Mark Jenney: from living behind a tire shop to over $1 million a month with a free website builder
He grew up without a shower. Before he was old enough to rent a car he had a business making over $1 million a month from a product he gave away for free, and he was running it by hand. Then he blew it, started 30 businesses, and built RVshare. Here is how the free builder made money, and what you can copy.
Overview
For about two years, Mark Jenney's family lived in a small storage room behind a tire shop. There was a sink but no shower. "We'd get a washcloth and throw some soap on it and kind of wash up. That was how we bathed." At McDonald's, his dad would buy one 59-cent hamburger and cut it in half for Mark and his brother.
At 13, wealthy cousins flew him to New York for a week: a penthouse on Park Avenue, a compound in the Hamptons. "It was really one of the first times I ever saw people who were happy." He came home, bought "stock market for dummies" books with what he had saved, and started his first business on eBay the next summer.
The free builder
This was before Wix and Squarespace. Mark built a website builder for people who wanted to make sites promoting other people's products as affiliates and earn commissions.
The builder was completely free. The catch: to get access, you had to sign up for web hosting through his affiliate link. Every new user paid him through the hosting company, not through him. "I went from an idea to a business that was making over a million dollars a month in a very short duration of time."
Built by hand
He could not code. "I was a hack HTML programmer at best." The first version of his "website builder" was an online form: your affiliate link, what color you want, what your site is about. He took each form and edited the HTML himself.
"At one point in time I was either building or editing hundreds of websites a day by hand. I was literally in front of a computer for like 14 or 15 hours a day. Copy paste, copy paste, copy paste." Users even sent him their hosting logins and email passwords. "I was the website builder."
The numbers
| Figure | Number |
|---|---|
| Price of the builder | Free |
| How he got paid | Hosting signups through his affiliate link |
| Revenue | Over $1 million a month, within a short time of starting |
| Hours at the peak | 14 to 15 a day, editing sites by hand |
| His age | About 21, already a millionaire |
| Businesses since | 30+ |
| RVshare's latest round | KKR, a little over $100 million (his words) |
What came after
He blew it
"I had the huge mansion with all the cars. More cars than I could fit in my garage. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley." Chartered jets to Miami with friends. "My mom always told me you should be investing. In hindsight, yeah, Mom was right."
He shut down businesses that worked
If a business made $100,000 or $200,000 a year but he did not want to do it forever, he shut it down the next day. "In hindsight I was an idiot. I should have hired somebody."
30 businesses, then one
Digital publishing, SEO, health supplements he did not believe in. "I felt like a snake oil salesman." A friend asked him: are there any happy old rich guys doing what you are doing? He quit the supplements, went all in on one idea, funded it from his savings and his rentals, and built RVshare. Investors including KKR later bought in at a little over $100 million. Today he runs a resort-style Airbnb portfolio.
Do what he did: step by step
1. Give the tool away, get paid by the platform.
Do this: find a service your users must buy anyway (hosting, software, a marketplace) that pays affiliates, and make your free product the reason they sign up.
2. Do it by hand first.
Do this: start with a form and do the work yourself. Automate only after people are paying.
3. Sell to people chasing income.
Do this: his users were affiliate marketers trying to make money, the most motivated buyers there are.
4. Keep what works and hire, do not shut it down.
Do this: if a business makes money but bores you, hire someone to run it before you walk away.
5. Pick one thing and go all in.
Do this: ask his question: are there happy old rich people doing what you are doing? If not, change direction.
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Sources
- Noah Kagan, interview with Mark Jenney, founder of RVshare (YouTube, full transcript)
