Summary: [ <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/yaro/kate-mckibbin.mp3" target="_blank">Download MP3</a> | <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/yaro/kate-mckibbin.pdf" target="_blank">Transcript</a> | <a title="Subscribe in iTunes" href="http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/itunes" target="_blank">iTunes</a> | <a title="Yaro Starak on Soundcloud" href="https://soundcloud.com/yarostarak" target="_blank">Soundcloud</a> | <a href="http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/podcast/" target="_blank">Raw RSS</a> ] Kate McKibbin is a blogger from Australia and runs two six-figure blogs, which means she makes over $100,000 a year from each. Her website <a href="http://dropdeadgorgeousdaily.com/" target="_blank">Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily</a> is a fashion blog and she also runs <a href="http://www.secretbloggersbusiness.com/" target="_blank">Secret Bloggers Business</a>, a blog dedicated to helping other fashionistas get started with blogging. In this podcast interview, you'll hear the story about how each blog was started, how Kate grew her traffic, and how she makes money. How Kate's Creative Inspiration Carved Out A Niche Business Kate grew up in rural Victoria, a southern state in Australia. Her dad managed his own business, so she naturally leaned towards entrepreneurship too. Kate's dad was also an internet sales provider so they were some of the first people in their area to have internet access. Kate loved fashion ever since she was a child so it's not surprising her first blog to take off was a fashion blog. What most people don't know is that she built her first website at age 13. This was no fashion blog though, it was a fan site for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_%28band%29" target="_blank">Nirvana</a>. Anyone living in the in mid 90’s would know this band was the biggest deal around at the time and Kate was not going to let her teenage angst go to waste! Kate worked in advertising in London after leaving to go travelling at the end of high school. Kate explains that her role in the corporate world was a very bad match and she found herself in dire need of an escape route before things went seriously pear shaped. Kate wanted to get involved in publishing and writing and to find more of an outlet for her creativity. By this time she was still only 21 years old and in an amazing burst of creative inspiration and impressive execution, she created a website to publish magazine type articles she wrote herself. She used this to demonstrate to editors that she could do the work of a magazine journalist. Her website was a creative way of showing potential employers an online CV. Whilst that's quite common practise now, at the time Kate did this, it was still a very original idea. She pitched an idea to write feature articles to the editors of all the magazines she could contact and got picked up by <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/" target="_blank">Cosmopolitan</a>. This lead Kate to work in the publishing industry for three years then go into web editing. Kate's technical skill in creating and managing websites and online content was rare in what was still a relatively new industry. Typical for an entrepreneur, Kate was learning on the go and figuring things out as she needed to. She essentially learned how to create websites using Google to find the information she needed. Being a web editor still wasn't the most fulfilling role though and by now Kate had moved back to Sydney and needed to make more money. At the time there were three main newsletters everyone subscribed to for fashion but none were Sydney based, so Kate decided to create a newsletter and offer online shopping for fashion. Because what she was doing was still very new and she worked in the magazine industry, Kate was very lucky to get her site mentioned in a few well known print magazines so her email list grew quickly. Kate began to make around $1000 a month from advertising and was offered a one or t...
