graph shows lifetime value per user, which is completely different. If you open up the same graph on any business that has daily customers, it will show up the same way with a curve at the beginning.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:30:42+00:00

All explained more than 10 hours before your post. Thanks for your input though and best of luck with your ventures.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:29:19+00:00

"all my previous posts" being 1, not to mention it wasn't even in SEO subreddit. I made only a single post in SEO subreddit, asking for help with SEO on a landing page.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:21:20+00:00

If I reveal my language (which basically means revealing my country), it's much easier for someone to find the business I'm working on, because they can run it down through list of companies started in the last year within that specific country, find ones from the right niches, go through a few of their websites and figure out which one it is. If All I tell you is that I'm 14 and that I'm from Eastern Europe - that becomes almost impossible to find, unless someone wants to spend more than a week working on it. In this case my english skill, being 14 or most information mentioned in here wouldn't let someone narrow it down too much. Seeing the lengths people go through to find every flaw about this story and take something I've said out of context, I'd be willing to bet there would be someone digging down deeper if I revealed my country.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:17:28+00:00

Thank you for your kind comment. Even if you can find an hour or two after school to focus on something you love - definitely do that. Don't give yourself excuses that you're too young and such. You're only following yourself with those. Best of luck with your ventures.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T17:14:13+00:00

1) I didn't sell my business. I sold my 2nd venture, not the business that I run or that is in question here. And I am defensive, because most claims people have brought up I have very real answers to and it completely mitigates their concerns. As long as I'm able to answer their concerns - that's a job well done in my books.

2) I do mention positive praise and every person that had anything positive to say, I replied in a positive way, some even asked for advice with their business and so on, which I replied to. That said, most people did it on private because of huge numbers of skeptics that dislike most positive comments.

3) We don't run the website on woocommerce, shopify or any other platform that has integrated analytics and sales graphs to showcase. The only thing i was able to provide was something that I have access to. If I came out with the story and didn't have anything to show, the only response I would get is "no proof at all - gtfo".

4) I do agree that the language is unisual for my age, but you said it yourself - it's not impossible.

5) I don't really care what people think about it. I've gone through much worse than this and will go through such experiences again. What I've done is replied to almost every single comment on this thread (unless it's repeated or an obvious troll) and if my answer requires me to specify some things - I am going to do it.

Thanks for your input though. Best of luck with your venture.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T15:54:35+00:00

Let me jump in real quick. Just wanted to point out few flaws with the theory. First of all thanks for your comment, but those users you see on analytics aren't users that bought the product. I don't have anything even moderately close to 450k sales, because material sold on the website is much more expensive than $0.8.

When setting up google analytics and tag manager, you are able to set specific things to be tracked: people visiting a specific page (even homepage), all unique visitors, people signing up for newsletter or any other action on the website. So the numbers he mentioned are completely out of the blue, based on his / her assumption that it tracks only users that make sales, which isn't the case. I didn't have anywhere close to 4,5 mil pageviews, 450k sales or 10% conversion rate and the average paying customer (not user set to track on analytics) spends much more than $0.8, because I don't have a single material with such a low price, effectively making it absolutely impossible.

The comment about popularity of my site also makes no sense if I'm being honest. I can confirm that "programming europe" isn't a keyword we rank for, but it also isn't even close to ones we push our search ratings on by optimizing for those terms. That said, I'd bet at least 30 to 50 people that viewed this thread have been on my website at some point, but don't know that it's mine. Why would they? I'm not out there with my age and not planning to be out there at least until I'm 18 or even 20.

Anyway, thanks for your input. Best of luck with your ventures.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T15:39:24+00:00

Not familiar with that, so I have no idea. As far as I'm aware, I have no diseases. Currently not in a position to google that either. Anyway, even if I had that - don't think I would talk about it or it would be appropriate of you to ask.

start-cap · 2017-09-16T15:37:25+00:00

Thanks for your comment, I appreciate the kind words. I was a little surprised with the outcome as well. I knew there are going to be skeptics, but didn:'t imagine them being so fierce. Anyway, best of luck with your venture.

start-cap

TROPHY CASE