The $12 Startup That Was Sold On Twitter For About $100,000 – with Sean Percival
This is a story about how an entrepreneur can build an internet business on the side. The business Sean Percival launched wasn’t meant to be the next Google. He was just trying to make some money and improve his business skills.
Sean built a site that sold customize European license plates, the kind of plates you might see on cars speeding on the Autobahn or cruising down the Champs-Elysées. As you’ll hear in this interview, he spent $12 to buy the domain, customeuropeanplates.com. Then he built the site using a free ecommerce platform. To fill and ship his orders, he partnered up with a company that was already in the business of selling license plates online. And he got customers by teaching himself search engine optimization and developing link partnerships with related sites.
He ended up selling the business — which was profitable — after Tweeting that he was thinking of selling it.
We talked in this interviewed about how he built the business, and how he built up the kind of social capital online that helped him sell his business for about $100,000 via a Tweet.
Andrew: All right, before we start, I’ve got to tell you about my three sponsors because they’re especially relevant to the program you’re about to listen to. You’re going to hear Sean Percival say that, on the side, while working at three different companies, he built up an e-commerce site that did 70 to $80,000 a year in profit. Well, if you want to create your own online store, check out Shopify.com. In under five minutes, I was able to create a store on Shopify, add items to it, change the look and feel. I know you’re going to be able to do it within minutes. So try them out. Shopify.com. And Tim Ferris, on his blog, says that they’re giving away $100,000 to the best new store. I’ll link you over to his post so that you can read more about it, but I want you to just create a store, to just try it. So check out Shopify.com. The other thing I want you to know is, that I’ve done several interviews with people who sell products...
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