Seven years ago, Nick Veneris was faced with a question that daunts many new college graduates. “Do I follow my heart or go for job security?” Then twenty-something Veneris said, “I opted for the latter.”
Fast forward to 2011 and Nick’s big risk paid off. Learn how Nick Veneris, founder of Xomba.com – an online publishing platform and social network for writers – bootstrapped his way to success and why giving away $500,000 isn’t such a bad idea.
Company: Xomba
Founder, Age: Nick Veneris, 32
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
Industry: Financial Services
Startup Year: 2006
Startup Costs: $10,000
How I Got Started:
Upon graduating from the University of North Florida in 2004, I was faced with every new grad’s conundrum: Do I follow my heart or go for job security? I opted for the latter.
I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t quite ready – or well enough established – to gain a foothold in the dog-eat-dog writer’s market. I brainstormed, studied and brainstormed some more.
The solution I found: Offer young writers like myself an online publishing platform. Better yet, share the revenue the site makes with the users of the site; simple, elegant, effective and profitable.
With the help of a close friend – and silent partner – and a relatively small capital investment, I settled into my bedroom “office” and began building Xomba.com, a place where writers of any skill level can publish their work, benefit from the site’s high traffic of 8 million page views per month, meet and learn from other writers and make a few dollars in the process.
That was five years ago. Now Xomba employs five staff members and we gave nearly $500,000 to our users last year alone.
Best Success Story:
We launched a new innovative website this year without any outside funding. The site now incorporates a host of social networking features along with a new focus on the user.
In the coming months, we will be expanding our reach into what we are calling “channels”: topic-specific niche sites comprising a new Xomba publishing network. Think of the new Xomba as a social networking site for people who love to write. We’re ushering a new age of writing online.
Biggest Startup Challenge:
Our biggest challenge initially was the lack of engineering staff. Being a bootstrapped company, we couldn’t just go out and hire a team of programmers.
#1 Tip for New Entrepreneurs:
Take risks. I wish we would have taken more risks and I’ve applied that philosophy moving forward.
© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.
In this article
