Founders and CEOs on Reddit

Rand Fishkin

Co-founder of Moz and SparkToro

How we know it's theirs

His 2014 r/bigseo AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 7 posts and 21 comments from u/randfish, dated 2010 to 2026, most often in r/gamedev, r/bigseo and r/IndieGaming.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/bigseo

On “Howdy /r/BigSEO, I'm Rand Fishkin, cofounder of Moz; AMA”

What's the biggest mistake you've made with Moz?

u/randfish replied

LACK OF FOCUS. I should have kept Moz focused entirely on core SEO software, and not tried to diversify into social media and content marketing and brand tracking and all these other businesses. That was dumb, and it really hurt…

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LACK OF FOCUS.

I should have kept Moz focused entirely on core SEO software, and not tried to diversify into social media and content marketing and brand tracking and all these other businesses. That was dumb, and it really hurt the company's trajectory. I wrote a bunch about this in my upcoming book (which I think comes out Q2 next year) - painful to recall all the missed opportunity and wasted tens of millions of dollars spent pursuing that. I definitely won't make that mistake again.

More moments

A redditor posted in r/DigitalMarketing

What has you salary progression been in your career?

I asked this about 2 years ago and found it very helpful in finding out what I should be worth and believe it would help those in the field. So I'll start. Please include state. (Florida) Year 1: digital marketing specialist 35k Year 2: performance marketing strategist: 45k Year…

u/randfish replied

Love this question, and appreciate folks sharing so transparently! I started in digital marketing in 2003; my salary progression: * ~2003-2007: SEO specialist - $16-18K/year (startup, so some months we couldn't afford to pay me) * 2007-2012: CEO - $120K…

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Love this question, and appreciate folks sharing so transparently! I started in digital marketing in 2003; my salary progression:

~2003-2007: SEO specialist - $16-18K/year (startup, so some months we couldn't afford to pay me)
2007-2012: CEO - $120K (out marketing startup got funded by a local VC, and I became the CEO)
2012-2014: CEO - $170K (we grew pretty fast, and got a second, larger round of funding)
2014-2018: Individual contributor - $200K (stepped down from the CEO role)
2018-2022: CEO - $168K (started a new company in digital marketing, raised money from private investors instead of VC this time)
2023: CEO - $250K (we're on track to pay our investors back in 2023, at which point my and my cofounder's salaries will go up)

I realize this is a fairly unusual progression in digital marketing, but I hoped it might be interesting to some folks who have interest in the entrepreneurial side of things.

A redditor wrote in r/gamedev

On “Just raised $2.15M; please steal our game studio funding model and pitch deck”

I'm keen to hear what your background is and how you got people to invest. Tell us more about your personal story.

u/randfish replied

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Sure! I started a company called Moz a long time ago (2003) with my mom as cofounder. It eventually turned into a software business, raised VC, and then went sideways (as 95% of VC-backed companies do). When I left in 2018, I started another company (also in B2B marketing SaaS world) called SparkToro. It uses an LLC model very similar to the one I posted above. That's been a far more joyful and positive experience; we've kept the team small, and the business profitable.

Then, in 2020, during Covid lockdowns, I got obsessed with the indie video game world, and decided to start down this path. More details in the blog post, but long story short is I/we spent the first 3 years making a lot of mistakes before eventually forming a 5-person studio and making significant progress the past year. I still run and work mostly full-time on SparkToro, but my 4 cofounders at Snackbar are full-time on that business. My job is mostly setting the big picture direction, getting us funding, and making sure all the operations stuff runs smoothly so everyone else can concentrate on their day-to-day work.