ViralNova uses a story-based headline to attract attention and often makes users go crazy after being posted on social networks.

Webmaster Home (chinaz.com) Note: Foreign sites ViralNova entrepreneurs are how to do the power of one person, so that the site value of 100 million dollars? In the process of personal entrepreneurship also encountered setbacks. The founder DeLong finally chose to sell the site, not the site's poor operation, and what is the reason? The following is an introduction to DeLong's entrepreneurial journey.

Zealot Networks, a digital media company, acquired ViralNova, with a total valuation of $100 million. ViralNova is a type of media similar to BuzzFeed, whose creator is Scott DeLong. Of course, there is also an interesting story behind DeLong's creation of the ViralNova website.

For a long time, ViralNova's entire site was created entirely by DeLong and two free contributors. In their efforts, ViralNova developed to the same size as BuzzFeed, which is estimated to be 100 million readers per month, and this is done on the site without anyone investing or hiring any employees.

ViralNova Web site was founded in 2013, on every page of the site has launched Google ads. Within 8 months, such a simple way of operating a yearly income of millions of dollars. ViralNova uses a story-based headline to attract attention and often makes users go crazy after being posted on social networks.

The article title resembles:

"It might look like A Normal chandelier. But when you stand underneath It and look up ... Wow.

This guy's Crazy idea Started to make his Wife nervous. But it was Worth it, Trust Me. "

ViralNova's development is mainly because Facebook, for example, elitedaily, Upworthy, distractify, and so on almost all at the same time, their published articles are widely spread on Facebook, the site will increase by tens of millions of per month readers.

Over the past year, Facebook has changed the newsfeed algorithm to allow users to see less irrelevant content, thereby suppressing the spread of viral websites. Many of ViralNova's competitors have been killed, and DeLong's business has also suffered. In 2014, he ran the website on Twitter in a similar way.

However, the final result of ViralNova may be the most successful. DailyMail recently bought Elitedaily,mic for $50 million and raised tens of millions of of its funds, mainly by Twitter. and Upworthy and Distractify also slowly lonely.

ViralNova is not always like a leader. DeLong also have setbacks when they want to throw in the towel.

DeLong, a 32-year-old from Ohio, had built many websites and sold them, seemingly experienced, but he was not a mature CEO. At the age of 20, he made a Web site, earning $500 a month using Google ads, and soon after the site was established, he graduated from college.

"Whenever I open my eyes, I think if I make $500 a month, then I can make $5000," DeLong recalls, thinking there is no end in the Internet world.

DeLong's Next Web site, Godvine, has been more successful, and the site has made it easy to use Facebook's huge female community to provide a story that resonates with excitement, becoming the top 1500 site for Alexa, and later DeLong sold the site to Salem Communications.

ViralNova destined to become a larger version of Godvine,viralnova released viral content. DeLong was bored while working in Barcelona and created ViralNova. Later he moved back to Ohio, a surprise for the speed at which the site was created.

But in the eight months after ViralNova went live, January 2014 DeLong found that a person running such a site was under too much pressure. His website is like a empty Wordpress,viralnova has too high traffic, DeLong want to add any little content in the site will affect traffic. Although the net income of DeLong reached $ millions of, the work behind it was very strong. Work on average 16 hours a day, even weekends can not rest. He was soon exhausted and hired an agent to find a website buyer.

Surprisingly, there are not many buyers in ViralNova, but there are a lot of people who want to invest. Silicon Valley venture capitalists have offered to invest $ millions of to make ViralNova a substantial business, but DeLong refused.

"I don't want to be responsible for recruiting, I don't want to open an office. I like to do what I like and I hate stress. "DeLong to BI.

 

New York entrepreneur Sean Beckner also tried to persuade DeLong to keep doing it. In January 2014, Beckner learned that DeLong wanted to sell ViralNova and sent an email to DeLong that he could buy part of ViralNova. Under the agreement, DeLong can get paid and get the way it wants to work, while further expanding its website business. After two months of consultations, two people reached a consensus.

Later Beckner became CEO and CFO of ViralNova, while Jeff Geurts served as vice president and Shaun Tilford as CTO.

Tilford built a custom CMS and called the team Nova, adding a Social data analysis tool that would test two different titles at the same time which would be better. Previously freelance writer Sara Heddleston, who worked with DeLong, became the editor of the website and hired 12 writers. In addition also hired a professional sales team, ViralNova monthly website page views broken billion.

Now, ViralNova has 22 full-time employees and is expected to generate $35 million in revenue this year. The company is likely to move to Zealot Media's California headquarters in Venice. Although DeLong has promised to continue working in ViralNova, Zealot networks is generous and gives him more treatment than he needs.

When asked whether or not to work 16 hours a day, DeLong replied: "The current way of working is much better, I also have a private life."

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ViralNova uses a story-based headline to attract attention and often makes users go crazy after being posted on social networks.