He turned a $15k domain name and his love for gadgets into a $115M exit

With a name like “CrackBerry Kevin,” you might wonder what Kevin Michaluk is in to…

What began with a $15,000 domain purchase led to a $115 million exit, and later co-founding Clicks, one of the hottest viral tech startups of 2024. 

Kevin’s story starts with turning his passion for gadgets and writing into one of the pioneers of tech publishing. Along the way Kevin’s keys to success have been learning to curate and activate his network and building companies that tap into the cultural zeitgeist. 

With the success of Kevin’s ventures fuelled by a strong network and a trailblazer spirit, it’s maybe no surprise Michaluk found his way to Hampton. 

In this conversation with Kevin we cover:

• How he turned a $15,000 domain purchase into a media empire (and a $115 million exit)
• Why bootstrapping and a strong remote work culture were key to that success
• How he leveraged the learnings and relationships from operating a media company to catapult the launch of a new hardware company
• Why he’s even more happy and eager to do the work than he is to manage others

Hey there! Who are you and what’s your business?

I’m Kevin Michaluk (aka “CrackBerry Kevin”, but more on that later) and I’m one of the co-founders of Clicks, a consumer brand building smart accessories that sit at the intersection of technology and lifestyle. 

This year we launched the Clicks Keyboard for iPhone, a smart keyboard case that transforms the look of your iPhone with the addition of real buttons that feel awesome to type on. Similar to adding a keyboard to an iPad, Clicks unlocks more utility from your iPhone letting you get more done on the go.

In the six months since we ramped production we’ve sold over 100,000 keyboards to customers in over 100 countries. And we’re just getting started, with support for more phones and other new products in the pipeline. 

If I told you Clicks was an overnight success, I’d be lying.  

In truth it’s a product nearly 20 years in the making that goes back to my roots as one of the first tech influencers (before “influencer” was a household term). That’s also where the “CrackBerry Kevin” name comes from.

What’s the backstory of CrackBerry?

I was transfixed by the BlackBerry and how it was changing the way people worked and communicated. Everywhere I looked people wouldn’t put it down; it was addictive! I also loved blogging. 

That led me to buy the domain CrackBerry.com for $15,000 back in 2006, right before Webster’s named “crackberry” the new word of the year and added it to the dictionary. I could have flipped the domain then for a 10x return, but instead got to work on launching CrackBerry as a website. Before long, CrackBerry.com became the biggest BlackBerry-focused site on the internet. 

When people think of CrackBerry, they may remember it as a news blog, but that’s missing the magic. CrackBerry was a full ecosystem with reviews and tutorials, a bustling community forum, and even a store for BlackBerry apps and accessories.

As CrackBerry grew, we also began to diversify the business. Witnessing what happened to Palm (remember the Treo?) and knowing that could happen to BlackBerry, we launched similar properties for the other emerging smartphone platforms including iPhone, Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone. All of this lived under the company umbrella of Mobile Nations. 

In the years that followed we surfed the waves of changes in both the tech and digital publishing industry. As CrackBerry shrank tied to the decline of BlackBerry, our other brands grew. We expanded beyond smartphones to cover adjacent tech categories and dove into the world of video, launching various tech youtube channels. We also shifted our commerce monetization model away from operating our own stores to fully embracing an affiliate model, which helped explode our revenue and profitability. 

By 2018, Mobile Nations had caught the attention of two potential buyers who reached out unsolicited within weeks of each other with offers to purchase. While my two co-founders and I hadn’t been operating the business with an intent to exit, after consulting with several M&A advisory firms we decided the timing was right and we ran a formal process to sell the company. 

Mobile Nations was ultimately acquired by Future PLC, a major UK-based publisher, in March 2019. I stayed onboard for another year until our earnout was complete. 

What were some of the biggest learnings from your first business?

Mobile Nations was a remote-first company long before that became the new way of working. We recruited a lot of our editorial talent from our forum communities and they lived around the globe, so we had to build systems and a culture that ensured accountability and high performance output to sustain our growth and retain our top performers. 

We established a company culture that was rooted in data and performance while empowering the teams working on specific functions to build their own sub-cultures. That way the 5-8 people who worked together closest could create an environment where they would thrive, while still fitting into an overarching set of expectations for the company. 

This allowed us to attract (and retain) top talent, no matter where they lived. We had very little employee turnover through the years, and when we did lose people it was to companies like Apple, who we couldn’t compete with… they paid a LOT better.  

A second big takeaway was understanding the benefits of bootstrapping as a strategy. Mobile Nations was fully bootstrapped, not a funded startup. Had we been a funded company, we wouldn’t have had the runway to reach the exit we did. Bootstrapping our way to a $115M exit put time on our side to endure the shifting tides of the publishing industry; allowed us to test and explore new ideas; and avoid the existential threat of bet-the-farm scale decisions simply to meet outsized investor expectations. 

Ultimately, our bootstrapping strategy taught me how to build a lean, high performance business while identifying and seizing the investment opportunities where we should double (or triple) down to accelerate our growth.

What’s been the key to the fast start at Clicks?

Because of the team involved and the deep industry expertise we possess, we were able to move faster and build a better v1 product right out of the gate.

The co-founding team of Clicks are drawn from all parts of my network over the last twenty years. I was able to pull in heavy hitters with pedigree from companies like BlackBerry, Apple, Google and Samsung along with industry veterans in smartphone manufacturing and distribution. Unlike many early stage startups that are filled with young, inexperienced founding teams, Clicks is stacked with experienced operators from day one. I had been investing in these relationships over the course of 20 years, and built a strong reputation as someone who means business when it comes to building businesses, so when I called, they answered. 

Our other superpower is that we grew up shaping the tech media landscape. We understood from the get go how Clicks would be received by tech press, business media and customers alike. The team had our launch strategy nailed down before the product was fully defined. When we ran the plan in January, it over-delivered, resulting in over 500 million organic media impressions and we quickly sold out our Founders Edition series. 

Have you had an “oh shit” moment yet?

CES 2024 was the first big moment for Clicks. The product was launched with a YouTube video by one of our co-founders, Mr. Mobile (Michael Fisher), a respected tech reviewer with 1.2 million subscribers.  At CES, everyone wanted to see Clicks. That was the moment when we realized they had something big. Overnight, Clicks went from being unknown to a respected player in the industry, sought after by top retailers.

Another huge moment came a few months later when, in a 24 hour span, we received an email from the CEO of Amazon’s chief of staff saying Andy Jassy loved the product. The same day, Meghan Trainor was spotted using Clicks on American Idol.

It was all organic and validated the product’s value and cultural relevance.  This created such a huge buzz for us and the team - like damn, this is legit. 

Over the last ten months we continue to have CEOs, best-selling authors, artists and celebrities embracing Clicks on a weekly basis. The continued growth has taken me around the world as new markets and new marketing strategies come online. From traveling to London for Wimbledon to Japan to launch our first Amazon store or closer to home for a customer event in NYC, buttons are coming back to the world! 

What’s your approach to going to market?

Clicks has been focused on direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales through its website, Clicks.tech, but as a tactile product, the business plan also emphasizes a retail approach.

Products like Clicks benefit from being at the point of sale, like when people upgrade their iPhones. Best Buy was a launch partner in North America because it gave Clicks a nationwide footprint and a destination to go and get the product in customers’ hands. 

Clicks has learned a lot from that early retail partnership and is now expanding to platforms like Amazon while growing its retail presence selectively. 

While the focus is on working to build relationships with customers through D2C and understand what acquisition channels yield the higher performance, once that’s solid, Clicks will scale globally. 

As we head into 2025, we’ve recognized the value of building a strong ground game and getting Clicks into the hands of people in addition to building our presence through digital channels. Our playbook for the New Year will look more like the Uber model for city by city growth and less like a traditional DTC startup. 

What’s different about CrackBerry.com and Clicks?

While CrackBerry.com and Mobile Nations were built atop a lot of proprietary, in-house publishing tech, hardware is a different beast. Or as I like to say, ‘hardware is hard!’. 

Between myself and a few of my teammates, we have unrivaled experience in reviewing keyboard products and mobile technology. We have a deep understanding of the product we want to build and exactly what it should feel like in our hands. Translating that to a product that’s consistent at scale is challenging!

There’s tooling, mouldings, printed circuit boards, color-matching, and myriad suppliers that need to come together to get a product like Clicks to market. Not to mention we were racing to build Clicks for an upcoming iPhone we didn’t have early access to (it wasn’t released yet!). This meant we had to make calculated decisions between speed to market and taking risks on production, all while trying to thread the needle and be in-stores before the holiday season. 

What has surprised you most in the last year?

I always knew in my bones that there was a large, underserved market for a product like Clicks. Since the death of BlackBerry, my inbox has become the complaint box on the internet for people wanting a button phone. I still get 20-30 emails each week asking me when BlackBerry is going to release their next smartphone (hot tip: ain’t gonna happen!).

What none of us could have predicted though is how a product like Clicks would appeal to so many different users, beyond the old BlackBerry keyboard faithful. 45% of our customers are first time keyboard users! These are younger customers (Gen Z and younger) who are drawn in by the combo of retro-tech and the new utility that buttons on a phone unlock. 

Then there are the use cases we never even imagined. We’ve heard from a lot of customers in the blind and low-sighted community that Clicks has changed the way they use their smartphone, allowing them to type more confidently. Hearing these stories warm my heart! 

What platform/tools are absolutely crucial for your business?

We’ve got a massive tech stack for a hardware company, but here are our top five:

• Shopify (and a bunch of add ons!) - It's essential for our D2C operations, though it’s frustrating how much work you have to do on top of it. There are also a dozen or more Shopify apps sitting atop the platform that enable everything from shipment tracking, reverse logistics, discounts, reporting, and more…)
• Zendesk & Siena.ai - With a rapidly growing customer base, Zendesk allows us to triage and respond to customer feedback and questions across email and social channels. Siena.ai ties into Zendesk as a front line virtual support agent to tackle the tier 0 inquiries that shouldn’t need to go to a live agent.
• Triple Whale - Gives us a central place to monitor key performance marketing metrics through the funnel from our CPA rates and MER to session data, site conversion and markets where Clicks is gaining traction. We’re building a culture where the team wakes up every morning and immerses themselves in the data. Data wins arguments and hurts feelings!
• Meta Platform - Facebook and Instagram ads have been crucial for rapid testing and learning in the D2C space.
• Slack - We’re a primarily remote-first business with team members across Canada, the US, UK and partners around the world. Slack is where a lot of the day to day coordination happens. We started a #GoodMorningClicksters channel where people say ‘hi’ to start the day. As the team grows, that channel is popping 24/7.

What untapped opportunity do you see in the market? What business do you wish someone else would build that would make your job easier?

As we look to grow and scale the business, I’ve got more and more questions about who is buying our product and what makes them tick. I live in our Shopify orders, drilling into their purchase journey and which touchpoints might have influenced them. There’s so much actionable insight trapped in these interactions. 

Early on, the team and I were following up with these customers to have one on one conversations about what drove them to purchase. But as our order numbers grow, it gets harder to keep a pulse on this! Post-purchase surveys like Knocommerce and Google Analytics can only give you so much. Seeing and hearing how someone shops your site is much more palpable.

I’ve got some ideas on how to solve this. Maybe that will be my third act!  

What are some strong opinions you have about leadership, and how do you actually put those into practice in your company?

I share with my leadership team that they need to understand the difference between knowing when you need to be a general and when you need to be a soldier. 

When a leader has a crystal clear vision on what needs to be done, what they need are hands to do the work. In this mode, I believe that there isn’t a need for discussion, debate or crowdsourcing ideas from the team. Heads down, it’s go time!

On the other hand, if the leader doesn’t yet have a picture perfect idea of what needs to be done, they need to invite ideas from the team and let others lead. 

At Clicks, I was the general for the initial launch of Clicks.tech. I was deep in the weeds on wireframing our launch website in Figma and building the back end. The vision for what we needed to launch was crystal clear. My leadership style was more directive (and less collaborative). 

As we’ve grown and evolved our DTC engine, the vision has become one shared with our VP Growth (who has more DTC experience than I do). I’m still deep in the details, but am more of a soldier, and less the general. 

Where can we go to learn more?

• Come solve your keyboard addiction over to clicks.tech
• Follow me on Instagram, X, or send me a LinkedIn request