Entrepreneur of the Year: Graham Langdon, Dropping his Entrecard on the Web
Image back to the beginning of this year, 2008. Two similar services emerge: BlogRush and Entrecard. Now fast forward, BlogRush died back in October, and Entrecard is still standing. Entrecard was started a little bit before January. In the beginning of the year Entrecard was commanding 371,316 monthly visitors and a year later now commands 1,164,788 monthly visitors — a 214% increase. Impressive. So, this year Entrecard founder, Graham Langdon, is named Entrepreneur of the Year.
What’s more impressive is the cash behind this cow. Back in January, Entrecard was earning a little over $2.50 a day times 8 ad spots using Project Wonderful. This set up earned a little over $600 a month based on Business Leaps’ estimates. Now, at the end of this year, Langdon deposits a conservative estimate of $250 a month times 8 ad spots generating $2,000 a month — an increase of 233%.
However, that doesn’t include the income from users buying Entrecredits or other advertising deals. In the beginning of the year, Entrecard had one stream of income, Project Wonderful; now, Langdon has moved from Project Wonderful towards private ad sales with other revenue streams including EntreCredit sales and what appears to be affiliate income. To date, Langdon failed to return comments regarding any revenue assumptions.
However, before there was Entrecard, there was College. Langdon attended the University of Connecticut for three years. Langdon dropped out his senior year in part because of the success of a different successful venture. Million Dollar Wiki was founded by Langdon and grossed nearly $100,000, after which, Langdon saved 30% for taxes and paid off his school loans of $30,000. The rest, $40,000 or so, was used to start Entrecard, and according to past interviews, every dime of that $40,000 has been spent on Entrecard. Even after spending every dime on Entrecard, Langdon found himself selling the wiki to further expand his next venture Entrecard according to past interviews.
Entrecard, an idea born from BlogRush describes the creation process behind Entrecard saying, “It was shortly after Blogrush launched. I watched in awe as the Alexa ranking for blogrush on launch day hit something like 400. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was using it. And then I watched as everyone removed it, and it failed as quickly as it had launched. Then I analyzed how it succeeded.”
Even if Langdon can’t be credited with a completely unique idea, he can be credited with a massively successful idea. And building on this success Langdon hopes the future of Entrecard becoming a new media powerhouse. The road to a media powerhouse does require additional funding, and this founder has been in talks with several angel investors and venture capital firms. Langdon also failed to return comments on the details of talks with venture capital firms. And, to date, a deal has not been officially drafted according to the Entrecard blog. However, according to sources, a venture capital firm was initially investing $700,000 with future funding of $1 Million. Yet, these claims have not been verified by Business Leaps.
Another goal Langdon finds himself reaching towards is 50 million daily widget impressions on high-quality blogs. That goal depends largely on his what some call “erratic decisions.” Decisions, more recently, that have cost him some high-quality blogs he aims to retain. The near instant decision to ban a member came after a Twitter post named Graham Langdon an “asshat” from the blogger Turnip at TurnipofPower.com. Entrecard moved quickly to ban Turnip citing a zero tolerance policy towards “intentional uses of profanity or harassment or harassment directed at other Entrecarders or Entrecard Staff.”
However, one look at Graham Langdon’s personal blog, grahamlangdon.com. Readers might notice a blog category Langdon has named “buying shit.” And as far as harassment, other users are quick to note harassment might be too strong a word in describing the recent Entrecard controversy.
Controversy aside, Langdon exposes his humanity. Shortly after the banning incident, Langdon describes his shortcomings in a blog post, “I’m still a human. No, I have not matured as far as I possibly can yet. I know that I still have a lot of personal growth to achieve. And yes, sometimes I do act emotionally, [erratically], and in poor form. I am human.” Yet, for a 23 year old, Langdon has made far more intelligent decisions than not.
What’s the motivation behind this 23 year-old entrepreneur? Langdon wouldn’t say specifically, but based on his last venture many would have to conclude money. When asked about the inspiration behind the Million Dollar Wiki, Langdon described his need, “to make money that didn’t require any upfront investment.” In a way Langdon wanted the cash without an investment.
The underlying motivation behind Entrecard could be the same as the past venture. Money. Entrecard was listed on the Site Point auction site with a minimum bid of $100,000. However, to date Entrecard has had no serious bids, did not meet Langdon’s reserve price, and has been taken off the market. According to sources, the reason posted on Site Point was the venture capital firm pulled out of Entrecard. Langdon explained on the auction, the funding consisted of “700k seed investment and a 2-5m follow on Series A investment in 6 months,” yet the “deal fell through in the 11th hour, right before the terms sheet, because they lost faith in my ability to execute,” said Langdon.
Regardless of the motive, regardless of the controversy surrounding Entrecard’s decisions, regardless of the possible decline of Entrecard in the future, Entrecard has still been an incredible story of innovation, bootstrapping, and viral marketing. All these factors are key to a successful entrepreneur, for this reason Graham Langdon has proved better than many others his creative innovation, his bootstrapping success, and his ability to spread the word about Entrecard earns him the name Entrepreneur of the Year.
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Comments
Innovation is the most important part of Entrepreneurship coupled with the monetization of that innovation. We could’ve given it to Twitter founder, but there’s innovation without monetization. Langdon created something new and found money doing so. There may have been someone else who had higher revenues but most likely didn’t have the innovation behind those revenues.
so this is the story of graham and entrecard.
very interesting indeed.