10 reasons to own shares in Hacker Noon today

4 weeks ago, Hacker Noon launched our first ever equity crowdfunding campaign.

For 2.5 years, we have created a successful independent tech blog, providing free stories for readers, quality free distribution for writers, a community-driven editorial line and high performing campaigns for sponsors. And now, we are raising funds for the first time. We believe you should own shares in Hacker Noon today.

In just 4 weeks, our equity crowdfunding campaign has achieved $690k+ raised from 574 investors. There are still 32 days left. Your investment can help us grow into the #1 independent tech blog on the web and keep us free of platform dependence. All platform dependence and venture investment create bias and vested interest. We want to amplify voices based on merit of their work and their story.

We believe NOW is the best time for you to invest in Hacker Noon, because:

1. Top 5k sites in the world rarely have total valuations this low.

There are 644 billion sites in the world & publishing platforms in the top 10k global Alexa ranking have a median Total Raise Amount of $28M (see chart below). We can and we will greatly improve our valuation when we successfully build our own content management designed around our workflow.

Hacker Noon vs. other Media Sites: Amount Raised vs. Global Alexa Ranking

Source:  Alexa (for ranking) & CrunchBase (for amount raised)

2. We have been profitable & cash-flow positive for the past 2.5 years.

It is rare for an early-stage startup to be immediately profitable like us (see our Profit & Loss chart below).

Hacker Noon Quarterly Revenue, Expense & Profit (Jan 2016 — September 2018)

Source: Hacker Noon's Quickbook Intuit

3. Our team is extremely lean.

Most other tech sites with similar traffic are much larger than us (see chart below). Going forward we will continue to stay lean with a team of 5.

Among 400+ publications/blogs that rank 1k-10k globally by Alexa, only 14.4% have fewer than 10 employees

Source: CrunchBase

4. We have never taken any investment because we didn’t need to.

We don’t even own a business credit card — 100% of our operating cost has been derived from our revenue. To build our own CMS, we are raising money for the first time. And what better way to showcase the power of our Hacker Noon community by doing an equity crowdfund first?

5. Our community of 7,000 contributing writers (and growing) is our biggest asset.

The new site will offer more benefits to contributing writers. Our contributing writers will actually gain their followers email addresses, have the opportunity to earn coins, and the call to action to their related business will be baked into the design. We will give our contributors choice & distribution.

6. Over 52% of customers have renewed or committed to renewing with us.

We’ve already pre-sold sponsorships for Hacker Noon 2.0 in 2019. This is possible because we believe sponsorship if done right is not evil. What’s evil is tracking users.

7. Over the past 3 years of publishing 20+ stories every single day, we’ve cultivated rare industry knowledge of how to publish wildly successful content.

Our library of ≈ 25,000 blog posts is something people keep coming back to. We will curate that knowledge in a cleaner way with the new site.

8. We are one of the internet leading publications in cryptocurrency& blockchain.

We saw the rise of blockchain through our own growth & we believe tokens are the future. We have the industry knowhow, the community & strong connections with blockchain companies. We are also introducing a points system for Hacker Noon 2.0 in preparation of a potential coin offering.

9. Support independent tech media for a better internet!

As many media sites take readers’ time, information, and currency in exchange for content, we want to remind you that by supporting Hacker Noon, you support what the internet was created for — freedom of information.

10. #FundtheFuture

We at Hacker Noon are big fans of equity crowdfunding since it's a great equalizing force. With the JOBS Act of 2015, anyone, not just accredited investors, can own shares in qualified private companies for as little as $100.