How Borut Sold His Website For $160k
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Last week, I attended my friend’s housewarming party in Longbeach, CA (Congrats Andrew!!).
It was full of good vibes and meeting new people.
But at these types of events, the best conversations always happen at the tail-end of the night.
I was reconnecting with a guy I hadn’t seen since college.
Catching up, life updates, yadda yadda.
Naturally we talk about career satisfaction, goals beyond corporate, and how I recently quit my job.
And, of course, I started talking about my little income generating niche website.
I could see his eyes light up and get more intrigued.
The idea of a business that you build once and let run passively was, to him, unheard of.
Then he says something that 99% of people would probably agree with:
“I don’t necessarily want to make a ton of money. I just want to make enough to live comfortably”
But judging by the way he said it, I think he meant something slightly different.
When I replied saying “Yeah, I just want the option to do whatever I want.”
He immediately said “YES! 100%”
This is something that I’ve thought about my entire life.
For me, starting a business has never been about making millions of dollars and retiring early.
It’s always been about creating more options in life.
No one likes to feel pigeonholed in their job or business.
And the happiest people I’ve observed in my life are people who work jobs or run businesses, and have the option to do something different if they so choose to.
It’s never black and white.
I know people who are held hostage by their business. And I definitely know people who work jobs that drain their soul.
Take it from someone who quit their job two weeks ago.
The freedom feels great for a couple weeks.
But the novelty of being a degenerate who sleeps at 3AM to wake up at 11AM gets old real quick.
Going to the grocery store at 1PM is convenient but feels…odd.
Maybe I’m onto something.
Maybe I’m just an idealistic, delusionally optimistic a-hole.
Either way, today’s story is about a guy who is living in this blissful mid-state.
He sold a couple websites, quit his job because it was sucking the creativity out of him, and is now spending his days playing tennis and exploring new projects from a place of curiosity.
How Borut Sold His Gaming Website For $160k At 24 Years Old
Today's side hustle is...
This morning I chatted with Borut, a solopreneur based in Slovenia who sold one of his websites for $160k.
We connected instantly because, like me, he started a niche website.
Unlike me (yet), he sold his niche website in the entertainment niche for $160k.
And the thing is, he didn’t just sell one website, he sold three websites!
Here’s the proof of his last two sales.
It’s easy to forget that this $160k sale price doesn’t include the revenue he earned when he owned the website.
His highest paying month from his two largest websites made him $15k in profit in a single month.
He was just 24 years old at the time.
But before you compare yourself (let’s agree to never do this), Borut admitted that he has had a lot of failed projects.
Before his successful exit, he started 7-8 different websites.
One of his most expensive lessons included a $30,000 loss in an e-commerce website that he talks about in his newsletter.
Today, he’s completely moved on from niche website game, in large part, due to Google’s latest updates.
About His Niche Website
If you’re unfamiliar with the niche website scene, just know that everyone is highly secretive about their niche.
And it’s for good reason.
Niche website owners almost never reveal their website URL or their exact niche because:
- It welcomes unwanted competition
- There are unethical SEO “attacks” competitors can deploy on your website, dropping your google search rankings (these are resolvable, but annoying and time consuming)
- Google has allegedly penalized websites owned by public figures
For this reason, Borut asked me not to share the specifics behind his niche.
What I am allowed to share is that his website was in the entertainment niche, more specifically, the gaming niche.
Borut built this website during the explosive growth of Fortnite, a video game that attracted 125 million players worldwide within it’s first year in 2018.
And without giving too much away, he leveraged the likes of the most famous Fortnite players, such as Ninja.
On a typical month, his biggest gaming website was getting 500k-1M monthly visitors.
Growing The Website
Niche websites work when you publish a metric boatload of blog content.
And unlike most niche websites that take months or years to grow, Borut’s website started earning thousands of dollars in monthly revenue within 5 months.
The interesting thing is…Borut never wrote a single blog post.
From the start, he outsourced all the copywriting.
He hired a small team of contractors from India who helped him publish 20 articles a day.
His role in building his niche website businesses took more of a manager and recruiter role.
When you outsource your talent from less developed countries, the cost of labor is fractional compared to anywhere else in the world.
The other side of that coin is, well, there’s way more…let’s just say…not so amazing workers than good workers.
Borut had to sift through dozens of remote contractors to find 2-3 talented individuals who could execute his gameplan.
Starting Costs
The total cost to start his website was around $5000-$6000.
His contracted labor was his biggest expense, costing him about $500-$1000 a month on average.
The month where he took tome $15k in profit, he spent $3k on a team of 5-7 writers that put the boosters behind his content publishing.
Time investment
On average, Borut shared that he spent 4 hours a day working on his website.
Most of this time was spent managing his team of writers.
Earnings
Borut’s monthly earnings fluctuated, but he typically earned $6,000-$8,000 a month in profits from his two biggest websites.
His niche websites had a 90% net profit margin.
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Join side hustlers who are earning beyond their full-time jobs. Unlock side hustle ideas and tips to earn an extra $500–$10,000 a month by building a legitimate side business.