How a Failed Marketplace Led to a $30K/Month Content Writing Service

Who built it, and what they built

Sravani Sundeep is the chief executive officer of Apna Writer, a content writing service based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India. The company produces content for websites, blogs, emails, social media, advertisements, and press releases, serving clients ranging from digital marketers and bloggers to startups and established businesses.

The business started in July 2020 and has grown to a team of 10. It reports $30,000 per month in revenue and retains over 95% of its clients, according to the founder.

Where the idea came from

After her marriage, Sravani worked as a freelance writer and earned a decent income, but she felt self-employed rather than like a business owner. She also found the platforms she used to find writing work inadequate, which sparked the idea of building a better platform connecting writers and publishers.

A B.tech graduate with no business management background, she taught herself through internet research and built a marketplace connecting writers with publishers. She worked on that first venture for four years. It connected writers and publishers as intended, but she could not guarantee content quality because skilled writers were hard to find in India.

That dissatisfaction became the idea for Apna Writer: instead of an open marketplace, she would build a service around a hand-picked team of skilled writers, fixing every mistake from the first venture.