I am excited to announce that we are the new owners of Sourcely, an innovative AI-powered source finding tool that makes research easier for students. We are committed to building on the great foundation laid by the previous owners and taking Sourcely to even greater heights (MRR!).
Wait… we? Yes sir — I bought this business with a partner: @elmanmansimov. He’s worked with DeepMind and Google before and is currently at AWS. He has his Ph.D. in AI from NYU, is an AI GOAT, and will be the technical genius behind Sourcely going forward.
How It Started
Me being the young savvy business genius I am — I easily convinced him to partner up. Fast forward a month later, on 22 May, we closed the deal for Sourcely at $4,000 (8x multiple of MRR). It was a great price mainly because college had just ended for the summer and we suspected many users would churn over the next few weeks. The old owners also really wanted to sell.
How Did We Find Sourcely?
Originally on Microns.io — but at that time they had received an offer for $7,000, feeling the price was too high, we let it go. Then I came across them again on Acquire.com at a lower price. We quickly finished the deal after that for $4,000 with Elman and I both buying in.
We recognized the potential the site had — it was at a decent MRR through organic traffic with a subpar landing page. Optimize a few things, add more features, and we could provide a lot more value.
Why Sourcely? Our Future Goals
As a student, I have dealt with the source-finding problem many times. I felt I had a good idea of the market, its problems, and a network to act as initial channels of distribution. You will see building for students, as a student, be a common theme around here.
In the next 12 months, we hope to 10x Sourcely to $5,000 MRR before evaluating a sale at 4x $60K ARR = $240K.
So How Are We Going to Turn $4K → $240K?
First order of business is to optimize everything to improve conversion rates and traffic. That includes remaking the website with better copy, a better landing page, and adding guides and videos on how to use the tool — since we notice many users inputting essays incorrectly into the chatbot. Along with this we will begin implementing SEO through a blog and promoting more seriously on socials.
After that we are experimenting with the pricing system — adding a pay-as-you-use token pricing system to complement the monthly subscription. We are also considering a plagiarism checker and citation formatting generator.
The Big Picture
You guys knows how much I love my big picture view so find below a chart of Sourcelys larger vision and planned features roll out. I had so much fun thinking about this and making this chart! It really reminded me of why I wanna do this stuff which is just to build and have fun with it
The dream would be for Sourcely to become the go-to tool for students to help with essay writing. Take a minute to try Sourcely — you just input your essay and let the AI search Google Scholar for relevant sources. Best of all, it’s incredibly easy to use.
There are obvious synergies with Eleven59 — similar target markets — so this will essentially be the first Eleven59 tool for students. Let’s work together to make Sourcely the best tool for students across academic disciplines, from high schoolers to PhD candidates.