The Story of Moz: 1981-2011
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The document outlines the history and growth of Moz, starting from its origins as a consulting business in 2002 to its transformation into a successful software company by 2010. It highlights key milestones, including the launch of the Moz blog, the introduction of premium memberships, and the development of products like Open Site Explorer. Additionally, it shares lessons in entrepreneurship and marketing, emphasizing the importance of metrics, community trust, and a structured inbound marketing process.
The Story of Moz: 1981-2011
- 1. The Making of MozHow the power of inbound marketing took our startup from near-bankruptcy to surprising successRand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmozMarch 2011
- 2. An Early History of Moz: 1981-2002Rand begins working for Gillian, building websites for her traditional marketing clientsRand + Gillian start by building small web presences for Seattle-area companies2002199719812001Gillian (Rand’s Mom) founds the company that will become SEOmozRand drops out of UW, 2 classes from graduation to work full time w/ GillianText Goes Here
- 3. Our Consulting Business: 2003-2006Deeply in debt from a series of failed projects and poor decisions, and struggling to succeed at SEO, Rand starts the SEOmoz blogA growing reputation and hig-profile clients make 2006 SEOmoz’s first profitable year.2006200420032005When 3rd-party SEO services fail to help clients, Rand starts to do it himself.After several viral content pieces, the growing popularity of SEOmoz attracts a 4-page Newsweek article on SEO.Our 2006 financials are here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seomozs-2006-financial-statements
- 4. The Transition to Software: 2007Moz’s first “premium” membership cost $39/month. We still have “grandfathered” members at that price: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/13/free-to-paid-tips/
- 5. Raising Venture Capital: Nov. 2007Invests$100,000(observer seat)Invests$1 millionKelly SmithMichelle GoldbergBoard of DirectorsFounderFounderRand FishkinGillian MuessigRand’s wife comically marked up the VC-post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seomozs-venture-capital-deal-closes-financials-for-jannov-2007
- 6. Building Linkscape: 2008We made a comic series at launch to help SEOs understand the project(almost no one read it) http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape_comic.html
- 7. January 2010: Open Site ExplorerGreat coverage from sources like SELand (http://searchengineland.com/seomoz-launches-open-site-explorer-33892) and MSDN (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/searchblog/archive/2010/04/22/using-the-seomoz-open-site-explorer.aspx) helped make OSE a hit
- 8. The Evolution of PRO MembershipFrom a collection of disparate tools (Jan. 2007 – Aug. 2010) to a campaign-based app that tracks everything in one place (Sep. 2010-)
- 9. Subscription Growth“PRO” rises to $79/month in October 2008PRO moves to $99/month in September 2010“Premium” costs $39/$49Highest ever growth came when we sent our first email marketing message:http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/
- 10. Moz TodayPRO Subscribers:10,300API Customers:20 Paying, 250 TotalEmployees:32Board of Directors:Rand, Gillian& MichelleTotal Capital Raised:$1.1 Million (2007)2010 Revenue:$5.7 MillionGross Margin:~83%
- 12. Don’t Give Up
- 13. Today, Rand’s credit score is still so bad that he can’t rent an apartment or make any large purchases (car/house) or get a credit card!
- 14. Choose a Small Number of Metrics
- 15. Basic MetricsMore AdvancedTotal Paying SubscribersSubscriber Growth + Acceleration RateAverage Revenue / SubscriberDistribution of Revenue/MemberAvg. Subscription DurationCohort Analysis of Subscription DurationGross MarginNet ProfitGross RevenueCost of Customer AcquisitionCross-Channel Distribution of CostsCustomer Lifetime Value
- 16. Track Them Insanely Well
- 17. Our Weekly ReportingAll our weekly metrics are updated on a company intranet to make it easily accessible to everyone at Moz.
- 18. Get Everyone in the Company Focusing on the Numbers
- 19. Weekly Email UpdatesThese email updates go out to everyone in the company every week.
- 20. Create a Consistent Culture
- 22. Hire the Right People
- 23. Traits We Seek in MozzersExcited about the MissionCare deeply about QualityExcellent Cultural FitBalance of New & ExperiencedProductive w/o InstructionStrong Instinctshttp://www.seomoz.org/about/team
- 24. Divide Big Challenges into SmallOnes to Successfully Scale
- 25. How We Built an Index of the WebThe completed index of Wikipedia proved viable, and we began a project to do web-scale indexing of billions of pages.At launch, we had only a single index – it was December before we could create a second one!Oct. 2008Feb. 2008Dec. 2007June 2008We began a project to crawl and index the content of Wikipedia.org as a test run for the web.Our estimates put our web crawl abilities around 5 billions URLs, giving us data on ~30 billion pages. Lots of testing, failing and re-trying would occur prior to launch.Text Goes Here
- 28. At Moz: No Sales Teamhttp://randfishkin.com/blog/50/what-i-learned-about-sales-but-foolishly-forgot-when-raising-vc
- 29. Education Builds Trust and Community
- 31. Forms of Content that Worked
- 32. A Blog We Update Every Day
- 35. “Viral” Targeted Contenthttp://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey
- 37. A Weekly Video Serieshttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/33
- 38. Research + Data Sharinghttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of-ranking-elements
- 39. Research + Data Sharinghttp://www.seomoz.org/article/search-blog-stats
- 44. Forums
- 46. Blogs
- 48. SearchVia SEOmoz’s Google Analytics Data
- 49. SearchVia SEOmoz’s Google Analytics Data
- 51. TwitterVia SEOmoz’s Google Analytics Data
- 53. FacebookVia SEOmoz’s Google Analytics Data
- 60. Hacker NewsHacker News is one of our top sources for new visitors, but it’s very spiky and has extremely low engagement.
- 62. QuoraAs Quora’s traffic spiked into 2011, SEOmoz benefitted from the questions we’d answered on the site – a good reason to participate in “up-and-coming” inbound marketing channels
- 64. The Inbound Marketing process we useIn 4 Simple Steps
- 65. Step #1: DiscoverFind inbound marketing paths that look promising and make a list.Step #2:TestInvest a few days/hours building authentic value in that niche/sector.Step #3: MeasureUse your web analytics to track primary + second-order impactStep #4: RepeatThrow out low ROI projects; repeat high ROI ones.
- 66. News/Media/PRSEOEmailResearch/White PapersBlogs + BloggingInfographicsComment MarketingSocial NetworksOnline VideoINBOUND MARKETING!(AKA “free” traffic sources)ForumsWebinarsWord of MouthSocial BookmarkingPodcastingDirect/Referring LinksType-In TrafficQ+A Siteshttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-rich-get-richer-true-in-seo-social-all-organic-marketing
- 67. Results:Traffic & Financial Data
- 68. Traffic 2007 - 2011In February, 2011, Moz+OSE had1,000,000 visits combined for the first time.
- 69. Traffic Distribution March 14, 2010 – March 15, 2011
- 70. Software Revenue at SEOmoz: 2007-2011
- 71. Q+ARand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz Twitter: @randfish
- 73. Email: [email protected] can now try SEOmoz PRO Free!http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial