Have you ever wondered...

[GregK]

How people got started as an affiliate? Lets compare stories.

[legitebiz]

In my case, I started by chance. I was certainly looking to make money online, but at the time my understanding of the internet was limited to e-commerce and surfing for fun.

As many people -I think- I started taking surveys and wasting time with worthless money making schemes, until one of those turned out to be of some educational value and I finally opened my eyes.

Once I had figured out the basics it was only a process of trial an error and a good deal of persistence.

Boy I am glad I stumbled upon this because it is almost too god to be true. What a great business model!

[HomeComputerGames]

I also started by chance,
I was managing an ISP at the time.
One day I was searching around and found this ugly, slow gambling portal that had free games to play and a fake money system. After playing a few games I saw a vulnerability in the games and gave myself 1 Billion Ludos (their fake money). I then emailed the owner and told him how to fix it. I also sent him my resume.
He hired me as their webmaster within 24 hours.
This portal was Gambling.com.
We took it from 300 members to almost 300,000 members in the first year.
The rest is history and we became one of the largest Gambling portals on the net. After 5 years the company was sold and the dividends divided.
I took my share and started other gambling portals. These were quite successful but things were getting hot for owners of gambling related sites that lived in the U.S.
So I sold everything to PokerListings.com, rented myself a brick and mortar storefront and opened a video game store. I absolutely hated running it and soon turned it over to a friend to run. After doing some local consulting for a time I decided to venture back into my own online business. I wanted a challenge and since I wanted to stay away from the gambling side of things I figured I would set up a storefront to sell my brick and mortar merchandise from. This worked out well my first year and the income surpassed the brick and mortar.
So now I am looking from the other side of the fence. I did find that you have to work just as hard as the affiliate at promoting while still running the business side of the store.
I could never do this if I didn't have a passion for it. As many hours as I devote to HCG and my other sites I would be in pure hell without the passion. And now that I have employees I cannot let them down by letting business slow. Though I have had to lay off a couple of them due to the economic situation.

[GregK]

I didn't realize you have a brick and mortar store front. You are all over the place.

[HomeComputerGames]

LOL

I THOUGHT I was tired of the Internet.
It took me about 1 week to realize that standing behind a counter is one of the most boring things you can do

[GregK]

my story is pretty simple. Needed extra cash + had extra time + knew a few things about websties = I'm an affiliate. I have never been full time, but for me it has always been a great source of extra spending money. (Everyone needs a new surfboard once in a while!)

[pinkelephants]

Originally Posted by HomeComputerGames

LOL

I THOUGHT I was tired of the Internet.
It took me about 1 week to realize that standing behind a counter is one of the most boring things you can do

Aww man! From how it sounds, your dream turned out to be a bust. How is your business now?

[HomeComputerGames]

I love it! There is no other way I could spend 18 hours per day working with it if I didn't.

I use my brick and mortar crew for customer service and to process orders while I handle all the online marketing and recruiting.
The online store has grown considerably since it's doors opened and is need of expanding.

[pinkelephants]

Wow! Where did you learn the in's and out's of it? I've always humored business ownership, but I have no idea how I'd get started. How do you muster the balls to take on big B&M? A strong combination of physical and web presence?