Five years ago, I decided to spin off the SEO business from Royal Jay into a new brand called Virayo. Royal Jay was around $2.5M then; the SEO business was 12% of revenue.

Running multiple businesses is controversial. It can create distractions, more complexity, and reduce the chances of success. There are two reasons why it made sense to take the risk:

- Position: We were confident we could deliver the results but had a sales problem. Royal Jay was transitioning to a platform focused on healthcare data and analytics, which made it difficult to market and sell SEO services. Customers questioned why they would hire a health-tech company to handle their SEO needs. We could close deals more efficiently by creating a brand exclusively for our target customers and their specific problems. Through this process, we eventually landed on SEO for SaaS in mid-2019, where we found traction.

- Leadership: Robbie Richards (the first employee I ever hired!) demonstrated a passion and expertise for SEO that made him the perfect leader. Over the time we spent working together, he invested in himself, built his personal brand, and developed a productized SEO package and repeatable sales model. He embodied the quality I cherish most in a team member: grit.

It has been gratifying to see Virayo thrive, and I am especially proud of the team and the culture we have built together. Looking back, I’d say it was a great move, and I’ve since followed the playbook for building other profitable businesses.

By the numbers, starting 3/22/18 with a baseline of $305,000 TTM

2/22/19: $299,000, -2% YoY growth
3/22/20: $360,000, 20% yoy growth
3/22/21: $474,000, 32% yoy growth
3/22/22: $935,000, 97% yoy growth
3/22/23 $1,201,000, 28% yoy growth

It will be interesting to see how AI (ChatGPT, BARD) changes the search landscape over the next few years. Exciting times, we are on it.

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