We know the big ones, the publicly traded ones, even the ones that were all the craze, and today are the workhorses of the internet, no more glory and praise, but still plodding along making a big profit and providing a great service.
We know the small guys, the personal sites with photos and maybe even a blog or two that gets a dozen or so hits a month.
What about the middle ground? Popular bloggers, cites started by a student or two in between classes, or somebody that has a great service to offer or interesting idea for a web site?
All I hear about is how Facebook and Myspace are worth hundreds of millions, or how such and such site didn’t take off and are bankrupt. Or how certain sites are in the black. What about the interesting yet smaller sites, or the knock off sites that makes less than 6 figures a year, but still for one person pull in a respectable sum?
I don’t know of any great examples, but I doubt that before Cisco bought Tribes.net, they were making millions, or where they? HotorNot turned two 20 something into overnight millionaires, but what about now? Barely ecking by? Still pulling in the big bucks?
I didn’t put this into General Questions, because I don’t know if I have one question in specific. I would like to know what sorts of income some of the smaller sites come in, I would also love to hear little known success stories, people you know that bring in supplemental income from their sites (more than say, 20 dollars a month), or just any sort of neat facts about mid-sized websites.
Size is relative, so lets make a range chart (a bit arbitary, I know):
Large: anything with either over 20 employees or making a profit of over 1 million dollars a year. (but may or may not be public)
Mid-sized: less than 20 employees, but can have only one, makes more than 100k a year in profit, but less than 1 million.
Small: one owner or two, has a revenue of less than 100k a year.
??? : one or more owners, doesn’t make a profit, is a personal site or other.
Also, if you own a website and/or work for any sized web-based business, I would be interested in hearing any anecdotes.
For what it is worth, my dream right now is to start a smallish web based business and earn enough to live on. 50-60k a year profit/(salary for me) would make me pretty darn happy. Enough so I don’t have to be a slave to some other corporation. I just don’t have any idea if it is feasible or not.