Welcome to the last episode of our September Sabbatical series! If you’ve been listening to the show for the past few years, you know we’ve gone into our September sabbatical, where the team takes a break from podcast production and airs some of our favorites from the 400+ episodes we have. have been issued so far.
FIRE has four pillars: financial psychology, investment, real estate and entrepreneurship.
This September we will be doing four weeks of episodes focused on each of these four pillars. Today we are broadcasting an episode focused on entrepreneurship.
When Rand Fishkin was 25, he was carrying $500,000 in credit card debt.
Less than a decade later, Rand was the founder and CEO of a company that grossed $35 million in annual revenue.
In this podcast episode, Rand shares the story of hitting rock bottom and making the ultimate comeback.
The saga began in 2001, when 22-year-old Rand dropped out of his senior year of college to grow a business with his mother.
His mother, Gillian, owned a small marketing company that helped local businesses with tasks such as placing ads in the Yellow Pages. (If you don’t know what that is, ask someone over 30).
Rand had an early entrepreneurial streak and had spent the late 1990s and early 2000s working part-time for her mother’s business. By his senior year, he was ready to dive full time.
Gillian and Rand realized that the Internet was more than a passing fad. Households were switching from dial-up modems to broadband connections. Customers were more interested in websites than yellow pages ads.
The mother-son duo decided to start designing websites for local businesses.
From 2001 to 2004, they hired contractors, rented office space, hosted booths at conferences, and bought advertising. They paid most of it on personal credit cards in Rand’s name.
By 2004, they had accumulated $150,000 in credit card debt. Then they failed. They could no longer make the minimum payments.
Interest and late fees grew that balance to an astronomical $500,000.
They decided not to file for bankruptcy. Instead, they took a two-pronged approach: Rand’s mother spent the next three years negotiating with creditors, getting large amounts of interest and late fee waivers in exchange for making payments on the principal balance. Meanwhile, Rand focused on growing the business.
Several of his clients needed help with a specific aspect of Internet marketing called search engine optimization, or SEO. Rand began researching SEO tactics and started a blog to share his findings. This blog attracted new clients and soon Rand developed a reputation as an SEO expert. He started a company called SEOMoz, later rebranded as Moz, to provide consulting services for businesses.
After a few years, his company also started developing and selling subscriptions to SEO software tools.
By the time Rand stepped down as CEO, the company had raised several rounds of funding and was raking in $35 million in annual revenue.
But there is a difference between the income of a company and the personal income of its founders. Today, Rand and his wife still have a net worth of less than a million.
How did Rand go from being $500,000 in debt to becoming the founder and CEO of a successful eight-figure company?
Why isn’t he a millionaire yet?
And what lessons about entrepreneurship and finance can he share with the world?
Find out in this podcast episode.
PS Rand’s wife Geraldine DeRuiter is a fun travel writer and alumni guest on this podcast. You can listen to his interview in episode 77.
PPS If you want to learn more about starting a blog, check out this free tutorial.
Resources mentioned:
Email Rand at rand (at) sparktoro (dot) com
Sparktoro.com
Rand on Twitter: @randfish — He has 408,000 followers and tweets 40 times a week.
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