<p><b>Startup description</b></p><p>My startup is a marketplace platform for brands and creators to connect and collaborate. Influencers and creators can create listings offering services such as shoutouts, content creation, sponsorships, or social media management. Brands can find listings in their desired niche and purchase them directly, or they can create a brand request, which notifies all influencers and creators of their desired requirements. Collaborations take place on our platform through our protected escrow transactions using Stripe, PayPal, credit/debit, or bank transfer. We host creators in all niches, with audiences ranging from 10k to 1m+ followers, spanning across all social platforms.</p><p><b>Key highlights:<b></b></b></p><ul><li>$892 revenue this past 12 months</li><li>I keep 9.9% + $2 on every transaction</li><li>Last month, I started reaching out to brands (buyer side), and that led to $638 in revenue just in May.</li><li>I've been paid $50 to advertise someone's SaaS link on our home page (this is a potential revenue model)</li></ul><p><b>Team</b></p><p>Solo - Bootstrapped.</p><p><b>Tech Stack</b></p><p>WordPress - HivePress (plugin) - WooCommerce (payments) - PHP &amp; CSS (for customizations).</p><p><b>Marketing and growth</b></p><p>The majority of the user base comes from Reddit (organic links in relevant communities) and Google (SEO work that I've built from early on). I cold DMed Instagram pages to acquire the first few users. I've spent a dollars on Google and Instagram ads, but I found organic methods to be most effective.</p><p><b>Revenue and profit</b></p><ul><li>Last month did $638 in revenue. $60 profit (based on our  commission rate)</li><li>Total 12-month revenue: $892</li><li>Total 12-month profit: $138 minus hosting fees on WordPress ($291 per year).</li></ul><p><b>Return on investment</b></p><p>Last month, I started creating PDFs of our top creators and sending them (one by one) to brands in their niches. This took us from almost no transaction volume to over $600 in the month.</p><ul><li>Increase the commission rate</li><li>Continue the brand outreach with the PDFs</li><li>Find a way to automate the PDF outreach (on Reddit or Email)</li><li>Invest in professional ads</li></ul><p>You could break even on your investment in under a year, following the right strategy.</p><p><b>Startup assets<b></b></b></p><ul><li>619 users with email list</li><li>Easy to operate and customize WordPress backend</li><li>Domain name and email.</li></ul><p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>Last month (May) generated $638.65 in revenue, our most successful month since the launch of the platform. This huge growth in transaction volume sparked when I started personally reaching out to brands, showing them the creators in their niche that are listed on our site. Prior to doing this, most of our users were influencers/creators (the seller side of the marketplace), which explains why it was stagnant before. Now we see a huge demand validation, with 8 influencer deals having taken place.</li><li>The platform is built on WordPress plugins, meaning the backend is largely non-technical, fully set up, easy to operate, and you have constant support teams to either help you create new features or answer any queries.</li><li>I started working on SEO and backlinks very early on. We get 4-18 daily organic users signing up on average. This is partly through Google ranking and largely through Reddit backlinks in relevant communities (hand-placed by me).</li><li>As of now, we have 619 users. Every user who has done a transaction is still in the user base.</li></ul></br>✅ $892 in Annual Revenue✅ 7 customers✅ Business model: Commission✅ Built with WordPress, Stripe, WooCommerce