Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Apologies for the tiny bit of static that came through in the recording. This is one great interview if you are looking for a step-by-step story of how a guy can manage a full time job and develop a niche site income during his spare time. It's also incredibly inspirational if you are new to this game of making money online. [ Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ] Patrick didn't do anything unusual. He simply built a website about addiction (which he personally had recovered from) and then filled it with incredibly valuable content from his own experiences and knowledge. It helps that he is a prolific writer, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he had to sit down and get the work done, and find the time to do so around working a full time job. Make sure you listen to the interview where Patrick talks about the hardcore writing sessions he would commit to, producing as many as 400 articles in a month while on holiday from his job! He also explains how his adsense income grew slowly at first and what he did to grow it from $100 a month, to $200, then $300, $600, $1,000 and $2,000. Patrick ends his story explaining how he stumbled across a buyer for his site and managed to secure his dream price - $200,000, enough money to invest and live off so he didn't need a job again, while he moved on to new online projects. And yes of course, he did quit his job. Tips From Patrick: Give yourself a "daily quota" - For example, write every day and you will become better at it and quicker too Know your subject well and keeping a quota is easy because you have lived it Do keyword research within your existing statistics to find good topics to focus on (where the traffic is) Ask for your dream money and someone may just say yes Relevant Links Mentioned in this Interview Clickbank 4-Hour Workweek Stat Counter Chris Garrett Escrow Downloads [ Download MP3 | Transcript | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ] Text Version [spoiler] YARO: Hello, this is Yaro Starak and welcome to an Entrepreneurs Journey podcast. Today, I have Patrick Meninga, is that right, Patrick? PATRICK: Yes. YARO: From… Where are you from? PATRICK: Kalamazoo, Michigan. YARO: Kalamazoo, Michigan, okay, in the United States and I've invited Patrick on to tell what I hope will be a very interesting story of how he sold his website for $200,000. So, obviously, it's a case of starting your own site, growing it and then, selling it. I've read a little bit about this, Patrick and it sounds like you weren't really expecting this to happen. So, I'm really looking forward to hearing the whole process. Thank you for joining me today. PATRICK: Oh, thank you, Yaro. I'm glad to be here. YARO: So, start at the beginning then. I assume you've been on the Internet since you were born? PATRICK: Well, actually, I guess, I probably started about maybe five years ago and I didn't have a website. I didn't have anything. I just had an idea that I wanted to make money online and what I did is I started doing some research and I found Clickbank products. And so, real quick and dirty I made, this really lousy awful product and I just threw together a page, a landing page and I started buying some pay-per-click traffic. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just sort of scrambling in the dark and it was a complete disaster. I didn't make any money. That was sort of my first foray into Internet Marketing. YARO: Before you keep going, I'm curious, were you a working man before this? Did you have a day job? PATRICK: Oh yes, definitely. I've been working my whole life and at that time, I was actually working in an addiction treatment center. So, I was working in a drug rehab. That was what I was doing and I wanted, I knew there was a way that people were making money online and I didn't know anything about it so, that's how I got in to it. YARO: So, this was a career you had.

I've been watching the startup community here in Australia a lot recently. This is because of my own interest having a startup and because things are heating up in Australia in general when it comes to tech startups getting media coverage and investment funding. [ Download MP3 | Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ] One of the standout startups I keep hearing about is WikiFashion.com, a wiki for fashion started by a young lady named Madeline Veenstra, who happens to live in the same city as me, Brisbane. Madeline started the site with her then boyfriend now fiancee as the technical founder, beginning with just your basic Wiki installation and the desire to fill it with all things fashion. It took off and she quickly found herself in charge of a site with traffic and an income stream from advertising large enough to live off. Now Madeline has begun taking the next step, seeking funding to help grow her project and move to New York, one of the best cities if you work in the fashion industry. I called up Madeline and asked to do an interview so we could learn how she started her website, grew it and what advice she would have for other entrepreneurs. I do have to apologise that we sort of geeked out a bit on the "Brisbane startup" aspect since we are both from Brisbane and have startups, but despite this I know you will get a lot of inspiration from hearing Madeline's story so far. Enjoy the podcast and please take a look at WikiFashion to see what Madeline and her community have created. [ Download MP3 | Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ] YARO: Hello, this is Yaro Starak and welcome to another interview with an entrepreneur. Today, I’ve got Madeline Veenstra on the line with me. If you’ve never heard of Madeline, she’s actually the founder of WikiFashion which we’re going to learn a bit about in this interview and Madeline is actually, well, I should check, Madeline, are you born and raised in Brisbane like me? MADELINE: Yes, I am. YARO: Awesome. You sound more like a person from Brisbane than I do so, you’re more authentic. Where did you begin this process? Did you go to University of Queensland like I did? MADELINE: I did. I went to UQ and I started there in about 2004 and I didn’t do anything to do with fashion. Obviously, UQ doesn’t have any fashion courses but, I did Japanese and Economics. And so, I became an economist when I graduated and I kind of just started WikiFashion on this side. It was more of a hobby to sort of, funnel my creativity into something and it just sort of started to take off. It was a lot rewarding than being an economist because at that time, I was being trying to become an econometrician, so very hard core data, sit on Excel all day long kind of stuff. Not very thrilling. YARO: Yes, I remember doing just the basics. I did a business management degree at UQ. The Economics subjects just… Yes, I could not imagine doing that for a full time living. I think I’d go crazy. MADELINE: Oh yes. I told them that in my interview. I said I don’t like Maths and they thought I was joking and then, they gave me the Statistics job. YARO: Oh! [Laughs] MADELINE: Yes. YARO: Maybe you should practice your serious version and the joke version. So, is there any history of entrepreneurship in your background? Did you have the lemonade stand as a ten-year-old or anything like that? MADELINE: Actually, I think I did. I had a car wash / lemonade stand when I was about 13. I put all these signs on our front driveway saying “Free Car Wash and Lemonade Stands.” My dad got very angry and took down all the signs. But yes, other than that, I haven’t really done too much. I think WikiFashion kind of just came about, not an accident but, it was, like I said, more of a hobby. It wasn’t something I thought I could make any money from. It was just something that I think a lot of people noticed was missing as well and they came on board. And so,