Comments on: Behind The Scenes Numbers From UniversityTutor.com (Revenue & Expenses)

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:07:48 +0000

Hi Luke…yep well the 12k is number of tutors who’ve signed up over all time. Some of those haven’t used their 3 contacts yet. Some have used the 3 and not subscribed. Some have used the 3 and subscribed, but are no longer subscribed. And yes…about 150 at the time that graph was taken were still subscribed :) It might seem low, but from what I’ve seen this is about average for most “freemium” products 1-2% conversion rate. I agree, I had higher expectations coming in though.

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:03:10 +0000

Hi Brian,

I just signed up on universitytutor.com and ran across this posting. I’m curious, if you have over 12,000 tutors on the website, how is it that you only have 150ish subscribed? 11,850 are still on their first three clients??

Luke

By: Business Dashboard Roundup – Plus How You Can Make Your Own (Soon)

Business Dashboard Roundup – Plus How You Can Make Your Own (Soon) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 06:13:17 +0000

[...] recently posted some screenshots of some internal dashboards I built a while back at UniversityTutor.com. These are fun and addictive to check each day, but [...]

By: Aaron K

Aaron K — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:07:18 +0000

Brian–
This business is a great idea. I’m pretty sure you have a growing asset on your hands. I am envious. And, thanks for posting the behind-the-scenes details.

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:47:27 +0000

Hmm…I’m not sure honestly. It is probably new tutor’s creating profiles that are showing up. The Google Alert should show mentions by other websites as well but there probably aren’t as many of those. Hope it helps!

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:44:12 +0000

Hi Brian,
thank you for sharing, great information.
I have set a google alert for universitytutor.com and noticed that alert gives me _consistently_ 15-20 pages from your site (tutor profiles). Not random links to your site as i would expect from google alert, but actual pages of your site. I’ve never seen this.
Can you share, how you do this?
Thanks again

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:13:55 +0000

Thanks!

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:13:41 +0000

Yep good points and thanks Chris. I’m doing some adwords now…the payback period is long (in other words doesn’t convert right away) so I’m not crazy about bidding tons more for the traffic, but it’s a start. Facebook is a bit better for sure.

By: Chris Guthrie

Chris Guthrie — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:41:33 +0000

Hey Brian,

I think you’re at a place in your business where you really should just start to market it via Adwords (or better yet Facebook) to acquire more tutors. You have a website that is set up for scaling and one that is self reinforcing (the more tutors you get the more likely someone visiting the site is able to find a tutor and recommend it to a friend).

I’d also get rid of the Google Adsense unit in the bottom right corner of the footer as I’m sure that does nothing in revenue and instead just shows off your competitors.

Going back to my first point though – as long as you can convert people through your ads into paying subscribers for less than it cost to acquire them then you’re gold right?

Chris Guthrie

By: http dev

http dev — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:39:14 +0000

Well it looks like your subscriptions are picking up, so hopefully the revenue will continue to grow. good luck and thanks for sharing!