[thomasbachem]

I've built Germany's biggest online resume editor (https://lebenslauf.com), which started as a side project next to my main startup.

Some years ago a friend asked me to help her out with her resume, how to convert it into a proper PDF file etc. – busy and short of time as I was, I simply looked for some online tool to point her to.

Disappointed by the results of my search back then (2011) and motivated to fully design, code and market a small project on my own (after all those years mostly doing management), I started Lebenslauf.com and quickly got fascinated by the idea and technical challenges of a WYSIWYG CV editor.

For quite some time, it remained a side project where I'd spend about 4 hours per week maximum. Meanwhile the number of users grew slowly but steadily thanks to word-of-mouth from my friends and their friends and their friends...

After I sold my main startup in 2012, I finally found the time and fully realized the huge potential of Lebenslauf.com. So I started making it my main project in 2013 and at some point charged money for the created PDF files, which instantly led to five-figure revenues.

About one year later (2014), I sold it to https://xing.com (public company, essentially the German LinkedIn) for a higher seven-digit figure. I managed to get competing bids for it from multiple companies, so the whole sale process is a story of its own.

It's still astonishing to see what has grown out of it and how many people use it every day, and it was an exciting journey with totally different experiences than a venture-funded company.

[TheBiv]

>> I managed to get competing bids for it from multiple companies, so the whole sale process is a story of its own.

I am interested in hearing this story! :) Thank you for the original comment as well!

[thomasbachem]

Talks with other companies started when I planned to rent out white-labeled versions of the site to job portals etc., so they could have their very own branded CV editor and possibly get a revenue share.

During a lunch with the CEO of a German job portal, where we were talking about a white label, he asked me whether it was possible for them to get access to the CV data of my existing users. I replied "You'd need to buy the site then" without actually thinking about it. He in return asked for a price and I came up with 400k euros just to double it in an email hours later ("after carefully calculating again..." ooops double the price :D). When he still was interested, it struck me that a sale might be worth pursuing.

I then contacted his biggest German competitors to get counter offers, and they seemed pretty interested too. Funny anecdote: The CEO of one company told me that they're not actually interested at that price, but that I should tell the others they'd offer a million euros, just because he liked me and wanted his competitors to overpay. He even told me he would confirm that offer if they ask him. I didn't do it of course.

In contrast to the others, XING offered me a deal with a lower upfront payment but a huge earnout upside. I spent quite a few months tracking, testing and analyzing my users' behavior in regard to the earnout KPIs, calculating whether the deal would be better for me and of course negotiating during that time to make it even better.

That's essentially it, I tried to go into as many details as possible without getting into trouble :)

[thepredestrian]

Do you have any advice on websites that generate a decent amount of traffic and email subscribers but are not generating any revenue? I have a website exactly like that but I have no idea what to do with it, and was actually playing with the idea of selling the email list. Would appreciate any advice!

[nathan_f77]

Wow, that's amazing, congratulations! Are you retired now?

[thomasbachem]

Haha no, I'm building https://code.university in Berlin :)

[cloudjacker]

the irony (to people in this industry) is that if it was a venture funded company you would have made less to no money from that exit

[whamlastxmas]

Wouldn't the venture company simply have the right to refuse the purchase, and exercise it?

[cloudjacker]

Of course they would have, because they would have already have raised 2.1 million dollars to disrupt the online resume' market and wouldn't be thrilled to get a 7 figure buyout offer.

[luckystrike]

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing your experience here. We are also bootstrapping a similar product (https://www.resumonk.com) and it's been a great ride so far.

Can we get in touch with you and exchange notes? You are planning to launch an English version, so we might be competitors in near future. But I'm sure it's a big market and there is enough room for all of us. :-)

[OoTheNigerian]

What an awesome site!

Why didn't you have this in English?!!!! it would have been so much bigger than it was!

[thomasbachem]

The truth is that I kept the rights for international versions outside of Germany/Austria/Switzerland... So expect an English version soon :)

PS: I'm still looking for someone interested in marketing/managing the US/UK version of it in a joint venture / rev share setup.

[xeromal]

Would you be down to notify a list when this is done. Maintaining my resume is a huge pain and so far the only site I've been able to use is Resunate and your site is already leaps more user friendly.