Entrepreneur Interview

How old are you?

I'm 18 years old, but I've started affiliate marketing & building websites around the age of 16.

When did you start your business?

Legal entities? 16. There is no age limitation in CA for registering for a business license & a seller's permit. The fee's accrued to only around $50/year. I'm now thinking about incorporating (revenue allows) and getting a bunch of DBA's to work under just to seem more legal & official.

What is your business or website called, and what does it do?

My white hat website is called Free Nike. It's basically a "Get your free i-Pod" website but geared towards people who love shoes! The member basically signs up and completes some trial offers and refers people and they'll accumulate points. Enough points and they'll get the shoes that they want.

My blackhat website(s) I would wish for them to remain secretive for obvious reasons. If anyone reads this and I reveal my blackhat websites, they can be reported and banned! I have a lot of blackhat websites - content generation, cloaking, affiliate redirects, and more.

What inspired you to do that?

Whitehat - I have a passion for shoes myself -- namely Nike Dunk SB's. These shoes are very limited and some SB's sell for a couple grand a pair. I realized there wasn't a market for free shoes so I went ahead and took control.

Blackhat - Although Free Nike provided quite an income, I wanted more. Yes I admit, I'm greedy. I like to take my online income and invest it into online poker SNG (Sit-N-Go) tournaments.

What makes your idea work?

Whitehat - The free stuff market for Nike Shoes is very specialized and no one was out offering free collectable shoes. Everybody was offering general shoes which no one was really interested in! I went and dove into a market where I knew the demographics and everything before-hand. I have a lot of experience with these kind of people.

Blackhat - I won't go into detail here but..I have a website which scrapes content from a source say google, google blogs, wikipedia, etc. I then have some data to store on my website. I alter the data using the markov chain (rearranges text and paragraphs based on granulation). I automate and create thousands of pages and use great internal linking strategies by having a link that will always go through the website -- and have a sitemap.

How much money is your business bringing in? Are there signifcant expenses associated with it?

Whitehat - I'm currently bringing in $3,000/month with Free Nike. I am soon going to have a site redesign and have the whole administrative backend redone. I will also get some press releases out and will be holding new contests. I estimate around $10,000/month for mid-2007!

Blackhat - I don't really have that many blackhat sites up right now but I will be building as soon as I'm done with this interview! I'm only earning about $1,500/month with all of my blackhat websites. This ONLY includes AdSense income and no affiliate programs. I will start experimenting with YPN and affiliate programs to see if I can further expand the revenue number. A realistic goal I see reaching is about $10,000/month by mid-2007.

How is your business marketed?

Whitehat - Main source of visitors and active members come from word of mouth.

Blackhat - Blog & Ping, Link Building, several other undisclosed techniques.

Where is the business located? Where are its customers located?

Whitehat & blackhat - this is non applicable. This is obviously a home-based business which lives up to its words of "residual income". Customers (members) for Free Nike are all located in the United States though.

How much time is spent on your business? Do you employ help? How many, and what kind?

I spend a good 8+ hours of work a day in. I don't really employ help other than for small tasks. For that, I go to scriptlance & RentACoder.

Is there any advice you can offer to fellow aspiring entrepreneurs?

Just do it. Don't think too much. Just DO.