Over the past 15 years, Oleg Malkov, the founder of MonsterPBN, has worn many hats in the online marketing industry, taking on roles in search engine optimization (SEO), web development, and product management. While his journey has been long and not without its challenges, Oleg ultimately achieved success and financial freedom through developing website templates and selling them on ThemeForest, earning close to $500,000 over 5 years. However, it was far from an easy path and required perseverance through numerous failures and setbacks.
In this article, we are sharing Oleg’s story in running and the valuable lessons he learned along the way about how to make money by selling website templates on ThemeForest, how to run online businesses, team management, hiring, and knowing when to pivot to new opportunities.
Oleg Malkov
Oleg's career in SEO
Oleg has been involved with SEO since 2006, first creating websites and earning revenue from Google AdSense, affiliate programs, and contextual advertising. For many years, he focused on traditional SEO work like on-page optimization, link building, and content creation to boost his clients' rankings and drive more traffic to their sites. While SEO provided a stable income, by 2014 Oleg felt it was time to take things to the next level. He ventured into selling heavy machinery, earning a commission on each sale he facilitated.
The plan seemed straightforward — build websites, promote them, set up ads, and send qualified leads to the supplier. Unfortunately, the economic climate took a turn for the worse, and sales dried up entirely despite generating hundreds of potential customers. As the sole financier of the project, Oleg's personal savings took a major hit. Living in Thailand at the time, he was forced to downgrade his accommodations to a small $250 per month bungalow. The failure left Oleg depressed with no clear path forward. He was disillusioned with relying on external partners and ceding control over critical business processes. Most importantly, he lacked a deep understanding of sales and market dynamics.
The breakup with SEO
Oleg admits he was bitter in the wake of this setback. Bitter about his partners, bitter about the economic crisis beyond his control, and bitter about a world that didn't seem to match his expectations. Despite putting in effort and achieving measurable results like boosted rankings, increased traffic, and more inquiries, he had nothing to show for it financially. As someone needing to earn a living, Oleg realized he had to take matters into his own hands.
He went all-in on freelancing, taking on any work he could find from SEO services to designing basic business cards. Over the next 8 months, through freelancing and residual income from past projects, Oleg managed to scrape together $12,000. With an expected disposable income of around $8,000 over the following 6 months, Oleg calculated he would have about $20,000 in savings. It was time to dedicate himself fully to finding a sustainable niche.
Discovering ThemeForest
Through online research, Oleg stumbled upon ThemeForest — a marketplace selling website templates, WordPress themes, plugins, and more. One theme in particular caught his eye, boasting 20,000 sales priced at $49 each. "That's a cool $100k!" he thought. Browsing further, he saw many others with similarly impressive sales figures.
Looking back, Oleg admits he didn't conduct much deep market analysis or research at this stage. He didn't think to consult experienced developers already selling on ThemeForest. Instead, Oleg characteristically plunged headfirst with bold ambition. He decided to start a company, hire a team, and churn out multiple products simultaneously — confident that success was guaranteed given his experience building sites and driving traffic. What did he know about failure, after all?
Assembling the team
Until that point, Oleg had always worked alone, believing the process to be simple. But to execute his grand vision, Oleg hired:
- 2 designers: One turned out to be very talented but the other was underwhelming.
- 2 front-end developers: Both lacked the skills needed for the high standards of ThemeForest.
- A programmer: He went through 4 in just 6 months, including one with a drinking problem.
As for himself, Oleg had some design skills, strong front-end development abilities, and a strong work ethic. However, his Achilles heel was coding — he could Frankenstein code snippets together but wasn't truly a programmer. Looking back, Oleg realizes he was an unseasoned leader directing a team of equally inexperienced individuals, with only the designer showing real potential to succeed.
Planning and execution
There was no solid plan or financial projections — just lofty sales goals filled in an Excel sheet. Oleg thought designing templates would be simple, having built many websites before. But in reality, he was a clueless novice thrust into a leadership role, leading other novices toward an unknown goal.
In the first month, the star designer created a stunning design for an SEO agency template since Oleg was familiar with the industry himself. He devoted 14 hours per day coding the design, which shockingly took 210 hours to complete the raw HTML. Then came the curveball — WordPress templating was completely different than raw coding. They needed to build pages using a page builder for customer preference.
By the second month, only the designer, a programmer, and Oleg remained on the dwindling team. They worked to create the WordPress theme while the designer crafted designs for future templates. $12,000 had already been spent with mountains of work still ahead. Morale and momentum were fading fast.
Meanwhile, living costs accumulated as the long development process stretched on. By the fifth month, with $20,000 spent and no income, Oleg found temporary shelter crashing with a neighbor's fitness trainers and later house-sitting for friends while projects lingered in development limbo. The financial and emotional pressure was immense.
ThemeForest moderation
Eventually, the first template reached completion and Oleg submitted it to ThemeForest for review. He was warned the meticulous vetting process could find any number of issues requiring fixes. His hopes were dashed when the initial response listed 5 to 10 errors across technical code quality, design standards, and security vulnerabilities.
Fixing the issues took days, only to repeat the 3-4 day review process upon resubmission. In total, it took 18 rejections before final acceptance — with each response citing 6-20 new issues to address. Oleg likened it to the eternal punishment of Sisyphus, always pushing the boulder up the hill only for it to roll back down again.
For months, this grueling cycle of developing, submitting, fixing, and resubmitting ground on. Low funds and living precariously in Thailand only compounded the mental anguish.
After relentless toil and perseverance against all odds, Oleg's template was at last greenlit for sale on ThemeForest. His dream of online success through template development had overcome the first major hurdle, but the grueling road ahead was far from certain. Much remained unknown about converting approved products into real profits.
The first sale and early success
When a notification arrived that wasn't another rejection, Oleg was too drained to feel anything. He went through his morning routine mechanically before opening his laptop. There on the product page was his first $59 sale. ThemeForest's 50% revenue share left him with $29.50 — hardly a fortune but validation after so much struggle. His doubts began fading as 4 more sales rolled in within the first month, netting $8,750 after fees.
Bolstered by early wins, Oleg strategized growth. Most templates saw halving sales in the second month as interest tapered. But if he could create and sell 10 great products consistently... the math pointed to $20,000 per month or more as possible. Motivated again, Oleg began work on his second template while forming plans for expanding the team later. A much-needed month-long vacation in Bali lifted spirits before diving back in.
Reality sets in
Returning from vacation, Oleg launched into developing his second template — this time targeted toward lawyers. Unfortunately, it failed to gain traction, barely making $200 per month in sales. Struggling with repetition beyond the initial thrill of creation, Oleg wasn't discouraged yet and attributed the poor performance to circumstance. His designer now had 10 designs banked, seemingly positioning them for success.
Oleg decided it was time to scale up again and borrowed $19,000 from a friend at high interest to fuel ambitious growth. Over-confidence multiplied past mistakes as the following months demonstrated:
- Hiring more developers without proper training dragged productivity down.
- Splitting focus between managing others and his own work hurt both sides.
- It took from May to September just to launch the first 2 templates, whereas Oleg could have completed 3-4 himself in that time.
By year's end, only 4 templates were live on the marketplace — mostly due to Oleg shouldering development himself while staff floundered or quit. Worse, incomes steadily declined rather than grew as expected. The expensive lesson was that successful scale requires refined processes, specialized roles, and high-caliber hires — not just throwing bodies at the problem.
Turning the corner
The early part of 2017 was spent attempting different strategies to revive sales like updating unsold templates with secondary designs. Oleg also experimented with various forms of advertising on platforms such as Facebook, Google Ads, and blogs. However, with profit margins so slim after ThemeForest's 50% revenue share on $40 average sales, it was near impossible to turn a profit from advertising spend.
By mid-year, Oleg accepted the template business model had run its course and shifted focus to travel while waiting for loan debts to clear. The December 2017 sales slump as expected, followed by the customary January spike gave hope for a fresh start in the new year.
Entering 2018, Oleg committed to one last template targeting the proven SEO agency niche. Motivated to make it count, he incorporated an unprecedented 20 unique designs into the product. However, even with improved design quality, sales growth failed to materialize and followed the same tapering pattern. It became clear specialized expertise was still lacking.
By early 2018, Oleg recognized the need for a new direction. He created another SEO agency template — a proven successful niche leveraging his industry expertise. While sales improved modestly compared to past lackluster efforts, growth remained elusive despite 20 unique design iterations himself. Finding top-tier design help proved consistently difficult in Thailand.
Eventually, Oleg surrendered to a more relaxed 2-hour-per-day routine maintaining his existing portfolio instead of forcing new initiatives. He dabbled in freelance, took on minor partnerships, and experimented with launching an online WordPress course — but nothing meaningful manifested. 2019 mirrored this drift without success outside of maintaining old relationships. Clearly, his fortunes had stalled and a reboot was necessary.
The new wave of opportunity
Perhaps it was destiny or merely renewed resolve, but sometime in late 2019, a new system came to Oleg in a flash of insight. He visualized an assembly line-style workflow to pump out high-caliber templates on a conveyor belt basis. Fuelled by this epiphany, Oleg spent a month socializing the concept to past clients and approaching startup incubators for funding to back his vision.
After over a month of rejections, 2 believers stepped forward with $35,000 in seed capital. Oleg promptly assembled a new team in Thailand and leased suitable office space. Hiring was a mixed bag — employing average designers instead of more premium help and front-end staff with dubious skills. But the money was there to try again.
This time, Oleg committed to daily video training, code reviews, feedback sessions, and grandfatherly coaching. Slowly but surely, things began clicking as team members improved. However, ThemeForest's standards had evolved significantly, resulting in "trash" dismissals of early work despite earnest efforts. Debugging failures required top-level design consultations, steadily honing Oleg's own aesthetic eye in the process.
After 6 months, a premium art director vastly accelerated progress identifying even pixel-level flaws. The first templates under new guidance sailed smoothly through moderation. At peak production under the revamped system, 5 new templates were launched per month versus the market rate of 80-90. Oleg dreamed of market domination by pumping out quality templates at scale.
Return of the COVID bump
While sales grew, COVID-19 lockdowns delivered a windfall in 2020 as many turned to online entrepreneurship. During the 3-week shutdown, 17 templates were launched, and just 5 encountered rejection. Monthly revenues hit $6,500 from direct sales supplemented by $7,500 monthly from custom work performed through product support services extended to customers.
Unfortunately, the lift proved temporary as competition intensified and economic uncertainty lingered. Faced with an incomplete realization of the vision that drove him through so many difficulties previously, Oleg made the difficult decision to exit via acquisition. His gut told him it was simply time for a change after 5 years in the industry.
"At the peak, we were making $6,500 a month, plus custom work through the support service, which totaled up to $7,500. But that was the peak. their sales stopped growing, even with new products.
This barely covered salaries for seven people, plus operational expenses. Though, Olegwas drawing a decent salary and eating well.
I decided to sell the project through Empire Flippers, without the team.
This is the last screenshot I could find. I remember the figure being around $320,000 in sales, but apparently, I didn’t take a screenshot of that."
The exit
Oleg carefully documented sales histories and projections, accounting for all costs from the prototype system. He then applied to sell the profitable automated business on Empire Flippers. Going through their assessment process, Oleg earned a maximum valuation of $210,000 for the turnkey operation. Having found someone to ensure ongoing support for $300 monthly, expenses stood to decline further incentivizing a potential buyer. Everything seemed secure.
Shockingly, ThemeForest's terms of service expressly prohibited account sales at the eleventh hour. Oleg fought relentlessly through correspondence threats, pleas, and cunning negotiations for 6 weeks to override the restriction in his specific case. Emphasizing discrimination, financial hardship, and appropriation of his intellectual labor among other arguments, permission was granted as a "one-time exception."
Listed by Empire Flippers, a serious affiliate marketing industry leader scheduled a video call followed within the hour by a $150,000 initial purchase offer - a $60,000 haircut from the assessed value. Oleg bargained them up in the negotiation, remembering Discovery Channel lessons on gradually meeting in the middle. Settling at $180,000, Oleg had proved the benefits of playing the game expertly and walked away $30,000 richer than appearing desperate for a quick sale.
Accounting for fees, commissions, investor shares, and staff bonuses, Oleg's takeaway after 5 grueling years amounted to enough to purchase an apartment still under construction in Thailand. The true earnings of such ventures are invariably more nuanced than surface-level "success" implies. But for Oleg, it represented freedom, opportunity, and closure after a long and unpredictable journey in web product development.
Full circle back to SEO roots
Reflecting on the rollercoaster experience of running a web business, Oleg distilled some realizations:
- Measurable metrics like design standards are paramount versus ambiguous creative work.
- Management deserves focused attention, not an add-on to technical tasks.
- Thorough training, documentation, and video aids optimize productivity when scaling.
- Hiring passionate problem-solvers aligns goals better than discounted mediocrity.
- Realizing a 3.5-year return on a major project is like 3 years of easy living.
Perhaps most clearly, 5 years taught Oleg he excelled most in his original SEO analytic strengths analyzing data to solve optimization problems at scale. Joined by an experienced developer partner, they fused technical SEO skills with domain portfolio building to form MonsterPBN — specializing in quality-turned-PBN construction and domain sales within the US/EU SEO industry.
Approaching a decade in online marketing, Oleg now oversees technical operations and analytics while his colleague handles development, parsing huge volumes of inventory to selectively auction top-shelf assets. Together they promote their own projects as well as client sites to high levels of visibility. For powerful domains and turnkey PBN solutions, MonsterPBN delivers as if working for themselves while Oleg has found professional peace and financial security through his long and winding journey.
Lessons learned
Reflecting on mistakes, surprises, and ultimate success along the way, Oleg distilled several major lessons for entrepreneurs facing their own challenges:
- Focus on quality, standards, and polish — not just functionality or creativity in creative work.
- Specialize complex jobs rather than one person spanning roles in early-stage companies.
- Automate and document processes to optimize onboarding, consistency, and handoffs when growing.
- Consult experts early for objective feedback rather than relying on intuition alone.
- Attract passionate problem-solvers committed to the mission rather than discounted generalists.
- Consider selling and pivoting projects to generate consistent profit within 3 years rather than forcing perpetual growth.
- Leverage relationships for funding sources rather than open applications with low response rates.
- Never give up facing constant rejections or doubts - but know when circumstances favor redirecting efforts elsewhere too.
While the full story was messy and uncertain at times, Oleg's perseverance through setbacks and willingness to try disparate paths ultimately led to both financial independence and professional purpose driving SEO initiatives as a seasoned online marketing industry veteran today. His experiences highlight that success emerges from lessons learned through failure and having the fortitude to constantly challenge assumptions.
