How to? The Start-Up Story Of eHow.com And Courtney Rosen

Ehow.com is one of the biggest content sites nowadays. The site has a couple of millions of high-quality articles on whatever topic you could imagine. There you can also watch thousands of interesting videos, tutorials, research, and many more great materials. Its main business idea is to be a place, where users are able to find the answer to any question beginning with “How to” – from how to mow your lawn, to how to launch a shuttle in the open space. Every month more than 40 million people from around the world visit the site and their number has been constantly growing.  According to its revenue and profit, the site was valued at 1.8 billion of dollars in 2011. Ehow.com has become a huge and powerful online media and it’s growing further. What do they do? Nothing special, their main activity is simply publishing high-quality articles.

How the Site Was Started

eHow.com (screenshot)

In 1999, a guy named Courtney Rosen decided to start an online business. At that time, online companies were really hot, this was the time of the so-called “Dot Com Boom”. Courtney easily managed to raise $25 million in venture capital and finance his enterprise. He hired 200 professional writers and some computer geeks to take care of the technical stuff. In a very short time, in 2001, the site already had more than ten thousand articles and more than 300 000 visitors per day. But despite the fast growth of the portal, it was still unable to make net profits. Then came the burst of the tech bubble and because of the lack of earnings, the funding for the site dried up. Having no money to support it, the project was sold to “Idea Exchange”, by its founder. The new owner had plans to make the site a paid service and charge users for access to the how-to tutorials. This turned out to be not a great idea. Ehow.com was still losing money and this didn’t change for the next couple of years. That’s why, in 2004, “Idea Exchange” decided to sell the site to two guys – Josh Hannah and Jack Herrick.

The two new owners ran the site all by themselves, without employees and technical staff. They made some changes and improvements, simplified it, and made it more user-friendly. They also started a subproject – WikiHow, where every visitor could register and publish his/her articles. Slowly, but steadily ehow.com was coming back to life. When the two online entrepreneurs bought it (2004), it had around 240 000 visitors per month. By the middle of 2006, this number had increased 15 times to nearly 4 000 000 per month.

Reaping the Profits

In 2006, Hannah and Herrick decided to sell ehow.com to Demand Media, cashing in a nice profit from the deal. The new owners wanted to expand the site fast, so they launched weHow.com, where the registered users were able to publish their content. Soon, ehow.com and weHow.com merged. The content started growing fast, in 2007, the number of articles was around 135 000. Only a year later, there were more than 330 000. In 2010, the articles hosted reached 2 000 000.

This is how a $1.8 billion business was created. Because of the too many writers, the quality of the materials decreased and the quantity greatly increased. The site had become one of the so-called “content farms”. These types of sites were penalized by major search engines in 2010, which caused a 40% decrease in traffic.

eHow.com Today

When it comes to finding answers to just about anything, eHow.com is an invaluable resource. From kitchen tips to fixing a clogged drain, eHow.com helps users solve those perplexing issues both big and small. Whether someone needs to know how to plant a garden or the best way to buy a car, eHow.com is there to offer assistance.

eHow.com offers an incredible range of articles and videos on topics like cooking, arts & crafts, health and wellness, business, home & garden, finance, technology, and more. All information is sourced from real experts in their fields and not merely aggregated from other websites. Furthermore, each article is labeled with a rating so you can easily find the best sources when browsing eHow.

For users looking for more comprehensive information, eHow.com also offers step-by-step tutorials and how-to videos for just about anything. Get clear visuals and have professional advice right at your fingertips with these tutorials. You even have the option of emailing the article’s author if you have further questions or need specific advice.

The website itself is incredibly user-friendly and allows you to search for topics by keywords or browse the topics alphabetically. You can also narrow your results by category and subcategory. Additionally, eHow.com has separate sections for Q&As, images, and community forums. Users also have the option to save and print articles for offline reference.

eHow.com also provides information about various career paths and how to best prepare for successful job searching. From interviewing tips to resume mechanics, their career section is a great resource for anyone in the job market. eHow.com’s tools and advisors are available free of charge and you don’t even have to sign up for the service – all you need to do is go to the website and start looking.

Whether you’re a teacher, a stay-at-home mom, or perhaps a student, eHow.com can be an essential resource in getting things done. With credible information sourced from professionals and plenty of interactive tools, eHow.com should be the first stop for anyone looking for practical and achievable solutions.

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