In the summer of 2017, Sergi Ruiz and his wife launched Mapness, a small e-commerce shop built around a single idea: a well-presented, giftable personalized map print. Sergi already worked as a web developer and SEO consultant, but this was the first time he was responsible for a product and its numbers rather than someone else's website. They did not run ads or chase SEO at the start. They simply posted on Instagram and focused on making the product look like something worth gifting. From July to December that first year, Mapness brought in about EUR 6.4K.

Growth was steady and mostly organic in the early years. 2018 reached roughly EUR 28K while they began testing Instagram ads, basic Google Ads, and collaborations with micro-influencers. By 2019 they got bolder: more ad spend, partnerships with larger influencers, extra languages on the site, and tighter SEO. Revenue climbed to about EUR 68K, enough that Mapness had become a real third income for the household alongside the freelance work.

Then the pandemic changed everything. With online shopping surging in 2020 and 2021, Mapness hit numbers the couple never imagined when they started: around EUR 139K and EUR 135K in back-to-back years. It was a genuine peak for a product they still ran entirely on the side.

When life normalized, sales did not just dip, they kept sliding: roughly EUR 78K in 2022, EUR 45K in 2023, EUR 15K in 2024, and about EUR 8.5K in 2025. Sergi is honest that there is no single clean reason. The niche got more saturated, the product is a one-time gift purchase with little repeat business, and parenthood pulled the couple's time and energy elsewhere. They also admit they were often too cautious, reinvesting less than they could have during the good years.

Even in decline, Sergi counts Mapness as a clear win. It survived eight years, stayed profitable from day one, generated over EUR 500K in total revenue, and ran the whole time as a side project. More than the money, it is the project that showed him what an online business actually feels like from the inside, which reshaped how he approaches every project he has built since.