Shadowing Practice: I make $32K/month from 3 simple, boring websites - Learn English Speaking with Video
Bir pratik modu seçin
Her mod tam ekran bir pratik odası açar.
227 cümleler
Cümleler çok kısa veya çok uzun ise, ayarlamak için Düzenle'ye tıklayın.
1
I run a portfolio of bootstrap SaaS companies that generate about $32,000 in MRR today.
2
This is Rashid, and he's a guy who's built three websites that make him over $30,000 every month.
3
The reason why they work is because...
4
But here's the interesting part.
5
These websites are not complicated.
6
They're actually quite simple, and they all kind of do the same thing.
7
To build a successful database product, I think it's possible in 2026 and the way you can approach it is.
8
So I asked Rashid to come onto the channel to break all this down.
9
And in this episode, we're going to dive into the exact three websites
10
that he's built and that make him over $30,000 a month, the non-obvious secret to why these websites work and how they make thousands of dollars every month.
11
And we're going to go over his advice for anyone who wants to build websites like these right now in 2026.
12
All right, let's dive in.
13
I'm Pat Walls.
14
This is Starter Story.
15
All right, Rashid, I am pumped to have you onto the channel.
16
Tell me about who you are, what websites you built, and what's your story?
17
Hey, my name is Rashid, and I run a portfolio of bootstrap SaaS companies that generate about $32,000 in MRR today.
18
And the main product is AngelMatch.
19
It's an all-in-one solution that helps startup founders find investors to raise capital.
20
And today I'm excited to share with you what lessons I learned along the way.
21
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
22
Awesome.
23
Well, I'm excited to talk all about these sites you built.
24
I think they're super cool.
25
Explain your three different websites in just a few sentences, how they work and how they make money.
26
Let's start with AngelMatch.
27
It's a database of like 125,000 angels and VCs.
28
We primarily focus on helping early stage startups who are raising capital.
29
The other one is InvestorHunt.
30
It's just an investor database product.
31
And the third one is Journalist Hunt.
32
It's a database of 200,000 journalists, which helps small businesses and media companies find journalists to get press coverage.
33
I love these kinds of websites.
34
Get all this data, put it in one place, make it useful for people that need to raise money or whatever it is.
35
There's so many cool ideas around this.
36
We're going to get into it.
37
But first, show me this is legit.
38
Show me how much money these businesses are making.
39
Could you do that?
40
Yeah, absolutely.
41
This one is Angel Match.
42
We are at 29,000 MRR as of today.
43
Active subscribers is 360 users.
44
Our trial conversion rate is 33%.
45
And as of now, Angel Match is bringing about 800 to 1,000 clicks per day across organic,
46
referral, direct, and a little bit of paid Facebook ads.
47
The prices for AngelMatch starts at $59 per month and we have a few thousand dollar prices as well.
48
So it depends on how many investors you want to reach out per month.
49
And this is InvestorHunt.
50
It's making $2,800 as of today.
51
For InvestorHunt, we don't do any marketing, it's just an SEO.
52
Also for InvestorHunt, it's basically $57, $97 and $297.
53
This is Journalist Hunt.
54
It's making $260 for Journalist Hunt.
55
We don't have that many users, but we see that people buy the basic and the middle tier, which ranges between $49 to $99 per month.
56
I personally love Rashid's approach to building, and specifically these businesses that he's built.
57
Why?
58
Because these business ideas don't chase some crazy AI trend or something like that.
59
They are just simple websites that actually work and have made money over the course of years.
60
Because I think the real lesson behind this story and these businesses is that these businesses solve a painful problem.
61
And in my opinion, that is the most important thing you can do
62
when you come up with a business idea and you want to make money online.
63
So you might be wondering, well, how do I find a painful problem to solve?
64
How do I find my idea and where should I even look for this?
65
Well, we've got something for you.
66
We've been working with the team at HubSpot to put together a free database of over 90 painful problems
67
that are worth solving right now in 2026.
68
Each of these problems and pain points can be turned into real businesses
69
and will even show you real businesses that are making money solving these problems right now.
70
We're going to map out all the data you might need, customers, cost to start, days to launch, everything.
71
So if you've been searching for business ideas and thinking about this idea of solving problems, then head to link in the description, download the database and you can get started.
72
Oh yeah, and it's 100% free.
73
All right, let's get back to the episode.
74
I think these sites are super cool.
75
So how do you get to this point where you have these three different websites that are crushing it, making over $30,000 a month?
76
So I'm not a technical founder.
77
I always relied on finding developers to build the websites.
78
I studied finance in college and in my last year of college, me and my college friend decided to build a fintech investment app.
79
We raised $100,000 from family and friends.
80
I maxed out my credit cards, got some personal loans.
81
So that money was not enough.
82
So we had to raise capital from like professional investors, so-called angels and VCs.
83
We decided to manually search through the internet and build like a list of investors to reach out to.
84
And that list actually helped us get into calls with some of the big VC names at that time and big angels.
85
That made me realize that first, cold emailing works, but second, finding the list of investors is such a tedious and time-consuming process. So yeah.
86
Yeah.
87
I mean, this is like super common.
88
I see this with a lot of founders is they go to build a business.
89
They experience some sort of problem while they're building this business.
90
And then that problem that they experienced was really painful and annoying like this, trying to find investors that you end up building another business on top of that.
91
So what did you do next?
92
How did you build it?
93
How did you take the next step after you saw this problem?
94
That time we were like early stage founders ourselves.
95
So we thought if it takes so much time and effort finding investors, maybe there are other founders out there who face the same problem.
96
So we decided to test this theory that we had by launching a product and seeing if we can get any traction.
97
So we built like 40,000 investors with a few people, and then we launched on Product Hunt.
98
That month we made like $4,000 and we saw that a lot of founders actually had the kind of issue that we had.
99
So this idea basically happened accidentally, like trying to solve our own problem.
100
Nice.
101
Obviously you launched this on Product Hunt, it was a cool new idea, made $4,000.
102
But how did you actually grow this into a business that now makes over $30,000 a month and has been, you know, a full-time income?
103
What was your marketing strategy for these sites?
104
So one day I was sitting in front of my computer
105
and I was looking at Google Analytics and I saw
106
that we are getting like 60 clicks per day on AngelMatch
107
and idea hit me so I was like thinking what
108
if I like 10x this traffic would that translate into like 10xing my MRR
109
and that's how I came across SEO we hired six content writers we started publishing blogs consistently.
110
At the same time with the tech team, we were building and launching like free tools and all types of valuable content for our users.
111
By doing that for like six months or eight months, our traffic started to grow.
112
And then basically from $3,000 MRR to $20,000 MRR, we grew through SEO and added like meta ads.
113
At highest point, we reached 43K in MRR.
114
Okay, cool.
115
Well, thank you for sharing that.
116
As someone who's been successful in this space, you built three successful sites.
117
What is the secret behind a successful directory database product that you've been so successful with?
118
The reason why they work is because they all solve a problem for our target audience.
119
We were targeting from the beginning, like early stage startups that are raising capital because we were ourselves early stage startup founders.
120
So I think that positioning also worked for us.
121
And also like there are tons of different database products.
122
You can build like a real estate investor database you can build like stock traders or something.
123
I think finding a niche is also important.
124
So on that point, I'd be curious if you have any ideas, if you were to start another one, you have any ideas on like where would be a good opportunity to start in 2026
125
based on everything you've seen and you're in the space?
126
I think there are lots of ideas you can work on.
127
You could build like a database of influencers that are categorized by maybe locations,
128
audience size, what they post about and put a paywall behind it.
129
I'm pretty sure people will be willing to pay for it.
130
And another idea would be a newsletter database.
131
You know, like there are lots of like sponsored content happening on newsletters and doing it manually takes time, right?
132
So if you just can curate and build a database of that, that could work.
133
Okay.
134
I mean, yeah, those are two great ideas.
135
Influencer database.
136
I've been seeing a lot of these pop up.
137
On that note, I'd be curious because you built multiple of these database sasses.
138
If you had to start over right now, what would be your actual steps that you would take if you had to start over in 2026?
139
To build a successful database product, the way you can approach it is through getting three things right.
140
So first, actually coming up with a database product or directory product idea.
141
You don't want to just start any kind of database or directory.
142
You need to start those that solves a particular problem, right?
143
Once you're building a database that solves a problem, the next step is start collecting the data and to get the data, you can manually build it like I did at the beginning.
144
If you're tech savvy, maybe you can build some automated systems and collect that data.
145
And the third step would be get as much eyeballs as you can, launch it and get the first feedback.
146
If you see that someone is willing to pay for it, some people are signing up, you have a good signal.
147
And I believe for directory and database products, SEO works very, very well.
148
So I would focus on programmatic SEO.
149
For us, it brings half of our revenue.
150
And if you do it consistently, you will get there.
151
If you are watching this far into the video, Rashid just gave up his sauce, which is programmatic SEO.
152
Do a Google on that one.
153
We also have some other videos on that.
154
Let's switch topics a little bit and talk about TechStack.
155
How specifically do you build a database SaaS in 2026?
156
And what do you recommend tools to use?
157
On the front end, we use Next.js.
158
On the back end, we use Nest.js.
159
We use PostgreSQL for database, and we use Ahrefs for SEO.
160
For hosting, we use DigitalOcean, and we also use Niles, which powers our email outreach inside of AngelMatch.
161
CloudFair to prevent bots from signing apps and for security.
162
And we use Klaviyo for email flows and marketing.
163
And finally, we use like J-Suite for emails.
164
It's not expensive.
165
It's like $62 per month on all apps.
166
Awesome.
167
Well, sounds like a pretty profitable business.
168
Love that.
169
The last question that we ask all founders who come on StarterStory, if you could go back in time before you had these successful apps,
170
what would be your advice to yourself or for anyone watching this that is looking for that first right idea to build?
171
I would say like, you should be patient, put in the word and never give up because there were like founders who were starting with me at that time.
172
And they were like making a lot, a lot more than what we are making right now, but they gave up and I don't see them anymore.
173
So I would say never give up, don't give up.
174
That's great advice.
175
What I love about this business, Rasheed, is we interview a lot of people who build apps that grow really, really fast, right?
176
But what I love about this business is that it's not an AI trendy business.
177
It's just a really, really solid business that will continue to grow
178
and compound when a lot of people are building businesses that go like this and then go to zero.
179
Thanks for coming on and sharing.
180
I think it's going to inspire a lot of people.
181
I'm sure there's going to be a lot of database products getting spun up after this video gets released.
182
So thanks for coming on.
183
Thank you so much for having me.
184
Appreciate it.
185
All right, Gus, producer of Starter Story.
186
What do you think of Rashid and these three businesses he built?
187
Well, one of the reasons I wanted to bring him on the channel is
188
because it's super different than some of the other stuff we've been recently covering.
189
I love that it was just like, I don't want to say old school business, because it's not like it's a brick and mortar or anything like that,
190
but it feels like a little bit of a quote older type of business database information that's still successful
191
and i thought
192
that was the most interesting thing about it i think the
193
question people are going to ask naturally is okay does this
194
still work you know can i still do this obviously rasheed
195
gave some ideas on what someone can go build things like
196
that but what's kind of your opinion on something like this yeah no i think he made a good point
197
that i might elaborate a little bit on which is like these work
198
because they solve a painful problem when you're starting a startup you need to find investors or else everything's over.
199
Your startup's going to go to zero and you're not going to make payroll.
200
There's a very painful problem finding investors and businesses are willing to pay for that.
201
And I think generally speaking, I don't think you're going to be successful with a directory or SaaS if it's not B2B.
202
So if you're building a B2C, I don't know, here's a directory of dog trainers or something like that.
203
That might be a little bit harder because he can charge $97 a month or whatever.
204
I can't remember exactly what his pricing was, but it was something like that.
205
So B2B, I think is really important.
206
Yeah.
207
A while back, we tweeted this thing.
208
It was like bookamagician.com.
209
Do you remember that case study?
210
Yeah.
211
But that's a good example, maybe of like a B2C thing that kind of didn't work versus something like this.
212
I did or there's I know there's a lot of these popping up right now, like influencer databases.
213
I've heard of like one called Side Shift that does kind of manages everything.
214
Maybe that's like an example of something that doesn't work anymore versus something that is.
215
So anyway, that's kind of what I was thinking about.
216
Yeah, the influencer databases are actually really smart.
217
I mean, influencers are sort of hard to find, hard to reach, and there are businesses that are booking those.
218
So I think that is probably one of the reasons those work.
219
Really, when it comes down to businesses like these, specifically his three successful database products, they solve a painful problem.
220
And that is the best thing that you can do if you want to find a business idea, find a painful problem and solve it.
221
So we're going to put in our description down there, our list of million dollar painful problems.
222
You can check out a bunch of painful problems and you can see examples of businesses that solve those painful problems.
223
That database is down there in the description.
224
I think you'll find some interesting ideas from there.
225
Maybe plug that into chat GPT or Claude, start playing around and find your database idea.
226
All right, guys, we'll see you in the next one.
227
Peace.
Uygulamayı İndir
Akıcı konuşmak için ihtiyacınız olan her şey
AI TelaffuzHer cümleyi puanla
IPA AlıştırmasıHer sesi ustalaştır
Kelime BilgisiKelime bankanızı oluşturun
Kelime OyunuOynarken öğrenin
📺 Aynı Kanal
B21
I Copied A Huge App. Now I Make $80K/Month
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
I cloned 3 apps and now make $35K/month
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
The Lazy Method: How I Build $10K/Month Apps
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
How I Work: $77K/Month Solopreneur
Business EnglishWorking Adults
✨ Video Öner
B2635
38 cümleler
Stop introducing yourself like this.
Business EnglishInterview EnglishDaily Conversation
B22
577 cümleler
Asking Millionaires How They Got Rich! (Silicon Valley)
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B21
181 cümleler
8 Years of Data Analytics Advice in 12 Minutes
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B22
697 cümleler
How To Write Words That Make People Buy (Full Course)
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B23
443 cümleler
pv content
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B21
179 cümleler
She learned one new skill that unlocked a $120K salary
Business EnglishInterview EnglishWorking Adults
B28
234 cümleler
How To Actually Land A Remote Sales Job (Untapped Methods)
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B26
35 cümleler
Steven Bartlett’s Secret To Business Success (Hint: It’s Not Hard Work)
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B21
486 cümleler
From $0 To $2M Trading Prop Firms In 20 Months
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B2171 cümleler
Interview Tips from a Senior Software Engineer... and a 4 year old
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B21
267 cümleler
ALL OF BUSINESS Explained in 20 Minutes
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Bu dersin kelimeleri ve konuşma notları
Bu videoda gölgeleme çalışması için 227 cümle ve 2797 kelime var. Konuşma bölümü 14:26 sürüyor. Konuşmacı hızlı konuşuyor, dakikada yaklaşık 194 kelime; bu yüzden birbirine bağlanan ve zayıflayan sesler duyacaksınız. Kelimelerin %84’i İngilizcede en sık kullanılan 3.000 kelime arasında; geri kalanına başlamadan önce bakmakta fayda var.
Bu videodaki önemli kelimeler
Videodan öğrenmeye değer 15 kelime, telaffuzu ve anlamıyla:
| Kelime | Telaffuz | Anlam |
|---|---|---|
| database isim | /ˈdeɪtəˌbeɪs/ | veritabanı, veri tabanı |
| solve fiil | /sɒlv/ | çözmek, halletmek |
| investor isim | /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/ | yatırımcı, sermayedar |
| founder isim | /ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/ | kurucu |
| directory isim | /dɪˈɹɛktəɹi/ | dizin, klasör |
| angel isim | /ˈeɪ̯n.d͡ʒəl/ | melek, ferişte |
| lesson isim | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | ders, çimke |
| curious sıfat | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | meraklı |
| journalist isim | /ˈd͡ʒɝnəlɪst/ | gazeteci |
| collect fiil | /ˈkɑlɪkt/ | katılmak, toplamak |
| consistently zarf | /kənˈsɪstəntli/ | devamlı, aralıksız |
| portfolio isim | /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/ | portföy, cilbent |
| dive fiil | /daɪv/ | dalmak |
| newsletter isim | /ˈn(j)uzˌlɛtɚ/ | haber bülteni |
| topic isim | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | mevzu, tema |
Duyacağınız deyimsel fiiller
| Kelime | Anlam |
|---|---|
| check out fiil | gözden geçirmek |
| come across fiil | karşıdan karşıya geçmek |
| put together fiil | birleştirmek, bir araya getirmek |
| start over fiil | baştan başlamak |
Dikkat edilecek telaffuzlar
Konuşmacı don't, I'm, you're gibi kısaltılmış biçimleri 46 kez kullanıyor. Bunları duyduğunuz gibi kısa söyleyin.
- “sh” ve “zh” sesleri: conversion /kənˈvɝʒən/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/
- Uzun kelimeler — vurguyu doğru yere koyun: directory /dɪˈɹɛktəɹi/, manually /ˈmænj(u)əliː/, consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/, portfolio /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/
Bu videoyla nasıl çalışılır
- Videonun tamamını konuşmadan bir kez dinleyin ve bilmediğiniz kelimeleri not edin.
- 0,75× hızla başlayın, cümle cümle tekrar edin ve kolaylaşınca normal hıza dönün.
- Kendinizi kaydedin ve orijinaliyle karşılaştırın; database, solve, investor gibi kelimelere özellikle dikkat edin.
Bu videodaki dil bilgisi
Konuşmacının en çok kullandığı yapılar, videodaki sözcüklerin aynısıyla:
| Yapı | Videoda |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — önceden başlayıp hâlâ süren bir eylem | We've been working · you've been searching · I've been seeing |
| Koşul cümleleri if + cümle, will/would + fiil — bir koşul ve sonucu | if I like 10x this traffic would that · if you do it consistently, you will get |
| Present perfect have/has + fiilin üçüncü hâli — geçmişte olan ama şimdi de önemli olan bir eylem | have made · has been · who's been |
| İlgi cümlecikleri who / which + cümle — bir kişi ya da şey hakkında ek bilgi | anyone who wants · sauce, which is · people who build |
Gölgeleme Tekniği Nedir?
Gölgeleme, başlangıçta profesyonel tercüman eğitimi için geliştirilen ve çok dilli Dr. Alexander Arguelles tarafından popüler hale getirilen, bilim destekli bir dil öğrenme tekniğidir. Yöntem basit ama güçlüdür: ana dili İngilizce olan bir sesi dinler ve hemen yüksek sesle tekrar edersiniz — konuşmacıyı 1-2 saniye gecikmeyle takip eden bir gölge gibi. Pasif dinleme veya dilbilgisi alıştırmalarının aksine, gölgeleme beyninizi ve ağız kaslarınızı gerçek konuşma kalıplarını eşzamanlı olarak işlemeye ve yeniden üretmeye zorlar. Araştırmalar, telaffuz doğruluğu, tonlama, ritim, bağlı konuşma, dinleme anlama ve konuşma akıcılığını önemli ölçüde geliştirdiğini göstermektedir — bu da onu IELTS Konuşma hazırlığı ve gerçek dünya İngilizce iletişimi için en etkili yöntemlerden biri yapar.