SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Freelance Marketplace AwesomeWeb Hits 1100 Active Freelancers With Nick Tart Episode 198
09 Mar 2016
Chapter 1: What is AwesomeWeb and how did it start?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000 unit sold mark.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, remember, every Monday I give one of you 100 bucks to invest in your idea to help get it to the top. To enter, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to prove it. Again, that's Nathan to 33444 to prove it. Last week's winner was Mike Shcherbakov. Mike runs his own internet business.
He's doing between 100 and 500K per year. He's a blogger, author, and influencer, building his business listening to the top. Okay, Top Tribe, good morning. Our guest this morning is Nick Tartt. He's the co-founder and product manager for Awesome Web, a professional freelance marketplace for people who do and need awesome work.
He's focused on building a perfect software-as-a-service web app that'll help other founders make their sites more awesome. Nick, are you ready to take us to the top?
I'm ready, Nathan. I want to say congrats on selling Hayo too.
Thank you so much. I was joking the other day. I should be, you know, like relaxing somewhere on some Island, but the fact of the matter is I'm just, I'm super competitive. I need something to be doing. And we've got a really special announcement next month about something I'm doing related to a major, major network. And I think it'll surprise a lot of people.
So Nick, thanks for the congratulations. I appreciate it.
Sure thing.
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Chapter 2: How much did it cost to develop AwesomeWeb's minimum viable product?
Yeah, I'm a fan of the show, so I'm looking forward to that.
Tell me why you enjoy it. What's the number one reason you listen in?
You ask good questions. You have the background experience to know what a good question is, and that's what I like about it.
So let's just jump right in. Awesome web is the business. Give us a sense of size first. 2015, what was total top line revenue?
So I don't want to talk much about that.
Come on, Nick, you just told me I ask great questions. I'm like, ooh, I'm going to get him right here on the start.
No. So here's the thing. So one thing that we've done really well is started a bootstrap SaaS product, right? So I'm a former freelancer, we started working on awesome web many years ago, hired us an agency to build the first site didn't end up using any of that code. So I've learned a lot about that process. And then we started rebuilding it two years ago.
So we started with one of three co-founders. We have we went through the process of rebuilding it from scratch. And I can tell you that we spent about 30 grand to get from idea all the way to minimum viable product and first customer.
And how much revenue total now?
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Chapter 3: What unique pricing model does AwesomeWeb use for freelancers?
I want a new business built. I need to hire a freelancer. I'm going to pay you $17 a month, and what do I get for that?
So as a client, you don't pay anything. So that's kind of the key part. So the only people who pay are the freelancer. And the reason that we did that is because we wanted to attract the people who are the best at what they do. So the other sites, Upwork, Elance, Freelancer, they all charge a percentage of a project.
So if you're going to be spending $5,000 to $10,000 on a project, they're going to take anywhere from 10% to 40% of that.
So you said freelancers pay you $17 and you've got $1,100 signed up currently?
Yeah, right now the subscription's at $27 a month. Oh, $27.
So what, you're doing about $25,000 per month right now?
There's churn and other things, but yeah.
Plus I'm close.
You're getting there, yeah.
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Chapter 4: How does AwesomeWeb differentiate itself from other freelance platforms?
Users or paid customers?
Paid customers. Okay. So we have no free trial, nothing like that. And then over the last year and three, four months now, we've kind of grown through and focused on really making AwesomeWeb a great product. So we focus a lot on two things. One is the development. So as a piece of software, it's nearly perfect. We have 95% test coverage.
It loads at around a second, even though all of the retina images, we're loading 25 images on the homepage. But all those things, that's what we focused on last year. And then the clients come, they contact people, they can communicate however they want, and they invoice separately from the site.
Okay. And what is your guys' goal in terms of total revenue for 2016? What are you aiming for? So that's...
The goal is to I'm much more focused on creating a really great experience. Right. So up to this point, I know everyone listening is as focuses on growth, on money, on on those things.
But it doesn't have to be money. But like, how do you at the end of the year when you look back and you talk to your co-founder and say, hey, did we create, quote, a really great experience? How the hell do you know if it was good or not? I mean, how do you measure it?
So my goal is as a freelancer, I want to help them earn 100 grand a year. So that's if we can get everyone to that spot, then I'd be really happy. As a client, I want to make sure that someone can come to the site with any amount of budget, $500 or more and say, all right, I want to do this, this and this and know that they're going to get a great experience.
So you've got 1100 freelancers currently on the site. How many of them have made more over the entire lifetime of being on awesome web? How many of them have made more than a hundred grand already?
Uh, we don't know the exact number, Nathan, cause we, at the beginning we didn't have a messaging system.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do freelancers face when finding clients?
So we, um, they, they received an email, they connected with the client and then all that happened to offsite.
So you don't know necessarily how much money you've processed through your system, right? When did you start measuring that?
So we're not yet.
Oh, okay. Okay. So your goal this year is to do 100 grand per person, but it's not something you're measuring yet. How do you back into that?
So we're building it, right? So as a bootstrap company, we have all of the development things that we need to still build.
Well, is there something else you're measuring that is already measurable?
Mm-hmm.
Because you say you don't want to do numbers or revenue, you just want to figure out a measurement that correlates directly with, quote, a great experience. So is there another metric, again, that you're currently measuring?
So we're, I mean, just active people, people using the site, number of jobs posted.
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Chapter 6: What are AwesomeWeb's long-term goals for freelancers?
Do you and your co-founders say yes?
We have a talk about it. I don't know if we say yes right away, but I mean, it's certainly something we consider.
So you would consider selling the business if the right offer came along? Correct. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, cool. And how are you walk us through before we get to my favorite part of the show? How are you getting new customers? And by say customers, I mean, people like me that want to hire the freelancers on your project on your awesome web.
So we started with two co-founders. One has a very successful blog in the make money online space. Which one? Income Diary.
Oh, okay. Okay.
I didn't know that. Yeah. And then the other was a co-founder from First Web Designer. So the reason that we built Awesome Web to begin with was to connect those two audiences because they were both getting hundreds of questions a week. Like, how do you find a good designer developer? And how do I get more clients?
so awesome web is a combination of those two audiences got it very cool well hey we're about to get into my favorite part of the show before we do that though nick what is your what's the best way people connect to you personally online so go to awesomeweb.com and there's a little the intercom chat symbol in the bottom right i'm as maybe you're interested in building a site or starting a new software company i'd love to connect with you there so hit that and then send a chat message and i'll make sure that i see it
Okay, Top Tribe, do not forget your chance to win $100 right here on the podcast every Monday. It's very simple. You just subscribe to the show on iTunes. And then once you've done that, text me to prove that you've done it. My number is 703-431-2709. Subscribe now and text me to enter.
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Chapter 7: How does AwesomeWeb support freelancers in earning more?
703-431-2709. Okay, top try. Many of you have asked me, how do I get my site going so fast and so cheaply? Well, I use HostGator. Specifically, they've got 4,500 templates. They've got a free e-commerce plugin. And quite frankly, I blow the heck out of their support. 24-7 support, which I love. It's ideal for WordPress. Okay. They've got a free website builder. All right.
Now I worked out a great deal for you guys that you can grab right now and jump in at hostgator.com forward slash Nathan. Okay, very good. Top Tribe, there you have it. And again, if you want show notes for this particular episode, it is episode 198. You can search just Nathan Latka on medium.com and go to episode 198. Nick, we're about to get to my favorite part of the show.
You know what's next? Famous five. Yeah, you got it, man. I love it. That's how I know I've got a Top Tribe member on, right? They know what's up. All right, number one, Nick, what is your favorite business book?
I like the old ones. So Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And my favorite book, I think, is Rework by 37 Signals, David and Jason. Yeah, but what not a lot of people know is that's actually a rewrite of the original book, Getting Real, which is all based on software development. So I love that.
Chapter 8: What lessons does Nick Tart share for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Yeah, I love that. Number two, is there a CEO that you're following or studying right now?
Uh, I've, I've kind of followed the journeys of, uh, like Jason Freed, um, Brian Clark, Neil Patel, those, those sorts of people had a lot of influence on me when I was starting to learn all these things. Um, but yeah, I love talking to people who have been in business for a long time, just as much as the new up and coming queer people.
We had Neil Patel on an episode 38. Did you catch that episode?
I did.
Yeah. What'd you think? Did it surprise you?
I, I've followed quick sprout for a number of years and it was really interesting to hear that he has plans for it. Right. Cause it's always been just a blog. It's been Neil Patel's personal blog. Um, but yeah, I was, I was excited to see what he has cooking there.
Yeah. It's episode 38. He was Nick. He was way more subdued than I was expecting.
Yeah.
Like I was expecting him to be, you know, what, like most speakers and folks with keynote really articulate a ton of energy. He was very much the opposite, but very, very smart. So he's an interesting story. Number three, Nick, besides awesome web, do you have a favorite online tool like Evernote?
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