Joel Mueller makes money in his sleep.
You can do that when 40 percent of your sales come from Europe, as they do for the 31-year-old owner of
MacUpdate.com. Thanks to the five-hour time difference, Mueller says he's making "decent revenues before he wakes up." From his loft-style apartment on the top floor of a house on South Street, Mueller runs a company that's the second largest distributor of Mac-compatible software behind Apple.
His site offers one central location where Mac users can find iPhone and Mac software, read software reviews and find alternative software options. It's also a place where developers list and sell their software. MacUpdate offers daily discounts and occasional deep discounts. It's not uncommon during certain sales to find software bundles that retail for $500 sold on MacUpdate for $50.
Those kinds of deals and a lot of solid information have earned the company a lot of loyalty, which translates into steadily rising revenues -- $6 million in 2010. That works out to more than $800,000 in revenues for each of Mueller's seven employees at the time.
He's since hired three more people and the success of the company recently resulted in its getting a spot on the "Michigan 50 Companies to Watch" list and it being identified as the 233rd fastest growing privately owned company in the USA, according to
Inc. Magazine.
The seed for MacUpdate was planted in Traverse City, where Mueller grew up.
"When I was a teenager I wanted to have a voice and communicate with people," he says. "Back then the Web was new and a cousin said I could create a website. So I created a site. I liked being able to express myself in writing and get my point across." So did businesses that began paying Mueller to advertise on his site because of the traffic it was generating.
He continued the website while attending Northern Michigan College before transferring to
Western Michigan University in his junior year. Attending WMU was his fall-back plan after being rejected for admission into the University of Michigan's business school. During his time at WMU, Mueller says he made a lot of good friends and developed an appreciation for what Kalamazoo has to offer.
He also had the opportunity while in school to travel to South Africa where he spent six months studying at the University of Capetown. Mueller says the opportunity to travel and study abroad was life changing for him, giving him a deep appreciation of other cultures.
"We had so many discussions with people from all over the world. I was the only person from the United States in many of these classes," Mueller says.
His travels taught him money is not necessarily the key to happiness, a lesson he learned from people who had very little monetarily, but were still happy.
After graduating from WMU, Meuller spent about five years traveling to Costa Rica, Italy and Japan and elsewhere -- all the while working
on building up MacUpdate.
When Mueller decided to return to the United States, he could have set up shop anywhere. He had kept in touch with friends who were still living in Kalamazoo, however, which made his decision on where to locate fairly easy.
"I could live in a big city and pay a ton of money to live downtown, but why would I want to when I can live in downtown Kalamazoo and pay a lot less for the same kind of atmosphere?" Mueller asks.
When it comes to living and working downtown, Mueller says, "There's something about the culture. I like to walk and ride my bike. There's more vitality with people running around talking and interacting."
He purchased the home on
South Street seven years ago and spent almost two years renovating the upper floor of the streetside apartment where he resides, as well as an apartment in back and another apartment on the lower level. The rent paid on the other two apartments covers the mortgage on the house, which allows Mueller to make major investments in his business.
On any given day he says he sees friends walking by his apartment. Occasionally they stop by to visit. "That kind of thing is a quality of life issue for me," Mueller says.
Having these opportunities for face-to-face conversations provides a welcome respite from the isolation of communicating via computer as he does for work. Mueller's 10 employees work from various locations, including Ann Arbor and the state of Texas, and they all do business with each other and their customers from their computers.
The individuals he's hired either contact him directly or are referred by friends and acquaintances.
"We communicate through Instant messaging or chat and talk back and forth through videoconferencing, email or phone," Mueller says.
As a way to keep track of what his employees are working on, Mueller says they write logs each morning detailing what they're working on and continually update their progress.
While working remotely has its perks, like not having to take a shower or being able to work in jeans and T-shirts, Mueller says he sometimes misses the personal interaction.
"When you have people you work with in a workspace you can learn a lot from them," Mueller says. "My day-to-day interaction is more focused on work, not personal stuff, which I really miss."
Mueller says he is focusing on stage three of his growth plan for MacUpdate, which includes selling more programs and applications through the company's website. Much of the 40,000 applications and programs available daily on the company's website don't generate revenues for MacUpdate because they are free or listed on behalf of the developers who receive all of the profits.
"The only stuff we're making money on is the 24-hour Deal of the Day and the bundles and some ad revenue," Mueller says.
Developers can list their applications on MacUpdate.com for free, and site visitors can download that software directly from the developers.
Mueller says he first wanted to build a community for his product lineup and then sell as many applications as he and his staff can. The average cost of an app on MacUpdate is $14 and access the site is free. There is a $20 fee for those who want to join for added services.
"For us it's about building a community and building traffic," Mueller says. "Our website averages about 5 million unique visitors per month."
As word of the company's success gets around, the offers to buy it have increased, but Mueller's not interested.
He says he'll continue to grow the company from his corner office on South Street.
Jane C. Parikh is a freelance reporter and writer with more than 20 years of experience. She is the owner of In So Many Words, based in Battle Creek.
Photos by Erik Holladay.Joel Mueller works and lives on South Street in downtown Kalamazoo.
Joel Mueller at home and at work.