I Make $15K/Month From One Website

Maddox Schmidtoffer’s journey from a college dorm room to a six-figure business exit provides a blueprint for modern entrepreneurial success. While still a student, Maddox built an unblocked games website called duckmath.org, which eventually scaled to 150,000 daily active users and generated $15,000 in monthly revenue. His story highlights a shift in the digital landscape where marketing volume and AI-assisted development can turn a simple idea into a highly profitable asset in a matter of months. The business began almost by accident. Inspired by a TikTok video of a younger creator building a similar site, Maddox decided he could do the same. He built the initial version in about a week using Google Sites, a simple drag-and-drop tool. For the first two years, the site sat largely ignored, earning a small amount of passive income. The turning point came when Maddox noticed the site randomly made $240 in a single day without any active effort. This "luck" served as a proof of concept; he realized that if the site could perform that well passively, it had massive potential if he actually focused on growth. Maddox’s primary growth engine was a high-volume, organic short-form video strategy. Rather than aiming for high production value, he focused on consistency and "dopamine hit" content. He operated three different TikTok accounts, posting three times a day, five days a week. This content was then cross-posted to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat. Interestingly, he noted that Snapchat was a hidden gem, consistently bringing in over 20,000 views per post. His content was remarkably simple. One of his most successful videos, which garnered over five million views across platforms, featured him simply filming his laptop screen with his phone while playing a game. He emphasized that the goal was to create a strong visual hook to grab attention and then immediately provide a clear call to action: a link to the website. By iterating on his videos daily—analyzing engagement rates and tweaking hooks—he was able to find winning formats and repeat them. To maintain this volume, he eventually mentored another person to handle the video production, allowing him to scale his marketing efforts without spending all his time behind a camera. On the technical side, Maddox transitioned the site from Google Sites to a React-based platform. As AI tools became more prevalent, he adopted "vibe coding," using AI to handle the heavy lifting of development so he could remain focused on marketing and user experience. His tech stack was designed for efficiency and low overhead. He used Cloudflare for hosting and static data storage, Supabase for the backend and user data, and PostHog for advanced A/B testing. This testing was crucial for monetization; by analyzing how users moved through the site, he could optimize the layout to ensure they saw more ads and stayed on the site longer. The business was monetized through Google AdSense, where he earned approximately one cent per user, totaling significant sums given his 1.5 million monthly visitors. The decision to sell the business came after Maddox noticed a larger company acquiring a competitor. He reached out to them with his analytics and, after negotiating a $100,000 initial "lowball" offer, settled on a sale price of $120,000. While he occasionally misses the steady income, he views the exit as the correct move, providing him with the capital and experience to launch his next venture, a cloud gaming platform for mobile games. Reflecting on his experience, Maddox offers a "2026 Playbook" for aspiring founders. He advises starting with a niche you already know how to market. Instead of spending months on development, he suggests building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in just two to three days using AI. The most critical step is to research the top 20 viral videos from competitors in that niche, understand their hooks and formats, and then work twice as hard to out-produce them. Maddox also touches on a psychological hurdle many entrepreneurs face: the "ego business." Many people avoid "silly" niches like gaming because they want to build something that sounds serious or professional, such as a B2B SaaS company. However, Maddox argues that if a business is making money, it is a "real" business, regardless of the industry. He suggests following the money rather than the prestige. Ultimately, Maddox’s success came down to staying consistent over four years. He didn't give up during the slow periods, and he was ready to pivot to an aggressive growth strategy when the data showed a clear opportunity. His advice to his younger self—and to others—is to keep working incrementally, stay consistent with posting and site changes, and recognize when a project has the legs to go viral. By combining simple tech, AI efficiency, and a relentless short-form content strategy, he proved that a college student could build and sell a significant business without a massive team or a complex product.