Lessons From Investing $150,000 In A Site That Didn’t Take Off – with Aaron Dragushan

Aaron Dragushan, Bootstrapping, Failure, Scaling, Subscription (Membership) Model, Web 1.0

Why didn’t Ask500People take off?

His money was hard-earned, so Aaron Dragushan didn’t casually toss $150,000 at his idea for a startup. And he wasn’t naive about what it took to build a successful online company. Aaron has been building profitable internet companies since 1998. So what went wrong?

The short answer is that he thinks he have added a paid, premium option much earlier. If he had, it would have given him more useful feedback on what to build and what to leave out, and it would have made the site into a real business. For the long answer, with more useful details, listen to the full interview. If you do, you’ll also hear how Aaron bootstrapped the online companies whose profits allowed him to invest in Ask500People.

It’s not too late to change things. If you go to Ask500People.com today and ask a question, you’ll see a community of users who’ll answer it. Now Aaron and his team are working on monetizing the site.

Aaron Dragushan

Aaron Dragushan is the founder of Wondermill Webworks, Inc. The company’s projects include Response-O-Matic, Freedback and Ask500People.com. To learn Aaron’s productivity techniques visit Upgrade Me.

 

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