How a Failed Startup Led to a $10K/Month Finance Blog
After losing over $20,000 on a failed software startup, Pardeep Goyal built CashOverflow.com into a personal finance blog earning roughly $10,000 per month, mostly through affiliate marketing to Indian consumers.
Founder · X
Part of SEO-led growth
Business snapshot
Monthly revenue
$10K/mo
reported Feb 2020
- Business model
- Content website
- Started
- May 2015
- Team
- Solo founder + 7 staff
- Based in
- Chandigarh, India
- Monthly revenue
- $10,000 per month
- Credit card affiliate earnings
- Rs. 45,00,000 (approx $65,000) in 2018
- Monthly traffic
- 2,000,000 in mid-2017
- Email subscribers
- 20,000
- Paid customers
- more than 1000
Tools
- ConvertKit
- Asana
- RoboForm
- Todoist
- Google Calendar
- WordPress
- Teachable
Founder-reported figures, not independently verified.
Who built it, and what they built
Pardeep Goyal founded CashOverflow.com, a personal finance site based in Chandigarh, India, that helps readers manage money with the goal of becoming financially independent. The site won a best personal finance blog award in 2017.
The business brings in approximately $10,000 per month from several income streams, with affiliate marketing as the largest. It also sells online courses and helps startups set up content marketing on a zero budget.
Where the idea came from
Pardeep spent 2006 to 2013 working at an IT company, including two years living in the US. Unhappy with the work culture despite good pay, he returned to India, quit, and put all his savings into a small software company.
That startup failed with a loss of over $20,000. To cover monthly bills he took freelance writing work, and in 2015 he started a blog simply to practice the digital marketing he was learning, sharing personal finance hacks that had helped him through hard times.
“I learned from the failure of my startup that we should launch products after understanding the pains and gains of the target audience.”
He had no formal financial education but read heavily about investing and taxation. Some articles took off on social media and Google, including one about making money online in India that has collected more than 500 comments.
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