BMWBLOG.com is one of the most important sources of information for BMW fans and owners worldwide, has millions of pages visited every month, and it is acknowledged by many as an important online publication. The Romanian edition of the blog, www.bmwblog.ro, has won the 3rd place in the annual Webstock awards, in the Best Company & Brand blogs category.

Some important figures for bmwblog.com: in between 1.6 -2 million pageviews/month, close to 1750 followers on Twitter and around 8,000 RSS readers.

The founder of BMWBLOG is Horatiu Boeriu, a Romanian born citizen who has been living in Chicago, US, since 2000. Besides being an online entrepreneur, Horatiu also works full-time for one of the Big Four accounting firms.

We wanted to know what it takes to be successful on such a small niche, and how he copes with his double life: employee vs. entrepreneur, so we asked him a few questions.

“We Were the First to Enter this Niche and Provide Real-time News”

Let’s start with a short history of the BMWBLOG project: how you started, how was the market at that moment, who were your competitors, how you promoted the website.
H.B.: BMWBLOG project was started three years ago, but under a different name; initially it was just a blog where I used to write a few times a month about my passion for BMW cars and my experience of picking up the car in Europe and bringing it to US. The name was changed to BMWBLOG.com in February 2008.

Three years ago people relied on BMW forums to get information and share impressions. Since I believe in innovation and noticed the potential of blogs and their fast rise in the online media, I decided to start a blog/online magazine covering the BMW brand.

At that time, newspapers and magazines were still the most important source of information, while blogs were slowly gaining momentum in the online medium.

The BMW brand is one of the most powerful brands out there and not only because they make wonderful engineered cars, but also because of the strong and loyal communities built by BMW owners and fans. In a nutshell, BMW fans are very passionate and loyal.

By entering this niche, I wanted BMWBLOG to become the one-stop shop where they could find the latest news, spy pictures; photo galleries, test drives and anything related to BMW.

I believe the key to the success of this project was innovation, since we were the first to enter this unique niche and the first to provide a new method of delivering news. Car magazines were still highly respected since they offered in-depth analysis of BMW models and industry trends. Their editors were backed by many years of experience in delivering auto news and test drives, but what they couldn’t offer were real-time news, information that didn’t have to go through 2-3 layers of editors in order to make it to print.

This was the main advantage of a blog at that time. Naturally we’ve made many mistakes, not only us, but also others who entered the blogging world. With every mistake we made, the more we learned and became better at what we do. One of my main goals from the beginning, was to become a reliable source of information and not only a website full of speculations, rumors and re-written news.

For a while we promoted our website through BMW forums with large communities, but we stopped shortly after since we didn’t want to be perceived as spammers. So, I focused on creating original content knowing that soon important, credible and large automotive outlets would start to quote us in their articles. Also, by participating to all the large auto shows across the U.S., I’ve created some connections with other blog editors, such as Autoblog, Jalopnik or Worldcarfans, who helped us from time to time with links to our website.

Third, I spent a lot of time learning about online marketing and SEO, so I’ve managed to bring organic traffic on the site.

The Biggest Challenge Was Building a Community

What were the challenges you encountered along the way?
H.B. One of the main challenges we encountered was building a respectable online entity, a network of automobile blogs that will gain respect from all the major car blogs, online and print magazines, and other auto industry publications. This was our goal from day one and we wanted to become more than just another car news website.

Of course, there were many other challenges, not limited to: costs, infrastructure, technology and marketing.

How did the blog evolve in time? When did you bring in other people on the team?
H.B. The blog grew through organic traffic and in the meantime a loyal community evolved around it and played an important role in the continuous growth of this project. The first collaborators joined the team at the beginning of 2008; overall there were more than 30 people writing for us, not in the same time, of course. Currently the team is made of 4 people, but I still write most of the posts on the blog.

How soon did you get noticed by BMW and how’s been the collaboration with them so far?
H.B. Our merits were acknowledged last year, when along with the blog’s growth, there was a clear increase in the level of professionalism, both in creating original content and relating the news. Meanwhile, by participating to all the important auto shows in the US, we established a great business relationship with BMW North America. We are honored to be invited by them to new product launches and motorsport events in the U.S.

Which are the other websites in the network, besides bmwblog.com?
H.B. The blogs are registered under iMedia Network which includes the following:
- BimmerToday.de, the largest BMW news blog in Germany;
- bmwblog.ro – first blog for the BMW brand created in Romania
- Koolro.com – first social network developed for Romanians living abroad
Two of these projects were in the final round at Webstock 2008/2009 and bmwblog.ro even won the 3Rd place this year in the Best Brand Blogs category. There are still two projects I’m involved in, which were recently launched, but I’m not ready to disclose their names at the moment.

How much do you work for the blog, weekly? What else do you do to bring fresh news for your readers?
H.B. On average, I spend 40-42 hours every week working for bmwblog.com, but probably another few hours for the other projects. I participate at 5-6 auto shows every year, both in Europe and US. I’ve also visited BMW’s factory in Spartanburg twice this year, including a driving experience at the M Performance School. I’ve also been invited to American LeMans this year, a US competition where BMW participates with their fantastic M3 GT2 car. We also set time aside to test drive all the new BMW models that enter the market. So, if we add up all of these, there is an impressive number of hours spent running the blogs, but in the end, truth is that I enjoy what I do and that makes time fly by.

Tell me how do you manage your life in these conditions? How do you cope with so much work and what do you do to ‘unplug’ yourself from all of this?
H.B. Well, my day starts at 6-7 am and ends at 2-3 am next day. My life is very hectic; every step is planned and unfortunately very stressful most of the times. It’s very hard for me to ‘unplug’, I sort of became dependent on 24/7 Internet connection and computers or smart phones in general. Although, I am far from having a balanced life, I try to play sports every week, even though I’m aware that’s not enough sometimes.

We Use Several Methods to Generate Revenue

Let’s talk a bit about the money. How fast did you start earning money after starting the project? How much do these blogs make now and what is the revenue structure? For how long did you invest your own money?
H.B. I’m not ready to fully disclose our revenue stream, but what I can share with you today is that we use several methods to generate revenue, from Google Adsense PPC to direct advertisers, affiliate marketing and a few other solutions. We also own and operate three blogs within the same network and each one of them, based on their demographic, might use different ways to monetize the content.

How much of my own money I invested? Tough question, I would have to draw the line and take out my calculator. Joking aside, the amount has not been extremely large, but still very significant over the last three years. Of course, I’m not including the expenses associated with the 6-7 yearly auto shows we attend, from European ones to all the major venues in United States. These expenses add up to a quite large amount, but I see this mostly as an investment in the blog’s future and a way to reward our readers by providing real time news, despite the costs. Sure, we could sit at home and use photos from other sources or press releases, but that might result in a decrease of the credibility we’ve built over the years.

What are the achievements you and your team are most proud of?
H.B. We’re glad to report that within 2-3 years, we’ve become the No.1 website when it comes to news from the BMW world. The English version of the blog is definitely the leader in its segment, with over 1.5 million pages viewed monthly and thousands of daily subscribers. The German blog, BimmerToday, despite being launched just a year ago, has already become the number one BMW news website in Germany and the traffic levels are at least double of what we expected in this time frame. The Romanian version, bmwblog.ro, is starting to become pit stop for the Romanian BMW fans and owners, and our efforts have been rewarded and recognized recently at Webstock 2009.

Another thing that we’re proud of is the close relationship we have established with our readers and especially with BMW, in all three countries. We have mutual respect and a beneficial relationship for both parties. Having access to their events and press cars really puts up there with the large automobile magazines or blogs and most important, it allows us to gain that trust from our readers who count on us to bring them the best BMW news.

We Don’t Rule Out Any Exit Strategies or Future Investments

What are your future plans?
H.B. Future plans are another subject that I can’t really comment on right now, but we are constantly looking to improve our blogs. From new designs, increase in overall user experience to entertaining and involving the BMW community in some of our projects. We never rule out any exit strategies or future investments, especially since our plan is to continue growing the network and of course, traffic and revenues by adding new features and editorial staff.

Starting an Online Project in US vs Romania and Germany

Since you’re familiar with running projects in different countries, what are the differences you noticed with respect to online startups, in the three countries (US, Germany and Romania)?
H.B. Running three projects in the same amount of different countries can have its challenges. Each country can have their own benefits, but they present different obstacles. United States gives you the right medium to start a company, a blog or simply, let’s just say, a business. You can find resources easier, venture capital and mentorship. But there are some disadvantages also and allow me to name one of them: the market can be saturated, the competition is fierce. Many people have the resources here to found startups and the competition is far bigger here, so becoming a market leader can be difficult.

On the other hand, in Germany, the online environment is less developed, blogging for example has not entirely taken off and there are still plenty of niches or market segments untouched. Launching a startup in there might get you more publicity and draw attention faster. You can grow in that market faster than in the U.S., but at one point, you’re going to reach a limit, based mostly on the “online population” and the language being used. While German is a popular language, it is still not considered universal as English is.

Moving forward, let’s talk about the Romanian online market. Despite the fact that I don’t live there, I setup a goal for myself to read at least 1-2 hrs a day about the events that take place in .ro online community, familiarizing myself with the key players, businesses or in general, the internet environment. Sure, it has its challenges and some things that work in the U.S. don’t work yet in Romania, affiliate marketing for example, but based on my past experience, I learned to adapt these startups and set different expectations. I’m glad to see more and more Romanian based companies making their way into Western Europe and even Silicon Valley and that shows the talent existing there and the ambition to succeed.

As a conclusion, many differences, but nothing that cannot be overcome if the right strategy is set in place.

To what extent did you have any contact with entrepreneurship in US (we refer here to famous Silicon Valley; the dream of every entrepreneur)?
H.B. I had a lot of interaction in the last year or so with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, both with the blogs and working for a large multinational corporation. There have been plenty of talks and meetings with companies and people from the Valley and each time I felt that I learned something new, from negotiation techniques to business development. I was fortunate that some of the young CEOs from there, running some large businesses that we all heard of, are actually fans our BMWBlog as well, so that facilitated the introduction.

Lessons Learned and Role Models

What did you learn most out of this entrepreneurship experience?
H.B. I would say that I learned a few things:
1. To be patient and build step-by-step, don’t cut corners.
2. Work ethics (learned from mistakes also).
3. If you don’t try, you can’t fail. And if you fail, you learn something new and do it better next time.
4. Networking and people connections are very important and the base of many successful startups.

Do you have any model/ mentor whose principles you respect/follow?
H.B. I don’t really have a model, but I have a lot of respect for some of the big CEOs, for example Steve Jobs. A great speaker and motivator that failed once, came back and wrote history for his company. Tony Hsieh from Zappos is another one of my favorites and meeting him recently, made me appreciate his work even more. Putting customers first is what Zappos does best.

What blogs do you read on a daily basis ?
H.B. I start with Techcrunch, then move to Mashable, BusinessInsider, VentureBeat, then further to CIO.com and some ERP feeds from it.toolbox.com. I also follow and scan tens of car websites on Twitter. From Romania, well to make Bobby Voicu feel good, I try to read his as well, when he feels like writing something (he should do it more often, great content)….then, I head over to Zoso to keep current with all the gossip and drama that sometimes happen there. Two different blogs, but they both cover what I need to know for now.

What is/was your biggest dream?
H.B. Good question, but I would have to really think about this one….well, in High School, my biggest dream was to move to the U.S., and despite having entrepreneur parents, I was always intrigued by the world on the other side of the ocean. Mostly curiosity and the need to see and experience a different society. After spending 10 years here, now my dreams might have changed, but there are also a bit less radical, so moving to Australia or Asia is out of the question, if that’s what you’re thinking. To sum it up, they mostly revolve around internet startups and finding that idea that will make a difference and solve a problem.

Be an Innovator, Don’t Be Afraid of Failure, Share Your Ideas

What qualities should possess an entrepreneur, in your opinion? And what advice would you give to young entrepreneurs who want to start an online project?
H.B. Not in particular order, here some of the qualities an entrepreneur should have:
1. Work ethics
2. Willingness to take risks
3. Innovator rather than follower
4. Perseverance and hard work
5. Always striving for more and pushing the limits, setting higher goals as moving forward.

My advice for a young entrepreneur would include:
- be an innovator as much as he/she can, the best ideas are always around building a product that can solve existing problems;
- don’t be afraid of failure, don’t give up if you do fail, try again. Many of us have failed before and not all the ideas that looked good on paper actually turned out to be successful in real life;
- reach out to people that have experience, share some of your ideas with them and request feedback. Sometimes we get too emotionally attached to a project and we don’t see the downsides of it
- and lastly, build a team of people that have complementary skills rather than overlapping.

Thank you, Horatiu, for the interview, and good luck with your projects!

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Guest post by Gabriela Pieleanu