Making $30M/yr in Profit At 19 Years Old

GM! It's Tuesday, February 21st - Today, we're covering an entrepreneur who made $30m in profit at 19 years old, 3 principles to his explosive startup growth, and the South Park founder's new startup that upending the visual effects industry.

- Callum

FEATURE

Making $30m in Profit At 19 Years Old

At 19, Val Katayev started a digital advertising business from his parent’s basement that generated over $30m in profit in just a few years.

Then, just 3 years later, he started another business that made $10m in profit in its first year.

Here are the businesses he built and the principles that powered them.

What did he build?

2001 - 2006: Making $30M At 19 Years Old

At 19, Val started an affiliate marketing business, where he could sell other companies' products and receive a cut of the sale. Google Ads were relatively new back in 2001, so he was seeing incredible ROI.

He'd sign up to become an affiliate at companies like the New York Times affiliate. Over time, he became good. He could spend $40 in ads to acquire a customer, and the NYT would pay him $100 (a quick $60 profit). He made $1.5m in profit in his first year.

Fast forward a few years, his one-person business was marketing for over 800 different brands. He became the 2nd largest advertiser on Google at the time. Throughout the course of the business, he pocketed $30m in profit.

Then he became obsessed with a new idea...

2006 - 2014: Making $10m in Profit in year 1

One of Val's biggest advertisers was Rhapsody music. When marketing for them, he learned that lyric sites were the 2nd most popular search category on the planet. He started placing Rhapsody ads there.

He quickly noticed that 70% of the traffic to these sites was from overseas, and Rhapsody only worked in the US. So he began to look for products that he could market on these sites that would work globally. That's when he came across ring-tones...and it worked really well.

Val focussed 100% of his time reaching out to lyric sites and marketing his ringtone ads. Because they converted so well, he got these site owners to sign exclusive partnerships with him.

He made $10m in profit in his first year.

2017 - Today: Building a $1B Business in Jewelry

In 2017, Val founded Jacalio, a business that helps grow Jewelry stores grow and become more profitable. They do that in two ways:

• Data-backed marketing: The company arms jewelers with data to support their marketing efforts. Improving the ROI on every dollar spent on marketing.

• Becoming Their Supplier: Jacalio uses its superior customer insights to supply jewelers with inventory that will sell fast. Because they aggregate demand across their many jeweler clients, they can get much better terms from the big diamond sellers.

Val has expected $10's millions into this business and expects it to be his first billion-dollar business.

How Does He Win?

• Launch, Then Learn: Val doesn't waste time perfecting something before launching. He'll launch, see the data, then optimize for success. He can test 10 ideas before most people test 1.

• Long Tail Marketing: Val markets across the long tail. As you add more friction to the marketing process, there's less competition. For example, aggregating lyric websites was very time-consuming when compared to clicking a button on Google ads. Still, because he did that leg-work, he could monetize far better than any competitors, ultimately netting him $10m in his first year in business.

• Disrupting Fragmented Industries: Val unlocks value from integrating sizable yet fragmented industries. By aggregating the purchasing power of hundreds of Jewelry stores, Val can get much better supplier pricing from upstream partners.

SPONSORED BY SERVE ROBOTICS

Uber's Robotic Delivery Partner Is Taking Investors

Serve Robotics is pioneering a faster, cleaner mode of food delivery via sidewalk robots.

They’re already making tens of thousands of deliveries in Los Angeles for Uber and 7-Eleven customers. Plus, more pilots with Walmart, Pizza Hut, and Chili’s have been completed, with more in the pipeline.

The food delivery market is expected to nearly double over the next 5 years – the industry was valued at $189B in 2021 and is projected to hit $369B by 2028.

And you have the opportunity to invest in this fast-growing startup as they take their solution nationwide.

In addition to Serve’s impressive list of partners…

Serve’s team also consists of execs from behemoth brands like Uber, Postmates, and DoorDash.

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Now, the company is working to scale and lead a paradigm shift in the delivery market.

And they’re inviting our readers to help share these sidewalk delivery robots with an even greater number of communities before the world fully adopts these technologies.

Learn about Serve’s investment opportunity.

*Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement for Serve Robotics’ Regulation CF Offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.serverobotics.com

ON TREND

South Park Founders Have A New Startup

The founders of South Park have launched a new deep fake startup that may upend the visual effects industry.

Here’s What You Should Know:

• Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the successful animated TV series South Park, have a new venture–Deep Voodoo.

• Deep Voodoo is an artificial intelligence entertainment startup.

• The company recently raised $20M in funding from Connect Ventures to continue working on its professional deep fake studio for creators.

• They made their official debut with Kendrick Lamar’s music video for “The Heart Part 5” as they merged the artist’s face into four others throughout the video.

• Deep Voodoo was created during the pandemic shutdowns as on-set productions were halted, so Parker and Stone devoted their efforts to building this AI production tool.

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