What we learnt after bootstrapping our online publishing startup for 5 years

Photo credit: Galymzhan Abdugalimov

Will I be able to write two posts in a day, every single day? Is it what I was born to do? Last month, Lighthouse Insights (LI), our online publishing venture that covers digital marketing stories, turned five. We began with writing two posts, then four posts in a day, and at times we even wrote eight posts in a day. For the first time, I truly knew what “passion” meant.

As an employee, I never stayed with a firm for more than three years, so sticking to this for 5 years was a huge achievement. Today, I can proudly say that I’m good at something. Something that’s not just a fairytale, but which runs and supports our home.

In the past five years, I’ve learnt a lot about life, work and how to fuel your dream while making money out of it.

Many things have changed in these five years. But one thing remains constant, and hopefully will still stand in future: a strong focus on our goal.

Take my word – your goal will be tested in every possible way, with money being one of the biggest temptations.

For instance, I was twice offered a role to run a Mumbai-based agency, and a training institute in my second year with good monetary benefits, all of which were tempting as we weren’t making much then. But that meant LI would eventually face a slow death.

Keep a strong focus on your goals

When I co-founded LI with my wife in 2011, I had a simple goal in my mind – I wanted to create an insight-driven platform to cover the Indian social media marketing space.

 Start with something you connect with.

We didn’t want to be just another website that copied press releases and made a few bucks from Google Ads.

On the internet, all it takes is a simple click to open a site and another to close it. A reader’s time is valuable, and we wanted to add value to his time as far as possible. That has never changed. Even today, the first question we ask ourselves when about to cover a story is, “What will a marketer achieve by reading this story?”

Don’t start an online site just because listicles are driving good traffic from social media, and you can make some extra money. Start with something you connect with.

Refine your vision

With the goal standing strong, we’ve refined the vision of LI in the last five years.

From a social media marketing site covering brand campaigns, we now bring value to marketers with every story. Whether we are reviewing campaigns, writing insightful articles or covering interviews with experts, we are focused on bringing quality and depth to our stories, even if we have to cut down on the quantity of stories produced. A reader should be able to get a takeaway from our site even if he spends just five minutes on it. This also encourages return visits from our readers, knowing that he can’t get this content anywhere else.

Catering to the different content needs of the market

Recognising the importance of technology and mobile behaviour

Email marketing is not dead

Keep a keen focus on revenue