If you were one of the 1,000 people who attended my How To Buy and Sell Sites on Flippa Webinar, then you got to hear Matt Mickiewicz gave some great tips on how to make money with the site selling service. I introduced Matt as the Flippa cofounder. However, I have a feeling many readers don’t know just how successful Matt really is. After this profile, you will.
At the age of 14, Matt Mickiewicz, became obsessed with design and read all he could find. He created a site call Sitepoint.com to share what he knew. Soon Matt was penning a column for Windows magazine and spending his high school lunch breaks selling Web ads in a Starbucks. He bought a BMW at 16 and his first home at 19.
Today, Matt heads a multimillion dollar Internet empire that includes the biggest webmaster site on the Net (Sitepoint), the biggest website buying and selling marketplace (Flippa), and the leading crowdsourcing platform for graphic design (99Designs). He runs it all from his home office in West Vancouver.
Last month, 99designs received a $35 million investment lead by Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capitalist, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners. Jim Breyer is Silicon Valley’s current king maker. Everything he touches turns to gold. Accel investments hits include Facebook, Groupon, Admob and many others. I would not be shocked to see Matt’s name on the Forbes Billion List soon.
From Humble Beginnings
Matt started his Internet venture as a hobby. He was compiling useful links and resources related to web development and online marketing back in 1997 and put it up as a one-page site on Geocities. It quickly gained traction and popularity. On April 1, when the price of domain name registration at Network Solutions dropped from $100/2 years to $70/2 years, he decided to purchase the domain name Webmaster-Resources.com.
Unfortunately, the choice of domain name came to haunt him, as another website occupied WebmasterResources.com (without the hyphen). When Windows Magazine did an article about Matt’s site, they left out the hyphen. That was a sign to Matt that his domain is not a name for the longterm. Webmaster-Resources.com became Sitepoint.com in March 2000. The rest is history.
Even with Matt’s tremendous success, he still takes time out to help others. He took time out of his vacation to do the Flippa webinar with me. Matt is a great example on the power of the Internet. I look forward to doing another webinar with him in the future.
Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...
Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.
One of the most common complaint (or excuse) I hear from potential new bloggers is they don’t know how to install WordPress. Terms like FTP and CPanel are like a foreign language and setting up a database might as well be setting up the space shuttle for a launch. Because of the technology barrier, many would-be bloggers never start their blogs...
{ 66 comments }
SitePoint is one of my favourite webmaster communities online. I admire the team behind it and their desire to succeed especially, with the Flippa move (that was one of their smartest ideas) obviously along with the likes of 99Designs!
I’m just looking forward to what’s coming next from this team!
Yeah sitepoint was simply great and they started monetization quite efficiently.
Though we have digital point as well but now people do not prefer much because of huge new bie ratio.
DigitalPoint sucks compared to most webmaster forums, the quality has gone down so much since I joined. Partly because Namepros users have migrated over.
Yes now there is only quantity … No quality.
Guys what do you think about the BHW ?
I really like BHW, even their Whitehat section provides value!
DP used to be a lot of fun and learn.
It now sucks. Mods there actually like to misuse their power.
SP still is the greatest resource for webmaster. I really enjoy hovering there.
I haven’t heard of BHW, is that BlackHatWorld?
There are way to many noobs on DigitalPoint. It’s sickening.
BHW is really good.One of the best feature there is buy/sell section
I think Warrior Forum is much better. Do you ever go there?
Yeah!! I go there. They have more IM resources than a normal webmaster forum.
I don’t even go to Digital Point any longer. It’s worthless.
Digital Point is nothing now
John,
I really enjoyed the Flippa webinar and hearing the words of wisdom from Matt. His story sounds incredible and what a young businessman he is.
At 14 years old I was busy skateboarding and trying to be cool. Matt was busy educating himself and beginning his journey into entrepreneurship. Time is of the essence, no sense in wasting too much of it.
Certainly he started at very begining stage and main thing is he picked the right industry ….
Doing right things on right time is the key to success
What is the right industry?
Great story. I love reading the how to stories.
Wow, I didn’t know SitePoint was started by someone so young. Way to go Matt!
I had no idea either. This really is a nice story. I really like reading about successful people!
Thats why we visit Johnchow.com
That is a truly inspirational story!
I wish to only be a fraction of that kind of success and I’d be super happy.
Didn’t know he lived in the lower mainland too.
Go Canucks Go!! WOOO.
Fraction … Not impressive.
Why dont you want full or double or triple ….
Well, because that’s a hard thing to get.
Well, not everyone starts a Sitepoint.com type site, now do they?
Great pleasure to read such inspiring stories
Really inspiring stuff. Interesting to see how one so young can be so successful
Inspiration is what you need in IM
Looking to imitate such success
Successful person start showing their sign at very begining stage and there is no doubt abou it … Matt is also one of them
Agree!!
Yeah, that’s true. Really amazing stuff! he definitely got a really early start.
Agree 101
Great real life life story. I LOVE it!
John … Why don’t you starting one monthly post or weekly post on successful internet business person.
Would love to know your opinion on it …
I think that is an Awesome idea ZK
I hope John does that. I would love to read posts on that.
I second that
I think he probably does that more frequently just by default.
he must post it weekly lol
Thanks for the inspiration John. I hope I can be that soon.
Good article and good business.
Awesome!!
This success story surely going to inspire a lot of people including me.
Man he will beat Mark of facebook too.
Sitepoint won’t ever beat Facebook, it’s just not that kind of site, but it is hugely successful.
that is literally impossible
Aside from being young and hot, he is a millionaire. I’m sure this guy is a chick magnet.
By reading the profiles of successful people I also have a passionate desire to be successful as well, but sarasa it all just a dream because until now I manage a blog that no one was willing to give the visit
Are there any suggestions for me how my blog can be crowded at the visit by everyone? …
Yes, you can do a few things to get visitors to your blog. Use Twiends to get Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers. Also social bookmark every article of yours. You have to use Stumbleupon. Even if you don’t have friends on there, you will get traffic from them. I know this because Google Analytics showed me I was getting traffic from there!! Also sign up to forums related to your niche and leave helpful comments on there. If your not sure what to write to help someone, research it for 10 minutes and then leave something helpful. And leave your url in your signature link. Create a bumper sticker for your car with your domain on it, this will get you traffic. And use Backpage to get traffic. And use keywords in your articles to get traffic from Google, when people type in your “keyword”. Use Google Keyword Tool to pick the best keywords that gets lot’s of Traffic with Low Competition. Those are easier to rank for! Hope this helps ya.
Hey john, saw on your skype it’s your birthday today! Happy birthday man
Happy Birthday John Chow. I hope you have a very awesome fun birthday with your family and friends!!
Happy Birthday John.
Missed 12th May by 48 hours
I wish I had the motivation and need to do great things at such a young age. I was doing web design but the idea of making money online was definitely not big in my head.
One thing that is left out from the story is how I met my Melbourne-based business partner, Mark Harbottle, in the Fall of 1999.
Mark was the Internet Marketing Manager, and one of the first employees at a software company in Australia (Sausage Software) that created & marketed an HTML editor called HotDog. Six months after I met Mark, he quit his day job to work the the project full-time while I was still finishing off High School. He also came up with the name SitePoint after becoming inspired by a billboard for Microsoft’s CarPoint website (if anyone remembers it).
Without him, it would be a whole different story.
i didnt know he was the one that created flippa and site point. great story of success.
Sitepoint use to be the best but quality has been going downhill for a long time. Now a days I prefer warriorforum.com.
Very interesting! Well done Matt! When you do what you truly love, doors and opportunities open up!
That’s for sure. It’s all about going after your passion. It’s amazing to hear that Matt just got $35 million in VC funding, not bad at all!
Amazing dude,That was a sign to Matt that his domain is not a name for the longterm.
I have seen his site Sitepoint.com…I checked this website and find it really good website.
great achievement requires more than dedication.Innovation is a must
Great review of Matt’s successes looking forward to seeing any new sites he comes up with!
Wow! What an amazing profile. I know all about Flippa, but didn’t know much about the guy behind the operation. This is really an encouraging story.
Matt you are so handsome boy..awesome look…
Great profile. Congrats to Matt on his successes, and I look forward to continuing to follow his progression.
It just goes to show what can happen when one puts their mind to something.
It looks like millionaires are getting younger and younger each year. I wonder who will be the youngest next year.
I’ve heard of Matt Mickiewicz before but i didn’t knew he was that succesfull. What can I say, I’m impressed. Very motivating story.