100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 7)

Sramana: How many employees do you have today? Jamin Arvig: We have 25 employees and five contractors.

100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 6)

Sramana: You set up the company in 2002 and did about $100,000 in 2003. How did the company progress from 2003 to 2010? How did you finance its growth? Jamin Arvig: We have financed growth organically. That has continued today. We run a lean shop as much as possible, and we do not take big

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100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 5)

Sramana: When did you start reselling and begin to pick up commercial clients? Jamin Arvig: From 2003 to 2005, we were largely a consumer reseller. Developing a commercial clientele was a gradual process that occurred between 2005 and 2008. We really focused on commercial and reseller accounts in 2008, which was a big step because

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100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 4)

Sramana: Aside from the content in the catalogue, what other content did you offer on the website? Jamin Arvig: We created resources for the customers including a blog and the forum. We used the forum early on for a Q&A interface for customers who were looking for answers. We were not just uploading data from

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100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 3)

Sramana: When you first started in 2002, how did you acquire customers? Jamin Arvig: Primarily search engine optimization was how we found customers. Even today that remains a key part of our operations. We did not invest in a lot of pay-per-click advertising initially because that was more risk than I was comfortable with.

100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 2)

Sramana: So you decided to base your e-commerce business on water filters because of the potential of the industry? Jamin Arvig: We saw it as an exciting industry and a future market. It was also coupled with other growing markets, including the green industry. Every water filter we sell saves many water bottles. That is

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100 Percent Bootstrapped 10 Million Dollar E-Commerce Company: WaterFilters.Net CEO Jamin Arvig (Part 1)

Jamin Arvig is a serial entrepreneur who is a founder of WaterFilters.Net. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering as well as a law degree. After practicing patent law for a period, he decided to maintain a focus on business which led to increased effort being place on WaterFilters.Net, a business he started in

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Building A 10 Million Dollar Search Engine Marketing Business: WPromote CEO Mike Mothner (Part 7)

Sramana: What role do inbound links to a site really play? There seems to be ambiguity and controversy around link-building techniques. Mike Mothner: You can have 10 experts in a room and get 10 different answers, hopefully with some overlap. Fundamentally, the best links are those which are not negotiated or traded for.