$6M/year selling junk + Growing to $400K thanks to email marketing

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From a basic affiliate website to a $6M/year business

Eric and Valerie came across a company that had an affiliate program for a service that was pretty unique in a space otherwise filled with cringe-worthy e-books and scammy acai berry products: Junk car removal. 

They would pay $10 for every qualified lead for someone looking to sell a junk car. Being that both Eric and Valerie were HUGE gearheads, and also liked money, this seemed like a match made in heaven.

The Clunker Junker started as a basic and bare-bones affiliate website. It had a zip code box on the homepage that would simply redirect users to their affiliate link when a zip code was entered. At this point, they never talked to a customer or touched a car. 

“Send a lead, collect $10, rinse and repeat.”

Until…

Google had banned The Clunker Junker from search results. They had taken a few shortcuts and employed some blackhat SEO techniques. And Google made sure we paid for it.

This made them go back to the drawing board and start a brand new company, a custom-built CRM, CMS, and software platform that connected junk cars buyers and sellers. 

Where they made $10-$30 commission on a “junk” vehicle, they started to make an average of around $500 per vehicle, and in some cases, up to $15,000 on a single car.

They rebuilt all of their organic traffic, and then some. Now, they complement it by spending an average of $200k/mo on ads as well.
 

The multi-trillion dollar industry of generating leads

Lead generation businesses sell... qualified sales leads to businesses who want more customers. So pretty much every business on Earth.

These companies are essentially a broker between businesses and people looking for their service/product.

Why don’t they get them on their own? Because most of the time, they don’t know how. They don’t know how to make their website rank high on Google, they don’t know how to make an effective ad campaign, etc. Or they just simply don’t have the time or resources and instead of hiring someone to invest that money straight to buying leads.

Lead gen can be apply EVERYWHERE

Generating leads and capturing the interest of people is truly an art. If you can do that or can help others do it, you can make lots of money.

Read these great proven businesses that you can learn from.

Helping others get leads:

1. Designing awesome drip email campaigns for other business -> Joel’s agency makes $20K/mo
2. Building a software that turns website visitors into leads -> Like this $65K/mo tool
3. Help people create interactive content pieces (calculators, quizzes, etc) -> Outgrow’s platform is used by 5000+ companies
4. Develop a tool to automate social media advertising -> Needls made $1.7M in their first year
5. Help businesses dominate first page rankings (Better rankings = more leads) -> Plus, you can focus on a niche like this $3.6M/year SEO agency for lawyers

Getting leads for your company:

1. Create kick-ass content -> Kean’s $20M/year MonetizeMore executes this perfectly (You really need to read this story to learn about inbound marketing)
2. Start a Facebook group -> Kaila used that strategy to grow her $20K/mo agency
3. Create a proven ad + landing page strategy -> Samer did that to reach $15K/mo with his SEO agency
4. You can buy them too! (Watch that ROI) -> That’s what Nick does at his $1.2M/year crime scene cleanup business

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This mom’s $400K/year makeup brand

Mellow cosmetics was started in Ima’s tiny garage while she was on maternity leave. The first year she made a total of $0. Now, the business has grown to $400K/year.

As you can imagine, after 7 years she has tried pretty much every marketing strategy out there. But email marketing is something that works great for her. 

Here are three simple tips:

1. Focus heavily on growing your database so you can connect with your audience free of charge
2. Send emails to those leaving the cart/checkout without finishing their purchase with a discount code
3. Retarget existing customers with Facebook ads. Lots of them come back to repurchase.

I am a big believer in everything she says. Email marketing is underrated. Owning your audience is key. If you don’t do at least number 1 from above, start doing it now. Our guide on how to grow your email list is a great place to start.

• Ishan from Ugly Duckling focused on it and grew his business 30% YoY
• RomperJack ($30K/mo) focuses on segmenting their lists for better campaign targeting
• Using a combo of PPC + email marketing Jay has grown PureFilters to $200K/mo
• Brumate has grown its business to $144M/year (much thanks to email marketing)

By the way, if you’re looking to level up your email marketing game, give Klaviyo a try. I know they are Starter Story sponsors, but their tool is really awesome and has some very cool advanced features that have helped me grow this email list 18% just last month.

"Some of the people suggested we start with a free app to test the waters. But if someone is willing to pull out their credit card and pay for the thing, then you know you have a good idea."

Ezra Sandzer-bell, Founder
AudioCipher Technologies

Side Project: Developing an app for managing GitHub notifications

Vadim was tired of being distracted by GitHub notifications and struggled to keep up with them. After confirming with colleagues that they shared the same pain and him being a developer, he did what developers do, build an app for that.

The app itself was launched just a few months ago and he hasn’t made much money from it yet, but he shared his journey in a very compelling way. I’m sure many of you reading this can relate.

I really love these stories of solo founders/developers building small apps because 1) it’s a great way to start your journey and 2) they can grow a lot sometimes. These are some of my all-time faves:

• Joel created MoveWell a $1K/mo iPhone app to help people prevent injuries
• Justin’s app is Lazy Jar, a fitness app that charges users any week they fail to work out
• Really Simple Store is an ecommerce platform where it takes less than ten minutes from signup to live selling
• A $10K/mo Spanish-language Bible iPhone app sold to a Nasdaq company
• Dan and John focus on developing small Shopify apps. They have 3 of them and their revenue is over $40K/mo
• Resource Guru is a $2.1M/year online team calendar used by 20,000 people in 88 countries

The examples are countless and you see how big these projects can become. So if you have an idea start working on it. And if you need some inspiration, I can help you come up with an idea for your business or you can search our huge idea database.
 

Opportunities

ShipDaddy ($4.8M fulfillment service) has developed successful eCommerce brands in-house and are always interested in hiring hungry entrepreneurs with innovative ideas as we are looking to invest in brands in need of capital and experience from others trekking the same path.

From skateboarder to agent for professional skateboarders, to founder of NextWave Social ($3K/month digital marketing agency), Samuel is looking for blog content creators, animators, branding experts, and marketing account managers.

Are you a TikTok whiz that stays on top of trends and can help a brand grow? Get in touch with Ima from Mellow Cosmetics ($400K/year).

Branch Furniture went from $300K/mo to $2M/mo last year and are looking to hire a VP of US Sales, an Operations Planning Manager, and a Canadian Operations Manager.

Eric and Valerie are looking for a customer service representative to work from home in their huge junk car selling platform.

Whether you’re looking for a job in machine learning, data science, or AI, Big Cloud ($250K/mo data science recruitment service)  has got you covered.

Guest writers are always welcome at the Kavalier ($6K/mo menswear Youtube channel and blog).
 

P.S. Huge thank you to Klaviyo - our exclusive sponsor at Starter Story. By using Klaviyo, we've grown our email list to 70K and added thousands of dollars in revenue per month through email marketing. Get Klaviyo today!

Looking for a business idea? Find yours from our database of 3,000+ business ideas.