Hey there!
My name is Mike (like half of the financial bloggers!). I am 29, married with 2 young children (William; 5 and Amy; 3). I work in the financial industry (my day job) and I run an online company with my best friend. My wife doesn’t work while I work 4 days a week at my day job and about 20 hours a week on my online company. My overall income is over 135K and my company (from which I don’t take much income) has gross revenues of 125K in 2010.
I Started This Venture A Long Time Ago
I recently shared on the public Yakezie forum that I started my blogging business back in 2006. It all started with my main blog: The Financial Blogger. In 2008, my partner and I decided to start a corporation and build more websites. We also decided to include an interesting side of our online business; buying and selling blogs. Over time, we are building our “online empire” and we now operate several website properties (most of them in the personal finance niche).
I started to blog because I love writing and have always dreamed of making a living from my writing skills. But since it’s very tough to sell books, I soon decided to head towards my second passion; finance! I am now a financial planner during my “day job” and a financial blogger…well… the rest of the time ;-). My ultimate dream would be to live from my online income… which I could already do right now if I didn’t have a good day job!
In the meantime, I have decreased my weekly work hours to 30 (so 4 days a week) in order to spend a full day per week on my online business. I started this schedule back in September 2009 and since then we have seen some important progress. This gives me more time to spend with my family while not hurting my overall income.
Why Join The Yakezie Group?
I wanted to join the Yakezie group because I think it’s an amazing initiative. The principle behind blogging is to connect with people and help each other out. There is a lot of energy and a wind a new thoughts flowing around this young group of bloggers. This is why I want to be part of it.
In addition to this, I am not shy and will tell you upfront; I am currently working on building my personal brand with The Financial Blogger. I intend to do this by giving away my tricks and secrets to make money online. Therefore, I think it’s a win-win situation for all of us; I will share my success and my failures while building my brand. I’m willing to help you succeed with your blog in all kinds of ways (advice, tricks, link swaps, advertiser sharing, etc.).
Finally, I have discovered over time that when you give advice to someone else, when you teach him to do something right, you have the opportunity to learn as you teach.
What I Want To Do in The Yakezie
I’ve already started to connect with several of you. My goal with the Yakezie is to provide you with great insight and help you succeed. Every 2 weeks, I will post content from my newsletter on the forum (or maybe now as member posts ;-) ). If you have read a few of my threads already, you will see that I share everything about my sites (Analytics, income stats, etc.).
If you want to follow me, you can go look at my several websites:
I hope that we will have the chance to chat together soon!
Cheers,
Mike
Great success story! Thanks for joining, and thanks for the great posts that you have left. I think we call all learn a lot from them!
What is your avatar? I initially thought it was a kraken, but now that it’s larger, I can see it’s not. :)
That’s an old Christmas issue of Spawn (a comic book created by Todd McFarlane, the guy who put back Spiderman on the map and created Venom ;-D )
I am excited to learn from your successes!
Congrats on the double income! I am especially impressed about your website income! That gives me great hope for the future. Thanks!
That’s great that you cut back on your day job hours to focus more on your own ventures, and that they’re going so well :)
Always enjoy reading your detailed financial analysis of your blogging business as I know you are a trustworthy source with a lot of experience.
Congrats on becoming a full Yakezie member and I will look forward to lots more good stuff from you in the future!
Mike, thanks for your tips a couple weeks ago. Definitely want to learn more about how you’ve built up a following at all your sites.
I loved the opening line ‘My name is Mike (like half of the financial bloggers!)’! If I need a pseudonym, I know what to pick!
Thanks for the thoughtful tips and insights, always enjoyed reading those! And welcome to the network!
the worst part is that my name is really Mike! well in fact, it’s Mikael but anglophone just can’t say it properly (no offence, my mother tongue is French ;-) lol!).
I can already see you next insightful post “How to be a financial blogger” 1. Pick a name, any name as long as it is Mike! 2…
:)
Enjoyed your member post! :) Thanks for helping us new kids on the block with your insights. Continued success!
Always look forward to reading from the 4 sites I do Mike. I’ll keep on commenting! ;)
thx for your support SPF, you have been a very loyal reader ;-D
I would also like to thank you for helping us newbies. :)
Your success is an inspiration to us all.
I don’t know how I stumbled into your sites, but I think that I started off with Green Panda. I’ve always found TFB to be very helpful and I troll through the archives trying to learn how to monetize my site while being ethical. I love your perspectives on blogging and as someone that’s also been doing this for along time, think 1998, I get where you’re coming from as well. Cheers!
Mike, I’m glad you joined us! I’ve been enjoying your posts and have become a reader of TFB too where you share some great info. Looking forward to getting to know you better.
Look forward to working with you. Good luck with your goals!
Mike, I am enjoying working with you and learning from you. The insight into the “real” you for one as nosey as I am is also fascinating. I think you were very smart to adjust your schedule as you did. Enjoy the kids!!!
Glad you’re aboard, and I respect your win-win approach. Your insights on blogging are helpful to many of us. I know I enjoy your posts.
Mike, you are always generous with advice and information and we are grateful. Here’s to your continued success.
I don’t think the intro post really exemplifies how much Mike knows about blogging, and as important, the personal finance niche. Find his pillar articles and study them if you are new!
thx for the nice words ;-)
I guess the best way to know me is to look for my previous thread on the Yakezie public forum ;-D
Mike – great to finally read your intro. you and I have the niche website building thing in common, and I am sure there will be many more discussions to come.
question for you – you mentioned the gross revenue from your websites at 125k, and just so that the readership gets an idea of what it takes to run and sustain that kind of a business, can you give an idea of the expenses parallel to the 125k figure?
can’t agree with what you said more – when you teach, you reinforce and further strengthen your own knowledge base
Thanks for sharing. You’ve been sharing great tips throughout the forum with regards to blogging and making money on it. It’s nice to see fellow members who have made it already and sharing their experiences.
I’ve always enjoyed your sites mike, esp green panda tree house. It’s great to have you here and I hope to be able to work with you more in the future. If you need anything, let me know!
Wow..you’ve done more before 30 than most people do in a lifetime. I’m glad that you are part of the group and I wish you loads of success.
I love that you have been such a helpful member of this group! It’s great to see the things that have made you successful, and the things that you realize didn’t help you out and were a waste of time.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciate the blogging tips you have. Keep ’em coming! :)
Financial planner by day? That must give you some good fodder for your blogs (though I guess you would have to be careful with what you disclose as examples you have seen).
I love you advice you have been sharing with everyone! Thank you.
yeah, while I can’t take anything from work directly (client stories, financial materials, etc). it gives a lot of ideas and helps me knowing what people are concerned about when they talk about finance.
[…] personal finance articles this week:http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/f-you/ (via Lazy Man and Money)Yakezie Member Post: The Financial Blogger (via Yakezie) Quit Sniveling: How to Make Lots of Money Doing What You Hate (via Len […]
Great to read about your background Mike. I subscribe to a few of your sites and always like what I read. Thanks a ton for all of your help and wisdom.
I’ve been reading The Financial Blogger since 3-4 years ago! You were one of the Canadian PF blogs who inspired me to start a blog in the first place.
I’m so happy you’ve joined Yakezie and have become so successful with your blogging business :)
thx for your kind words :-)
I hope to continue inspiring you and others ;-D
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Love your blogs Mike, such a plethora of knowledge and experience! Thanks for sharing. Being one of the “new kids on the block,” it’s cool to have a fellow blogger share so much!
Great perspective. I totally agree that helping others can be a teachable moment for both individuals.
Good to see you here, TFB. I think you were one of the first blogs I came across when I started out last year! I’ve learned a lot from your insights and experience.
It is good to get to know you, now that I have dropped by your site. I look forward to more interaction in the future.
Glad to have you with us, Mike! Look forward to those posts/newsletters.
Mike, you are very generous indeed. Helping out others with their finances and giving out tips and advices with blogging. Sharing your knowledge is a good way to learn, too. Kudos to you! :)