The site grew slowly at first, and primarily through word-of-mouth. They were able to sell a "few dozen" T-shirts by 2001. Mike moved back to New York in mid-2001 and he and Matt started crafting the first Strong Bad Email "some kinda robot", intending this to be a weekly feature. The Strong Bad Email series proved very popular, generating significant interest in the site; when the brothers were late in publishing a new Strong Bad Email, they received angry emails asking where the new short was, which Matt said was "a cool feeling to know you're as important as a cup of coffee or morning crossword to some folks". Their father suggested Matt quit his full-time job to devote time to creating more Homestar Runner shorts. With the number of visitors to the site growing, by January 2003 the site had outgrown its original web host, Yahoo!. Merchandise sales paid for all of the costs of running the website as well as living costs of the creators, whose retired parents managed many of the business aspects.