Moula

A Buenos Aires native with a curiosity for programming, Alejandro Núñez started building and selling his own games at age twelve. After a series of smaller projects, Alejandro decided to build his first website in 2008. “One of the first sites I built is still one of the most successful - it’s called ReduceImages.com. In Argentina, Photoshop is really expensive, so I thought I’d build an easy photo editing tool that everyone could use online for free. At the same time, I wanted to monetize the site so that I could keep building new tools.” After searching around online, Alejandro discovered AdSense. “I used AdSense to put ads on my site and I started seeing the revenue grow slowly, sometimes just a few pennies at a time. But that showed me that this could really be a business.”

Now living in Seattle, Washington, Alejandro has built a business of 20+ websites and apps, all monetized with ads. “I kept earning money from ads,” he says, “and as the revenue grew I kept building.” Initially, Alejandro freelanced for clients, worked full-time, and earned ad revenue on the side. But by 2020 he started earning enough in ad revenue to pursue his business full time. “I had a full time job at Facebook (now Meta) as a software engineer,” he explains. “But over the course of my three years there, my ad revenue with AdSense and AdMob increased 10x - out-earning my salary - so I decided to quit my job and pursue this company full time.”

Alejandro’s company, Moula, now includes a 3-person team to help him build, maintain, and grow his websites and apps. The all-Latin American team focuses on solving problems for people and building free resources. “One of my main goals has always been to help people who don’t have resources get access to things for free,” Alejandro says. “I’ve built a website that’s just throwing dice if you don’t have dice, another that’s a random number generator, a currency converter - and it’s all free and ad-supported.” Keeping the tools free and ad-supported has been an important part of Moula’s business model, so that “anyone can use the tools, even if they don’t have money to pay.” To keep his ad revenue growing, Alejandro runs experiments with Firebase on AdMob and Google Optimize for web. “We use Firebase to experiment with different ad formats,” he says, “and we’ve seen 60-70% increases in revenue by optimizing formats. On the web side, we use Google Optimize to try different formatting for ads and positioning, which has been really helpful. ”

As Alejandro and his team continue to develop new tools, it’s the users that keep them motivated. “I’ve gotten some great emails from people who use our tools,” he says. “For our alarm clock app, some people write in saying it’s the only alarm clock that will get them up since we built in features to ensure you don’t unintentionally turn it off. And for the reduce images website, someone wrote in saying the site helped them resize a passport photo that finally allowed them to apply for a visa. It’s really fulfilling to be able to help people in their everyday lives.”

Looking ahead, Alejandro is using his earnings and experience to invest in building new businesses that have more direct social impact. “I’m starting to explore new business ventures that help the homeless, create economic opportunities, and support a clean and healthy environment,” he concludes. “For me, now and into the future, it’s always about helping people.”