This week,
Website Planet‘s Marko Velimirovic had the opportunity to speak with Wences Garcia, the CEO of marketgoo. We discussed the company’s beginnings, what services it offers, and what is in the pipeline for the near future.
Please present marketgoo to our audience
marketgoo provides DIY SEO tools to the Web Presence industry so they can resell them. What this means is that Hosting providers offer our solutions to their end customers, who are usually SMBs and small shops located all around the world.
Companies such as Newfold, DreamHost, Mijndomein, WHMCS and Hostinger among others have partnered with us. We also have partnered with Vendasta so that Digital Agencies and Freelancers can offer marketgoo as well.
We are a bootstrapped company, doing 6 figures ARR with a team of 15 people in a fully-remote distributed model.
Please describe the story behind the company: What sparked the idea, and how has it evolved so far?
I started my professional journey in the world of the early Internet, working for ISPs and as employee #1 for a web hosting company. After 9 years of the corporate grind, I gave into my dreams of being an entrepreneur. Having spent so much time in a single industry gave me the knowledge and skills to identify a gap in the market around SEO, Hosting Companies, and SMBs.
Along with my co-founder, we started by founding an SEO Agency which did well enough but still didn’t scratch the itch of developing and growing a product. We had developed some automated solutions for internal use by the Agency, and that was the seed for marketgoo.
We chose the Web Hosting niche and developed a distribution platform to help this segment. It all began with a pilot, then some trade show exhibitions, and finally, some agreements started rolling in.
As mentioned before, we are and have always been, bootstrapped. This means we went through some very tough times, but it was worth not facing extreme pressure from VCs to grow unsustainably.
We got through those difficult phases and through our distribution model with Partners, grew into a very profitable business. Our gross margins are very high and talent is our main cost center.
What services do you offer?
Our SEO solutions include:
- Free SEO Reports: an instant audit and overview of how your website’s online visibility and adherence to SEO best practices.
- DIY SEO tools: marketgoo Pro and marketgoo Lite are web-based tools that detect your SEO issues and guide you to resolving them. marketgoo Lite is an SEO tool for starters that is only available through our Partners. marketgoo Pro offers a complete SEO plan including detailed reports, competitor and keyword tracking, and guided step-by-step instructions on how to fix your site’s issues.
- Tier Zero: an SEO data API solution that scans websites, collects internal and other third-party data, and makes all of this information and data points available to our Partners, on any interface they want. This can be used by web hosting companies and also by digital agencies.
We are also experimenting with adjacent opportunities, such as SEO Reporting tools for Agencies and Freelancers. We have a beta launching soon for Badger, and the waitlist is open!
What is the mission of marketgoo?
Our
why is to build a company with a unique culture that creates impactful digital products.
Who are your typical customers, and what do you think is the main challenge that your product solves for them?
- Web Hosting Companies: as mentioned above, they have the need to offer their customers solutions to help them increase their websites’ online visibility. There are many SEO tools out there, but most are aimed toward SEO experts and professionals, who are not on a shoestring budget. marketgoo was built for non-tech-savvy users, who do not have the budget to invest in expensive tools, not have the skills to use complex software. So the Hosting partner is able to offer them a DIY solution under their own brand, and help them get found online without breaking the bank.
- Digital Agencies: digital marketing agencies and freelancers offering SEO services to their clients often want to either sell an SEO tool to their customers or want a cost-effective and simple way to fulfill SEO services. marketgoo allows them to do both, and with the monthly report that is sent out to website owners, they can show the website’s progress and the value of their work.
- SMBs: small businesses and bloggers also acquire marketgoo directly from us to improve their website’s rankings in search engine results. They aren’t SEO experts but are willing to put in some work to improve their site’s SEO, and they don’t want to blow their budget on expensive and professional-grade software.
What are the plans for the company for the near future?
We want to move forward in diversifying our product portfolio and business lines, as well as continuing to expand our business with web hosting companies, where we have found excellent product-market fit and product-channel fit. Our Culture continues to be one of our fundamental pillars, and as Head of Culture, I want to continue to build and refine the way we work and how we use marketgoo as a vehicle to live our best lives.
