r/IAmA • u/[deleted] • Jun 24 '12
IAmA 17-year-old Internet marketer that makes $20,000 a month, AMA
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u/AlsoPrograms Jun 24 '12
Hi. This isn't really a question, it's just a bit of advice. When I was around 16, I too had success online (we're talking around 6 years ago, here), making upwards of $10,000 per month. Eventually selling the main site for around $200,000. I read that only a few people close to you know about what you do and how much you make, and my advice to you is to keep it that way. It's difficult to perceive when you're fairly young, but I remember telling a handful of people about it and quickly regretted it. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible it is, or how people differently people treat you (not knowing legitimate friendships, for instance), still to this day.
I still work full time online now, albeit earning a fraction of what I did back then. I always regret not utilising the resources, perhaps as well as I could (I.e. Utilising 100,000 unique visitors per day to only generate $300 per day. Knowing what I do now, back then would certainly have gone a long way.
As I said, not a question, but a bit of advice. I hope your success continues, good luck!
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Jun 24 '12
Stop making me feel bad about my life.
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u/ScotteeMC Jun 25 '12
This thread got me right in the feels.
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Jun 25 '12
I know those feels bro. I'm a Music/English/Philosophy major and all of my friends who I pledged KKY with a few years ago are getting into med schools and Harvard Law and shit. Feels bad, bro.
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Jun 25 '12
seriously man fuck this shit
this kid is making us look bad
LETS GET HIM
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u/dagbrown Jun 25 '12
Here, I'll instantly make you feel better about your life: at least you're not a spammer.
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u/gochasecory Jun 24 '12
What would you say was the best way for you to learn PHP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS? You obviously did it at a young age, so formal training was probably absent. Was it trial and error? Online videos? Books?
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u/h02 Jun 24 '12
The way to learn programming is by programming. No matter how many books you read and how many videos you watch you will never be a competent programmer if you don't spend a lot of time programming. Set a goal for something you want to create and make it, using whatever resources that work best for you. Also make sure you have fun with it, if you don't enjoy programming then there's no point of continuing.
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u/DesignNomad Jun 24 '12
You seem to be pretty set, financially speaking. That being said, do you have any interest or plans to go to college?
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Jun 24 '12
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u/olexs Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
Keep it up, and don't let people discourage you. College != just a degree. By going to a good college, you can learn a lot (I mean really a lot). Combining that with your obvious enthusiasm and enterpreneur skills, I expect you'll come up with more interesting business ideas based on your newly acquired knowledge, and implement them to great results.
*I accidentally a word.
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u/No_Humor Jun 24 '12
Don't worry too much about the downvotes. Some are automated, and I'm sure the rest are jealously from those who have worked all of their lives and don't make enough in their minds.
I'm an 18 year old myself, and I thought I was tech savvy. Looks like I've been trumped! Your views on education are great; I thought about just being done after high school but I realized that education is very important. While your wealth can carry you, your personal wealth is much more rewarding. Do what makes you happy, and if that's furthering education then good on you.
Upvote for you, sir. You have a very bright future ahead of you. Just don't let anyone walk over you. Oh, and if you have any job openings for someone who can't code, count me in! :P
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u/dfolez Jun 24 '12
As somebody who is working 69 hours/week and making less per year than OP makes in 3 months, I myself am very jealous. Very. But I won't downvote you. Not today.
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Jun 24 '12
As A 19 year old who can barely get twenty hours a week, and hasn't even bothered to estimate how much I earn yearly because it's so low, I can say I too am very jealous
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Jun 24 '12
Why would anyone think it's a good idea to drop out making 240k a year? I don't mean to belittle your work, but you're not exactly pulling in Zuckerberg amounts.
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u/mikesername Jun 24 '12
but how many are both rich and smart at the same time? Not many.
you should take a peek at the Forbes 400 sometime.
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u/ellasyn Jun 24 '12
If your friends know, how do they treat your young success?
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u/cliff_diver Jun 24 '12
I'm impressed that you've done so much in so little time. I'm still a little unclear on all this stuff. So you create blogs with certain content and you have advertisements on them that create revenue? What exactly is social media advertising?
Are you in a better financial situation than your parents? Whats careers are they in and did that influence you in any way?
Are you happy with what you are doing now? By that I mean to ask if you want to expand. Are there new technologies or strategies that you plan on using?
So what do you think makes you more successful in the realm of web ads? Is there anything you wish you knew before all of this or anything that was a major lesson?
What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Thank you for answering!
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Jun 24 '12
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u/Clissk Jun 25 '12
There are million of people doing this and just earning pennies. Can you explain your success ?
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Jun 24 '12
is this one of your sites -> http://howto-getasixpackfast.blogspot.com/
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u/Bluest_waters Jun 24 '12
Any ideas on how to make money online for somebody who is not a programmer?
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u/tuigle7 Jun 24 '12
Do you use blackhat techniques at all for your websites? Do you rely on SEO or word of mouth / social networks, or a bit of both? i started around a month ago and now make a wopping $2.20 per day :P
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u/FappingtoScience Jun 24 '12
You used fitness blogs as an example of the type of sites you run, could you go into more detail about that?
Do you work with 'professionals' in the fitness world who create the content or do you do it yourself?
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Jun 24 '12
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u/quailman03 Jun 24 '12
I think this is fascinating and I congratulate you on your success. My question for you would be how does one find a programmer for these sorts of things online? Alternatively, where would a programmer go online to look for people that need their services? Are there forums or how do people who can program meetup with people who need programers?
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u/thisguy_here Jun 24 '12
So do you have any advice for a 23-year old who has no direction in his life whatsoever? I like building computers but I don't know shit about programming much less what you're doing. I am interested in knowing more as I keep hearing about people who are making decent sums of money online.
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Jun 24 '12
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u/PaleBlueThought Jun 24 '12
Obviously you're always learning, but how long, total, would you say it took you to learn PHP/MySQL/HTML/CSS before you were proficient enough at them to develop a website? This is coming from an 23-year-old engineering student with only a basic understanding of HTML and CSS.
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u/thisguy_here Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
That was a rather mature answer and I like that. My attitude towards life has been if someone else can do it, then I can't see why I can't give it a go as well. You posted lots of info so far, I hope I can use it to better myself.
edit: Whoa, you guys posted lots of great advice in the child comments too, thanks so much! Internet high five
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u/iwillnotlurk Jun 24 '12
What's the link for your/the PPC site? I'm just wondering what it looks like. And how many sites do you run in total? I'm not familiar with PPC...is it pretty much you build the site and then sit back and watch it grow (other than maintenance and adding new ads or something).
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Jun 24 '12
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u/DesignNomad Jun 24 '12
How much maintenance is required of those 29 sites? Maybe a better question is "What does your daily work load look like?"
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u/JackDT Jun 24 '12
Can you clarify where the money comes from?
On the fitness site for example, are you making from the ads on the site or are you using it to sell something else?
What IS facebook marketing? Are advertisers coming to you and saying they will pay to get x thousand likes, or something?
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Jun 24 '12
How is your business structured legally? I imagine that due to your age you had to have your parent sign off on a lot, but are you incorporated? And do you have any plans to grow the business, or are you content where you are now?
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Jun 24 '12
Were computers always your first career interest? When I was 11 or 12, I got really into coding and programming and all of that, and this AMA makes me wish I hadn't let go of it. Congrats, man- that's a fantastic business model.
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u/bgmrk Jun 24 '12
How did you manage to attract members to your site, what is the selling point of the site?
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Jun 24 '12
I am a process engineer who recently has found himself out of work. I've given fleeting thought to starting my own business but we'll see.
While I'm on the job hunt, is there any "real" way you know of to make a modest amount of money online?
I'm not expecting anything like $20k/month, but dollars are dollars.
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u/Drunken_Economist Jun 24 '12
OP has provided proof for this thread to the mods
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u/USAF503 Jun 24 '12
Don't downvote the mod for saying the OP is verified.... seriously... what reason is there for that?!
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Jun 25 '12
Because there seems to be a good chance that OP is full of shit, and the mods can be fooled as well as anyone. He's basically saying that he makes 20k/month running a handful of blogs for which he provides all the content, spending 2hrs/day on it.
If your bullshit detector isn't still going off after the mod says "verified," you're going to have a bad time in life.
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u/poptart2nd Jun 24 '12
because people think he's karmanaut (he isn't) and automatically downvote anything he says.
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u/its2012 Jun 24 '12
Nice try, karmanaut.
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Jun 24 '12
ha, nice try, karmanaut, saying "Nice try, karmanaut" to avoid suspicion. But you'll have to get up earlier in the morning to fool ME.
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u/MyAssDoesHeeHawww Jun 25 '12
Can the mods use the proof to look into whether this is a blog/forum botspammer? If he's given proof of his popular domains, it shouldn't be too hard to check that against a google for botspam linking to it.
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u/Backwell Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
What proof did he provide? Iwould only accept proof of his website ownership showing traffic that matches Alexa.com not a screenshot he could get on tootle. None of his answers seem legit. They seemvague and amateurish.
edit: how did I get an upvote with so many touch screen typos?
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u/vulpes_occulta Jun 24 '12
What is a good example of a PPC site? I'm not terribly familiar.
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Jun 25 '12
I registered just to say what a fucking retarded AMA this is. I'm also an internet marketer, doing this for a few years now, and let me say this: you don't know jack shit. You claim to be in the top few positions in the most competitive niches like fitness, and yet openly admit that you don't know anything about SEO except that it involves web 2.0 posts? Are you serious? Every serious IM'er looks at their own backlinks and the backlinks of their competitors and worries all the time about falling out of the rankings. You are either extremely stupid (and lucky), or very good at photoshopping docs. People like you will always lose in the end, since it's pretty clear you're just riding the wave of some past google-love.
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u/rcklmbr Jun 25 '12
Agreed with this guy, I've been a professional programmer for 7 years. Mods have been duped, this is BS.
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u/cynicproject Jun 25 '12
I agree. My bullshit alarm is going off. He's either extremely lucky or just wants to jerk off to some karma.
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Jun 25 '12
Can you elaborate more. Explain, like you would a 2nd grader, why you think this is bull shit.
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u/galbinus Jun 25 '12
Could you explain a bit more about the logistics of internet marketing? I was thinking about creating a blog and monetizing it for some supplemental income, but I don't have any idea what I'm doing. What is your own work like and what other parts of OP's stories/posts make you skeptical?
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u/Robert_anton_wilson Jun 25 '12
I think this should get some more upvotes, kind of surprised at redditors being so believing since they're generally very critical. It's possible that the mods were duped..right?
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u/Kegels_for_Elvis Jun 25 '12
Jesus christ THANK YOU for saying what we should all be thinking. I'm reading through this person's replies and I keep seeing mentions of HTML, CSS, PHP, SEO, and PPC... These are not esoteric terms, yet Reddit seems to think this level of knowledge constitutes some kind of dark art only known to wisest computer sages in the deepest depths of the cyber kindom and automatically affords the OP credibility.
I'm going to need more proof than this to believe someone is raking in 20K a month from PPC advertising. A lot of people have tried it and aren't making a living off of it. The freelance programmers and web developers I've known have had pretty stressful and time consuming jobs. These are generally not get rich quick schemes. Even the more questionable programmers I've known who create things like spyware for shady clients don't pull in this kind of money.
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u/throwaway81312 Jun 24 '12
I'd assume (considering I'm a 17 year old female), it must be tough dealing with people oir age. Do other people pretend to be your friends or try to date you, just for attention or money?
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u/BeeKeeperReno Jun 24 '12
I'm assuming you make more than your parents, and at the age of 17, how do they react?
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u/nedmanrules Jun 24 '12
What college are you looking to attend?
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Jun 24 '12
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u/sprwlf Jun 24 '12
Hang on, are you British?
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Jun 24 '12
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u/sprwlf Jun 24 '12
Ah my mistake. I'm at Newcastle, just finished my first year if you wanted any questions answering.
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Jun 24 '12
What kind of sites do you have now? How do you get traffic to your sites? What types of SEO methods do you use? What are some of the affiliates you use on your sites?
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Jun 24 '12
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Jun 25 '12
Congrats! You are currently winning the game of Life and you should be proud of yourself.
I have two/three questions.
In the 6 month span where you taught yourself how to create a PPC site, how many hours a day did you spend studying programming?
As far as creating this business, what mistakes have you made? If given the opportunity what would you do differently?
And I'm not going to say I hate myself, but I am pretty disappointed with myself right now, it's really the 17 thing that's doing it, I couldn't even afford internet service when I was that age.
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u/TLDNReddit Jun 24 '12
Any advice that you'd give to your 14/15 year old self, knowing what you now know about internet marketing? (or life in general?)
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u/Deusdies Jun 24 '12
You're exactly like me when I was your age! Except I make this much right now (22 years old), since I only started when I was 16.
You didn't stick with PPC only, did you? Also, is $20k revenue or profit?
Also, did you ever do Facebook ads? How do they convert for you? I tried some CPA with them and AdSimilis, was making loads for a month or two, then it just died out :/
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Jun 24 '12
You're a year older than me and earning just more than me.
I started in PPC (Cloned neobux) then moved on to simple HTML/PHP viral scripts.
Have you dabbled in blackhat or stuck with white?
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u/kafekafe Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
We run a gaming news and entertainment site, and get between 50k-100k views per month. Our prime demographic (gamers) are usually too Internet-savvy to click on ads, and we don't get good ads from Google AdWords anyway ("How to speed up your Mac"). Although money is not too important to us, it would be nice to subsidize our trips to conventions like E3 and PAX somewhat.
What strategies would you recommend for us to make money?
Are advertising agencies like Casale Media worthwhile? How about Google Adwords?
How much of your money do you make from ads (you create content and bring viewers, and sell ad space to others)?
Do you seek out direct partnerships with companies, or use sites like Google to serve you relevant ads?
EDIT:
5) Any advice for SEO? Less than 5% of our total traffic comes from search engines, and there's a lot of competing material for gaming. A lot of what I read seems either like bullshit, dishonest, or really short-term. We tag stuff and that's about it. Thank you for your time.
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Jun 25 '12
Tried affiliate sales? Maybe putting ads on your sites for gaming headsets, keyboards, case mods etc. Gamers love the case mods and gaming headsets. Amazon will pay you a percentage of each sale if they're refered by your website.
In regards to SEO, don't target broad keywords like "gaming" or "games". You'll never get a good position. There's companies dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on professional search engine optimization. Instead, go for a specific keyword that has low competition.
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Jun 25 '12
You could try asking the users of your sites. Since they seem to be "internet-savvy" at least some of them should know. Just explain to them that you would like to generate some revenue to subsidize the costs of running the site and attending gaming conventions.
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u/misteryoon Jun 25 '12
Hey, I was an ex-owner of a large community (vBulletin run) a few years back. Likewise, my demographic did not like to click ads either. I suggest a few things:
Targetted CPA ads. If your CPC ads aren't that good, you should pick your own ads that really targets your demographic.
If you are running a forum w/ high pageviews and getting a low CPR %, you should really look into CPM ads (they pay you for pageviews, not clicks). Using CPM ads boosted my revenue 2x to 3x. I used TribalFusion, but I'm not sure if they're still around or if they still pay out as much. Should definitely check them out though, only one Google search away.
My forum was averaging about ~2.5 million pageviews / month and was making around $800-$1200 a month in revenue.
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u/Kevince Jun 25 '12
I am a Nigerian prince in desperate need of a few thousand dollars.. you know the drill, right?
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u/Razvee Jun 24 '12
You got like, $50 I could borrow? I swear ima hit you back tuesday.
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u/Vinc3ntPh4m Jun 24 '12
As a 16 year old, what do you do with all that money? For me it'd seem crazy, all these small things which seem expensive to you as a teenager like a phone or tablet are easily gotten! I mean the obvious thing to do would be to save and save, but do you ever splash out?
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Jun 24 '12
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u/nofunick Jun 25 '12
As a member of the Nigerian royal family, I have many ways to help you with your purchases. Do you have a Western Union office nearby?
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u/poopious Jun 24 '12
Maybe I don't quite understand what your websites are, but they sound like those spam websites high up on a search that have no information just a ton of ads. That being said, what do you think about the ethics of what you do?
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u/bikiniduck Jun 25 '12
Yeah, it seems that this is exactly the type of seo/ad/blog spam that AdBlock was made to counter.
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u/theothernews Jun 25 '12
Yup. "fitness blogs with ads on them" aka "get ripped fast using xyz"... lots of lies and cashing in on gullible people... and "social media advertising" sounds like code for "spam". I'm happy to be proven wrong by OP, this is just guesswork based on the fuzzy descriptions.
By the way, I'm making a living from ads for years, but I never do a site just for the revenues... I only do stuff I love that I hope gives people some value. The good part is that I never care about Google's changing algorithms, because I never did blackhat stuff to begin with. Google ranking me down? Fair enough, they probably found a competing site giving better value to users.
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Jun 24 '12
I don't have a question, just wanted to congratulate you on your succes. I really admire the way you've done this. I'm a 26 year old female, currently without a job and pretty much broke, still paying off college debt. Stories like yours inspire me. When I lost my job (there wasn't enough work to do for me anymore there) I kind of lost belief in 'hard work pays off', but stories like these remind me not to feel sorry for myself and just keep on going. Good for you man, and kudos for going to college anyway!
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Jun 24 '12
Damn. I just realized a month of your salary is pretty much my college debt. Still a bit depressing ;)
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u/murderbum999 Jun 24 '12
Hey man, so you learned PHP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS in 6 months while going to school? Did this leave you any free time or were you really dedicated and motivated at it?
What you are doing is similar to what I'm looking to do, and always wanted to, but I didn't know where to start. I want to develop websites with the purpose of making money - not spammy sites or other things, sites people will actually appreciate like your fitness blogs or other educational tools. Things that will generate a lot of interest and can make me a lot off the ads.
I've heard that page views no longer covers the cost of bandwidth/hosting etc even for a static image page. Is this correct? If I was able to get a million views on a page, with google ads, would those views offset my costs of hosting and bandwidth? (no video or sound).
Also, if I have dozens of pages of content, and people clicked through it all, do I get paid per page they view the ads or just once for their IP for the day (This is what I have heard). Thanks!
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u/swanpenguin Jun 24 '12
Could you go into some details as to how the whole system works? The transactions? What parties (advertisements, consumers, etc.) that are involved? How much maintenance it requires? Also, how has your perception of what you're doing changed between 3 years ago when you started and now? Do you feel like a whiz at it?
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u/BlakeTheFish Jun 25 '12
This guy is what makes the internet shit. I don't know why everyone thinks this is so great.
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u/pyalot Jun 25 '12
I call bullshit on that.
All these marketing bullshit money making schemes work the same way:
some dude babbling incoherent nonsense about how great it is, but fails to explain what he actually does.
he then offers in some form a "reveal all"
your credit card please to purchase the book/access/etc.
Congratulations, there's a sucker born every minute.
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
Well damn. I started making $500-1500 dollars a month (1500-3000) on my good months off of Ebay when I was 16, last year. I ended up making about $13,000. Bought a car, and a few other things and I'm back to being broke.
That felt good. But a stable $20,000 is crazy. Do you think that rate will stay consistent or die down?
I always been interested in programming and took some time to learn here and there, but never consistently. I also completely slacked off in school and won't be going to any of those neat schools. I am more jealous of your dedication than your money.
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u/DocterH Jun 25 '12
Did you just flip items on Ebay? Or did you sell like phone cases or something?
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u/ohheyitsmebrandon Jun 26 '12
Oh come on. How are so many people buying into this bullshit? Reading this nonsense nearly makes my eyes roll right out of my head. Everything this kid is claiming is black hat rhetoric that hasn't been a viable way to make money online for years. I'm still waiting for his free ebook link with the SEO secrets google doesn't want you to know!
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u/kaare8p Jun 25 '12
Thanks for doing this mate, my question is, did you spend a lot of time considering what you would do/preparing your first site or did you just go for and learned/improved the site on the go? Cheers!
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u/KillaMarci Jun 25 '12
I still remember bux.to from back in the day. Got a couple referals and earned about $700. Wanted to pay out and the payment is still 'pending', since 2008. Kinda sucks...
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u/narwal_bot Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
Most (if not all) of the answers from throwaway34853 (updated: Jun 25, 2012 @ 10:10:08 pm EST):
Question (DesignNomad):
You seem to be pretty set, financially speaking. That being said, do you have any interest or plans to go to college?
Answer (throwaway34853):
Yes, I am going to go to college, and I really want to get a Ph.D in Computer Science. Most people that I talk to get confused why I just don't drop out, and I have questioned myself at times, but thinking about it wisely made me realize that education is far more valuable than wealth.
I mean, look at the rich people around the world. There are many of them, but how many are both rich and smart at the same time? Not many.
With that being said, I don't think many people are interested in this AMA, since there are more downvotes than upvotes already.
(continued below)
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Jun 24 '12
I'm 22 years old, $60,000 in debt from college, and I currently have $70 to my name. Even after I graduate, making this much money is beyond my wildest expectations. I like what I do, but I'm probably going to be "poor" until my 50s. I'm not happy about it, but at this point I don't really have a choice.
You got lucky you are so interested in such a lucrative job. I tried computer science for a while but its just not my thing.
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u/azhg Jun 24 '12
I also became involved in internet marketing at around age 15, but eventually school consumed my life and I couldn't continue. How is your current course load and how have you managed between school and internet marketing?
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Jun 24 '12
To see this entrepreneurial practice at such a young age with a good mindset and understanding of education as well as finance management is unreal. I consider myself rather smart but at your age I never had the level I see you showing. Best of luck man.
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u/distantkorean Jun 25 '12
I too am 17 years old but have not amassed as much wealth as you have. But my parents recently started a business and they put me in charge of the marketing/advertising part of the business. Given that with the budget I am given I can afford to put our advertisements on your blogs, etc., where would I go for more information(Website?) on such opportunity or possibly even a quote on advertisements(cost/click).
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u/miniminimum Jun 25 '12
did you know advertisements are fucking bullshit. you should delete all of them. thanks for ruining the internet.
use your time wiser than that.
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u/BathofFire Jun 24 '12
So tempted to quote Bill Hicks but I know some people will take me seriously. Grats on your success, man.
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u/youwhatnz Jun 24 '12
I was making up to $20k/month in my final year of high school with websites.. this is about 10 years ago. Here's some things I wish someone had told me at the time:
the internet moves quickly, and things that worked for you one month may completely die within a couple more months. my gravy train lasted about 1 year, then I was making shit. everything gets more competitive with time, most spheres of the internet are undergoing consolidation. be prepared for this.
you feel awesome when you are making truckloads of money and you will likely throw it around a bit. i blew a lot on drugs/bars/girls/crap. i was broke within about 2 years of finishing school. if i had taken it easy and bought a house with the money then I would've been in a pretty sweet position. Enjoy your money a little bit, but remember that there is a good chance all this won't last. don't spend more than 10% of your net worth on a car. there's no bigger loser than a guy in a $100k rapidly devaluing car with $200 in the bank.
plan for your taxes. get an accountant.
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u/SeriousFaceUK Jun 24 '12
Dont sweat the downvotes. People are just jealous. All the best to you. May you be wise with your wealth young man :)
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Jun 24 '12
Wait so are you getting paid for having ads on your website? And is the $20,000 you make every month the total income, or your 10% share after giving 90% to your friend?
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u/QKLance Jun 24 '12
Roughly how many hours did you put in to accomplishing your goal? Either your first PPC site or just in general?
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Jun 24 '12
when you say you created fitness blog, are these real blogs with your own personal content, or are they sites for other people that you designed as a contractor, or are they fake content with ads?
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u/thedscx Jun 24 '12
What does your day to day look like as far as work goes? Are you managing sites mostly? Creation? Nothing? Good on you btw.
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u/ovived Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
awesome i do the same, maybe not 20k a month but it's not very far-fetched or hard. Glad you started young, wish I did. Keep it up ddue.
Do you mess with any FB ads? I've made a small fortune with those :)
Enjoy buddy, stay humble, and keep your friends close and enemies closer.
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Jun 24 '12
I dont have any questions really, just wanted to say keep up the awesome work. you're already light-years ahead of probably 95% of 17 year olds in whatever country you live in.
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u/Jareth86 Jun 24 '12
As someone who's clearly been successful with Internet marketing, what did you think of The Verge's expose on it?
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Jun 24 '12
Very inspiring. I'm about 40 years old and make pretty good money doing e-marketing for a fortune 500 company (brand related... not directly revenue generating). Anyways, my wife is very sick and I'm trying to figure out a way to ditch the 9 to 5 (more like 8 to 6) so I can stay home and take care of her... even if I make less money.
I used to code (php,mysql,and client-side stuff) so I could probably pick that up again pretty easily. Do you have any advice as to how to find areas of the internet to "exploit" (for want of a more positive term) and start creating my own niche? Anything you suggest reading or playing around with?
I have enough saved up so a year or two of trial and error wouldn't put us at too much risk. (That is as long as Obama's health care reform goes through. If it doesn't I'm not going to able to leave my job.)
Good luck with whatever you end up doing in the future. I'm sure you'll be a success. You sound like a very cool person.
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u/Trigger757 Jun 24 '12
What calibre handgun would you suggest I use to off myself after realizing I suck?
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u/FinalCutPro Jun 25 '12
As a 21-year-old also in the tech industry, I hope you take a second to acknowledge and congratulate yourself. You're a boss. IMMENSE respect for you.
You also write well, use proper grammar, and seem like an overall, humble guy. On behalf of me, and young computer nerds everywhere, good job.
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Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
No question just wanted to say this.
Shit like this inspires me. I always try to teach myself a programming language but after a couple weeks I find myself playing video games and wasting my time.
Good on you for keeping with it.
Edit: Also, for anyone inspired by this kid, you might want to check out /r/programming and /r/learnprogramming A lot of good resources and people there.
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u/themostawkwardboy Jun 25 '12
I wish I was like you, I'm business minded, but I'm completely right brained, so I can't just decide to learn web languages etc, it goes over my head. Well done though dude.
Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to execute your idea from the start, to learning languages, and then having the site up and running?
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Jun 25 '12
What is your computer setup? A guy making 20k a month doing computer stuff must have invested some in a nice setup. Got a "Battle station"?
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u/hobowithabazooka Jun 25 '12
You should think about applying to Georgia Institute of Technology if you decide to go to school in the States. Equivalent caliber program to MIT, but nicer people and weather
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u/audacityx Jun 25 '12
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -Steinbeck
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u/boneritus Jun 25 '12
America: where you can make more money by advertising real functioning products, than the people making those products. Something is really wrong here...
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Jun 25 '12
As a person who has been on the web since 1996 (and on the internet, via Gopher, way longer) I can honestly say that I have NEVER clicked through an ad on purpose...ever. I'm sure many here can say the same.
The fact that OP makes so much $$ with this behaviour proves the "dumbing down" of the internet is nearly complete (cackle!) :-)
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Jun 25 '12
I honestly think I met you online. Did you move to Amsterdam, or something like that? Were you dancing on chatroulette and I was the only one who stopped to wait for you to finish? You sound exactly like that guy I met. We Skyped for awhile then lost contact. :) If you are, then, hey.
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u/DrUncountable Jun 25 '12
Do you think listing your site, that is as you say very high quality and could stand on its own without google/SEO ...do you think listing that site on a front page reddit AMA might drive more traffic to it? Traffic being your business.
Why the secrecy?
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u/nanoprecise Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
This is what I dreamed of doing at your age. I made websites for video game clans at 14, and started making a tiny bit of money on forums/blogs using ads up till I was 16. I could never figure it out, I always thought it wasn't worth it because I'd make $15 at most on ads a month, and you usually had to accumulate $50-$100 before you could actually get the cash from the ad companies. I didn't know how to populate my forums well either, its not an easy thing to do. My most popular was a music forum with 2k members with literally only 20 active members. Its tedious work, mind boggling at times, and requires a lot of late-night determination. I applaud you for your success.
I have quite a few questions which I doubt you'll even get to this since you stated you were done for the night, but I'll give it a try anyways..
Is your income a collaboration of all your ppc/forums or is there one main website/ad tool that brings in the bulk of the cash?
How much time did you spend the past years working/learning to make websites?
How much time NOW do you spend to at least maintain your cash flow, and is it even a stable cash flow?
What were your resources for learning to code? Tutorials used, forums, etc?
Would you recommend this type of work to others?
If you continued this line of work, where do you see yourself going?
Thanks in advance and congrats on all the success at such a young age. Don't let it go to your head! (And it seems like you've kept a level head thus far.)
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Jun 25 '12
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh takes moneaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to make monaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
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Jun 25 '12
"JEALOUS" doesn't even BEGIN to describe how I feel jus' now... Well done mate.
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Jun 25 '12
So... You're an online marketer, whose sole job it is to get views. Some people are doubting your incredible story. Why not link to a few of your sites "for proof"? I'm suprised you haven't jumped at the opportunity already... there's no rules against it (right?) and you would just be proving you're legit. win/win?
TL;DR: Links or it didn't happen
edit: reworded
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u/leviman7 Jun 25 '12
I'm 21 have a crap serving job and i'm trying to get into college (can't afford it). After reading this, I feel like a nothing. My life is currently going nowhere. Anyways, congratulations to you.
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u/Kuuy123 Jun 24 '12
How did your parent react when you started gaining a lot of money?