Entrepreneurs Journey Podcast By Yaro

Adam Baker is a well known personal finance blogger. He established himself by doing something most people think is a bit, well, risky. Adam and his wife brought home their first baby girl from the hospital, and then he immediately quit his job.

I really do love these niche site success stories, especially when they feature such passion driven subjects (and I admit it, I think model trains are cool). Ian went from installing security fences in a less-than-safe Zimbabwe, to making his way to Australia for a better life for his family, and then managed to secure a full time living without needing a job thanks to an online business focused on model trains.

I realize you probably already have my Blog Profits Blueprint since it has been available for over five years now and has been downloaded by thousands of people. However I have never submitted the audio version to my podcast, so I'm posting it here now to get the download into iTunes and on my podcasts page.

This is no ordinary podcast interview with Chris Guillebeau. I say that because you have probably seen a lot of interviews surfacing with Chris lately and over the years as a multiple book author, world traveler, blogger and information marketer.

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,

After ending his marriage, Chris Ducker packed his bags and moved to the Philippines for a fresh start. A few short years later he was married again with a new family and a successful business with over 300 employees.

Greetings once again fellow entrepreneur, it’s with great pleasure that I introduce you to Clinton Swaine, who inspired this second article in the Creative Visionary series (the first being Marcin Jacubowski).

Jenna Bagwell is an entrepreneur. Her market however is a bit unusual. She runs a business that exists primarily in the online game, Second Life. To call it a "game" however really isn't accurate. It's a virtual world.

This was a really fun interview for me. Why? Because Scott Valdez, my guest entrepreneur on today's podcast, started a business called Virtual Dating Assistants. Scott's business is all about outsourcing your online dating so you only have to show up to go on the dates.

Chris Guthrie is like your every day guy. He's into video games, he likes computers, he studied marketing at Western Washington University, worked a full time job first as a game tester with Microsoft, and later in sales selling IT equipment. He also happened to be really good at the game Halo 2, so good that he decided to use his skill to create a website about the game to help professional Halo players (yes there are professional video game players!). Thus an internet marketing career began.

Many years ago a new writer came on board a blog I used to own called SmallBusinessBranding.com. His name was Jeff Barson and his industry is business advice for cosmetic surgeons, at least that's the best label I can apply. More recently Jeff and I reconnected as he wanted to tell me he was now in charge of a very successful membership site (he had studied my Membership Site Mastermind program, among many other things, hence the connection). I asked Jeff if he'd like to tell his story on my podcast and he agreed. Little did I know Jeff has a history first as an artist, which you will hear about during the beginning portion of this interview, including how Jeff was able to earn enough money as an artist living in New York to retire (clearly a rare achievement in that industry!). Leaving the art world Jeff embarked into a partnership with a family member to set up medical practices, which later led to writing about how to run and market a successful surgery on a blog and community website. Today Jeff is in charge of a million dollar online empire with a range of successful websites. Listen to this interview and learn exactly how Jeff managed to build a very successful and influential online community of medical professionals, and how he has been able to generate some fairly significant revenue streams as a result. Jeff's Websites - Medical Spa MD Freelance MD Mp3 Download [ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]

Many a time I've received a question from a person who has English as a second language, regarding their options for writing a blog and whether they should focus on English since most success stories seem to be from English websites. I almost always recommend they consider their native tongue first, as the opportunities there are potentially significant due to the reduced competition compared to the English market.

Erica Douglass came on my radar years ago when I first heard word of her million dollar story and that she was blogging about online business. We meant to connect but only finally had a chance to do this interview for you now. Erica went on a pretty wild ride with a web hosting company she started from scratch herself, that almost went bust and just months later was sold for $1.1 million dollars. This is one story that is definitely a roller coaster ride, but as with all success stories there is a lot you can take away from both the good points and the bad points. Web hosting is an extremely cut-throat business. It's interesting to learn that Erica's business eventually profited not by targeting the small hosting accounts but by renting server space to larger companies. In the end good customer service and relationships made the difference. If you're interested in running a web services company, this is definitely a podcast interview worth listening. You can learn more about Erica at her Erica.biz blog. Mp3 Download [ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]

I was speaking to Michael Fountain on a 30 minute coaching call, which he qualified for as a bonus because he purchased a product via my affiliate link recently, and he happened to mention his previous life as a software developer. It turns out Michael was one of the co-founders of ModernBill, a billing platform primarily used by hosting companies. This was very interesting to me because I knew ModernBill from my previous business back in the early 2000s as a web host reseller. I never made huge money with webhosting, but for a while I hosted a handful of sites and did some very basic website design work while I was at university. During that time I spent a lot of hours inside the WebHostingTalk Forums, where I learned a ton about hosting. ModernBill was always the top recommendation when it came to billing customers and in fact many of the hosting fees I paid back then went through this software. I asked Michael what happened to ModernBill and he explained that he sold it off to a company called Parallels a few years ago, which was the company behind the PLESK server control panel, which I also used on all my reselling accounts back then. How To Start A Software Company This interview is all about how to start a software company while working a full time job, grow it to over 20 employees, then sell it off with a nice exit paycheck. Here's what I found really interesting about Michael's story: This is yet another start-up success story that began simply because a person had experienced a need, built a solution, then thought other people might need the solution as well, so started selling it Michael was part of a partnership, where two people with very different skills were able to come together and compliment each other and build a solid company ModernBill grew very quickly because it was first to offer a product in the web host billing market and Michael was very diligent, quickly adding new features requested by his customers Michael and his partner hired new staff as needs grew, filling roles as they became apparent, making for a very organic growth process Being passionate about what you do, and experiencing the same thing your customer experiences is a great combination because you know the problem intimately and have the skills to build the solution yourself Finding the right strategic partners was critical for creating new sources of revenue as the company expanded beyond just the software When it came time to sell the buyer surfaced from within the existing community Michael was a part of, so maintaining a connection to the industry you work in is very important You will enjoy this interview with Michael, especially if you're interested in launching an online software company. Make sure you check out his websites too - MichaelFountain.com and GotPHP.com. Mp3 Download [ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]