Todays interview is with Peter Ward and Jerome Touze, who run the world’s largest travel and lifestyle social network community website with 15 million members in 193 countries worldwide. I really enjoyed doing this interview today, they were very funny guys, always cracking jokes. Actually it took us 3 takes to get going because I kept laughing when they did an introduction.

Just to show you guys how big they really are, they have had the founder of Jagex which owns Runescape, a billion dollar company invest in them. The CEO of CheapFlights and even the founder of FriendsReunited.com!

What’s really remarkable about WAYN.com was the first 1 million members were paying members and then they decided to release a FREE version.

WAYN have even started their own Twitter present, you can follow them here @WAYNCOM

So you guys run the world’s largest travel site, social site, and that’s called WAYN. What does WAYN stand for?

So, WAYN stands for Where Are You Now? It’s, as you just said, a lifestyle and travel community website with 15 million members worldwide. It is a concept that both Peter and I came up with just before we joined a company called Accenture back in 2002. We had the idea when we came back from travelling. And we started to brainstorm the concept was working for Accenture for a few years, and launched a site officially in 2005 after having secured certain original backing from the founder of Friends Reunited, which were extremely popular in the UK when they launched in early 2000.

And WAYN has grown ever since from strength to strength. We had about 40,000 users in March ‘05 when we relaunched our site properly. Then it went on to about one million users by the end of 2005. A point at which we decided to go full time onto the business, and decided to really expand it from there.

And we’ve had, obviously, a very exciting journey ever since. And WAYN is, as you’ve probably seen from the press and the latest of being talked about in the industry, have had a great relaunch and a new strategy and new branding and things to be looking forward to.

That’s great, guys. So, how did you manage to grow it from 45,000 members, I think you said, to a million in around six months?

Well, I think the first thing that we obviously did, is look at what the other social networks were doing in the space. And we could see that the fact that you could invite your friends from other networks, whether it be your Hotmail, your Yahoo, your Gmail and so on, was a very popular way in which to grow virally. And so, we adopted a similar approach, and we were one of the first social networks to do that. And it helped us to grow much, much more quickly. We did use Google AdWords before that as a way of attracting users, but it was not anywhere near the extent of success that the viral approach that we after that was.

But, I think that over time, you realize that you can’t rely on just contact import, you need to have an element of stickiness to the site that’s going to actually create the word of mouth viral growth. And I think that, fortunately, we had a differentiated enough proposition, which was the focus on the travel and the lifestyle, which no one else was really doing.

And that, I guess, appealed to a certain segment of our audience at a point where we became the largest in that space.

You just mentioned you had to have your site sticky. How were you able to make your social network sticky enough for people to come back every day?

Well, I think there was the introductions of the alerts and news feeds that were first seen, if anything, on social networks like Facebook. I think many social networks and businesses have actually learned a great deal as to what Facebook has actually done. But we started to launch the alerts a good year and a half ago now, which was purely based out of the activities generated by the users and communicating with their circle of friends based on what the user was doing. We’ve all seen alerts similar to you’ve been tugged into a footer or whether you’ve received a message. And being informed as to what’s happening in your community to drag the user back into their profile.

Peter Ward and Jerome Touze with the WAYN Mascot

But one thing that we’ve just really refocused the mind on is this new service that we’ve just launched, which is, if anything, focusing on what the users up for doing. One thing that we realize with travel, if anything, is that there was perhaps too much cyclicality and seasonality around what users were doing. You know, let’s face it, travel is clearly a very exciting and very broad sort of focused angle.

The one thing that we do realize, is the things that the things that people do a lot more, are the things that’s to do with their close vicinity and doing the weekends or in the evenings. Whether it’s going for a bit of air, going to the restaurant, going to the cinema, the theatre, playing bowling, you name it.

And a thing that we really looked at the social network and its history sort of paced by social networks or perhaps reunion sites, should I say, like Classmates and Friends Reunited that were very much focusing on the past.

And now we are very much a fan and founder of the likes of Facebook and Twitter, which are focusing on the present. With questions such as what are you doing now? But no one was really looking to the future. So, this new service that we’ve just launched, we really believe will allow us, if anything, to tap into a lot more active usage by really focusing the mind on what users want to do, and inviting their friends to join in those plans.

That’s really clever, Jerome. I like that. You guys are like one of the most profitable social networks that I’ve heard of. You started with a paid membership, I believe?

Yeah, I guess we had the benefit of knowledge from the founder of Friends Reunited, who was our first angel investor, Steve Pankhurst. In the sense that they were growing a very profitable business in Friends Reunited. And at the time, there were very few competitors in our space who were offering a similar service to ourselves. So, we felt that it was justified for us to charge a premium subscription service. And that was great for us to start with because it meant that we became extremely cash positive and was generating a lot of profit. But it also meant that in some respects we were stifling the growth potential of WAYN because, obviously, some people would not want to pay, and therefore were not being as active to the service as they could have been.

Jerome Touze, Brent Hoberman and Peter Ward

Coupled with that, we had, obviously, the explosion of growth in the new social networks that were offering a fremium model such as the likes of Facebook and MySpace and, obviously, now the likes of Twitter as well. It’s become even more difficult to really justify a premium subscription model unless you really do have a truly justifiable or differentiated product that the people are willing to pay for over and above.

So, we’ve kind of had much more of a broader approach to the revenue business model since then. In fact, advertising represents by far the largest portion of our revenues. And we’ve actually developed some of the leading, spearheading, social media type campaigns with some of our advertisers, which is something that we’re very much encouraging to do more of.

On top of that, we’ve also launched a micro transactions platform which allows users to buy virtual goods, such as gifts, super rate other members, and send say hellos. Which is something that we see ourselves expanding on in the future.

And, in fact, we see PLANS, which is obviously the new offering which Jerome eluded to, where people are obviously planning what they’re up for doing in the future, as being one of the key enablers to bringing together a number of additional microtransaction opportunities. But, I can’t give too much away on what we’re planning to do there.

All right, that’s cool. So, you mentioned you were very cash positive, but I understand you did take 11 million in your first series of funding?

So, I think when it comes to the finances, we can’t disclose too much as to where we are and where we’ve been, but I think generally speaking, the company was profitable from day one, as you eluded to. We’ve invested ever since, a lot more, clearly, in the growth of the business. When we did and the fundraising in 2006 it was an $11 million series fund. The party clarity of that deal was the combination of money out and money in deal. At the time we didn’t need to take too much obviously equity dilution because of the fact that we were profitable and fast growing.

It’s worth noting that 2006 and 2007, where we were at the peak of the market, so it was definitely a great timing…

Michael: Brilliant. So I guess a question a lot of my readers and my listeners will be asking is how were you able to attract people to fund your project such? I understand you had David Soskin from Cheapflights.com come along and invest money and you also had the cofounder of Jagex, which runs RuneScape, a game I know very well. They came along and invested also in Friends Reunited. How were you able to attract these people in the first place to come and invest in yourself?

Well, I think it started with, if you look at Cheapflights, it started actually from a commercial discussion. We were engaged with the Hugo initially on the potential integration of Cheapflights within the website. And the commercial discussions turned into an investment opportunity. Whereas people like Constant were actually introduced to us by other venture capitalists that we met in the circuit in New York. Brent was from a conference that Pete attended. And Pete wanted to introduce himself to Brent and when we met our VCs for the first round discussion, we thought it would be a fantastic candidate for potential chairmanship and investment.

And Brent joined when we introduced the opportunity to him. So all that one thing to another. When we met the VCs at Esprit Capital Partners around August, 2006, September, 2006, the process went very quickly. It was about eight weeks from introduction to completion.

The VCs were quite keen to have an extra $1 million brought onto the table by concession of investors. This is where we thought that having the expertise of a combination of guys as chairs Cheapflights, Jagex membership experience and Brent for his travel and overall trip ownership experience would be a great addition to the table.

I’m sure so many people have seen the growth of Facebook, Beebo, MySpace and even wayn.com and really looking to start their own social network. What would you say to those people who are considering doing that?

Well, I think that there’s obviously a huge buzz in social media world. I think it’s great and should be very much encouraged to have the entrepreneurial innovation that we are seeing. The industry that we are a part of is thriving, despite the credit crunch and the impact on the economy. The amount of events that we are attending to or being invited to and the social scene is really helping to foment a bit of a ecosystem certainly in London and beyond.

I think that in terms of setting up a business in this space, it is becoming increasingly more challenging in terms of finding a real business opportunity that’s going to make money. But it’s like a needle in the haystack thing. It’s very low barriers to entry in terms of setting up a website these days.

You have cloud computing. You have low cost of running systems and the actual time to market in terms of developing stuff these days can be very quick and can grow very quickly. But the reality is that most of these businesses that are setting up have not identified a real revenue stream that is sustainable.

So I think that the real focus needs to be on where is the value? And I think that now with the current climate that we’re in, we should see a flight to value, which is actually going to be a good thing, I think. Because there will be a consolidation in the market.

A lot of those good ideas that don’t really necessarily have any substance will fall by the wayside and you’ll see an emergence of the real high value focused propositions.

The reality is you got to remember that the likes of the founders of Google, their idea was very simple. They didn’t think about a business proposition at the beginning and it turned out to be one of the most successful business models in the world. So I think that the whole innovation engine is a powerful one and I strongly encourage it.

Brilliant. Thanks very much for that. I completely agree with you on the value side of the business. You have to provide value before you provide anything else. Yeah, that’s great advice. What is your lifestyle like? When I speak about the Internet lifestyle, for me it’s first being able to work when I like, where I like. What are you guys up to every day?

Yeah, unfortunately it’s not as glamorous as being able to work from very exotic location on a beach with a laptop. It would be great if we could do that from time to time.

Peter Jokingly Said: Excuse me, could you pass the pina colada over there? [laughter]

Just be careful we are going to hear the waves in the background. Well, actually Peter and I have been very lucky to be able to do some coinvestments as a side of the business in properties. Whenever we can we try to escape and do work remotely one week or two weeks, maybe every six months. We use that opportunity if anything to brainstorm because one of the things that we realize is that it’s amazing how much time you spend tactically on a daily basis and not enough time is being spent strategically.

Very often it’s when we go away and escape from the daily routine that we can come up with the innovation that I think that we’ve always say that we should do that a lot more often. But I think our base is very much as we speak now, our focus operationally on the product for Pete.

Pete is spending a lot of his time really hammering the product, and insuring that the guys in Poland where our second office is located are focusing on the refinements of the new offering. For my side it’s very much focusing on the commercial aspects, especially in the current environment.

We are a business that predominantly relies on advertising revenues. And whilst we are potentially seeing a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel of this recession, we are still very far from the good days.

I think that we are having to work even harder than what we used to to bring revenues, as many other businesses. The advertising space is hard. Even if the penetration online is still growing, I think convincing the media buying agencies to spend these days is obviously a more challenging exercise.

So I think that it’s certainly not the lifestyle and glamorous, being able to work remotely and having the time to travel all over the world. If anything, it’s very much keeping your head down and working as hard as we can, as long as we can to move quickly. We are competing in an environment where we know that the technology is evolving extremely fast.

It’s very hard to keep tab of what’s happening, especially when you have leaders like Twitter and Facebook that clearly have a huge amount of capital and cash at bank, which allows them to grow very quickly and be aggressive.

Unfortunately, there are many companies in this space that don’t have the luxury of being aggressive because of lack of funds. We are lucky to be a business that has capital, cash at bank and saying that, we still have to be very cautious in the current environment.

Brilliant. Yeah. Completely agree. One of our past interviewees mentioned a really good quote. Entrepreneurship is living a life like most people won’t live the rest of your life, like most people can’t. I think that’s exactly what you are doing. You are putting in the hard hours now.

When it comes to the lifestyle, I think that the only thing I can say and I’m sure Peter will agree here, if anything the best life is to wake up every morning and being extremely thrilled and enthusiastic about work. We are passionate about what we are doing and we have been doing it for years. And I think that the excitement about what we do, is the ability of actually doing what we like best. And I don’t think there is anything in this world right now that we could see ourselves doing differently.

We’ve always had the dream of living a corporate world to drive entrepreneurship every day. And now we are doing just that. So I think we should be, if anything, very grateful and recognizing the opportunity that was given to us to be able to do just that. There are very few people in this world that have been given this opportunity and we are very grateful for it.

That’s very refreshing. I’m glad you see it that way. So why should have a lot of readers on my site who are businessmen and they travel a lot. Should they be using wayn.com?

WAYN is definitely a mass market focus. It’s not your kind of elitist or pure business focus only. However, having said that it doesn’t mean to say that it is not in any way useful for the elite, the business oriented folk out there, as well as everybody else. The beauty of WAYN is that it is in some respects all things to all people. And the focus now that we have on the plans in the future should allow people to coalesce a bit more around that, their future intentions and what they are interested in doing. Wherever they are, whenever they want to do it.

So I think that therefore it is quite a transcending utility. It you think about Twitter, Twitter wasn’t built for business, but it is universally adopted by both business, social and other alike.

So I think that the challenge is obviously to try and not be too broad that it doesn’t appeal enough to a certain core demographic while at the same time has the value to different key markets that are important to us.

So answer your question I would say that it’s not primarily focused for business but anyone, all of your listeners and followers can certainly gain a lot of value from it. But I would say it’s primarily for on a social dimension that it is on a business dimension.

Brilliant. To finish up the interview, I’d like to ask you guys a quick, few, fast action questions here. Just give me your first answers and that would be great. So, the first question is: who do you look up to?

Sir Richard Branson.

Just keep believing and as long as you are very driven and believe in what you do, you should never give up. Also, always surround yourself by people that are a lot more clever than you are. I think entrepreneurship is all about insuring that you have people that can actually advise you. And having a great team and trust amongst your close circle is by far the most important thing in success. I think that one of the things that has resulted in, I believe, in Peter and Mike and myself, to get to where we are today is actually the three of us. The fact that we are very different yet very complementary.

The fact that this triangle sort of cofounder structure has worked extremely well because there was a great amount of trust. It sounds very obvious that you should never go into business with people that you don’t trust. But you would be surprised about the amount of entrepreneurs and people that are either isolated or usually get frictions, tensions at some point in their career.

We’ve been doing this since we met in 2002 and seven years later we are still, like the palm of our hands, best friends and business partners, which is great.

If the Internet had not existed, what do you think you would be doing?

Oh, gosh. I’d be at Accenture.

No, I don’t know.

I do have a few ideas, personally that I would love to do at some point in my life. But I won’t reveal them just now. But I think that yeah, if there’s a good chance that we would potentially still be working for Accenture. Realistically we still have this drive of working as entrepreneurs and if it wasn’t WAYN it would have been something else. But we are glad it was WAYN because it definitely has been I think a successful journey up until now.

Yeah, it could have been a string of restaurants, hotels, bars, you name it.

Brilliant, thinking big. I like it. And what do you like best about the Internet?

The fact that things change so quickly. And that you can pretty much do whatever you want and get access to any information. Particularly on Twitter now, it’s amazing. You can pretty much ask any question and find somebody who can help you, which is great. What I find very exciting personally about the Internet is the ability of seeing the result of your work extremely quickly. I do remember days when Peter and I were flabbergasted at some of the results that huge changes were being made on the site and bringing amazing results that you could see usually by the minute.

And observing the trend, literally just happened on a quick release. These are part of the very amazing, exciting moments of an online business where you can sometimes just sleep and waking up in the morning realizing that amazing things have happened whilst you sleep.

The community is alive 24 hours, seven days a week, wherever you are in the world. And I think that the Internet is amazing for that.

My last question is what do you like least about the Internet?

The fact that things change so quickly. Because it also means that your competitors can catch up very quickly, as well. So keeps you on your toes.

Any goals you would like to achieve? Any lifetime things you would like to do?

Yeah. Turn WAYN into the largest and most successful business when it comes to lifestyle and travel on line. I think we’ve got some amazing aspirations with this new strategy that we are launching. We’ve got great ideas and how we are going to execute them on a monetization of these new strategies which we can’t reveal too much on about.

And as far as we can keep on doing this job and driving WAYN to be an amazing brand, then so is the dream. I think we are not the sort of guys that will want to do WAYN, then sell it. Then move on to another idea. That could a possible route, but I think it would be passionate to the core of the WAYN brand.

It is our first venture and I think we believe in entrepreneurship to the core that you are driving it to a long and sustainable journey versus doing something to sell it and then moving up to the next thing. We are more the first option.

I would build on top of that and say that in the longer term, bigger picture, because we’re not necessarily going to be running WAYN for the rest of our lives. But I think that we definitely see the vision of helping other entrepreneurs on their journey at the beginning of when they are starting up. Also being I guess active in the community to encourage entrepreneurship and hopefully help the next generation of entrepreneurs to realize their dreams.

So be a combination of an element of serial entrepreneurship, I believe, whether it be the WAYN world after the Wayne’s world and supporting those others who are trying to do the same thing.

Thanks Peter and Jerome, it was great to speak!

It appears that a lot of you enjoyed the interview with my father last week (He keeps reminding me!) Anyway, what you did not know was that my Dad actually recorded his replies as an audio (Podcast) and then had the replies transcribed. Now some of you commented about the length of the interview – but it could have been much longer to start with — as today’s Podcast will prove. Barry did not really want to release the podcast but there is some good stuff on there that I am sure people will enjoy — including the “truth” about how he and Dean Hunt connected and more about BuzzProfits.com

Also a lot of you emailed / contacted Barry after the interview with questions. One recurring theme was “What does it take to be in business and stay in business for so long?”

In today’s slightly shorter piece, Barry reveals his: Life Lessons For Entrepreneurs

Enjoy!

Life Lessons For Entrepreneurs – By Barry Dunlop

Sub-Title: Things I wish I Had Known As A Young Entrepreneur

No1: There are NO guarantees.

Let me say it again, there are no guarantees. I quite often meet people who have gone into business and one year down the line, two years down the line, or even just one week down the line they are all depressed and down in the dumps, because somehow somewhere they made a mistake. They actually thought there were some guarantees that come with being an entrepreneur. Regrettably there are not.

Barry Dunlop Speaking at The Forum

There will be occasions when your customers will not pay you. Terrible, I know, but it will happen. Secondly, there will be occasions when the people who supply goods to you, or services to you will let you down. That is just the way it is, accept it.

And thirdly, and possibly the most important, a lot of the time your customers will think all of these issues are actually your fault, and it is not. Just get on with it. Really there are no guarantees.

As an example, I was recently speaking to a Young Entrepreneur who was involved in Affiliate Marketing – who had just discovered that almost $1000 of commissions that was due to them would not be paid because the company they promoted had gone bust. I have to say, in fairness, this individual had a pretty positive attitude about it. They had accepted that was one of the things they were going to have to put up with and were getting on with their business.

Yet I have seen other occasions when people have been so down in the dumps. Sure, they have lost 1,000 dollars, but they are so down in the dumps after losing 1,000 dollars, that actually, in fact instead of losing 1,000 dollars they have lost 10,000 dollars, or even 20,000 dollars because they lost FOCUS in their business.

When you have your disappointments, which you will often have as an entrepreneur – get over them ASAP. Actually, get over them before they start, because there are no guarantees.

No2: Know the Numbers

I can’t tell you how many times I meet entrepreneurs who don’t know the numbers. They don’t actually know if they are making money or not making money with a business.

I don’t consider myself an accountant or somebody who is particularly good with numbers but I do understand this – I have to have more coming in than I have going out.

If you don’t know for a fact that that is the case, then stop what you are doing right now and go find out. If it so happens more is going out than coming in – then ask yourself what you can do about it? Take less salary? Reduce your “entertainment” costs? There is always ways to save money in a business.

Of course sometimes in business (especially if it is a start-up) you will have less money coming in than you have going out for a little while – in that case, it is even more essential you know the Numbers!

No3: Perfection is for suckers.

Actually I will give credit for this. My good friend and business partner, Dean Hunt, he used the word suckers. He said, “Perfection is for suckers.”

I think I originally said Perfection is Over-rated but really SUCKERS makes the point much better.

Some of you will have already heard me say: “That good enough is good enough” or mention the 51 percent rule. If you are right or correct 51 percent of the time you are a winner. Take those odds to Vegas and you would bet all day at 51 percent.

Too many people decide that being in business is about being perfect. Let me tell you it is not about being perfect. In fact, being in life is not about being perfect. We are imperfect beings and we will continue to be imperfect all of our lives.

Please remember, perfection is for suckers. Remember good enough is good enough. Sometimes getting a product created, just getting it out there is all that really matters.

I will be fair; I will give one exception to this. If I was in the hotel business, or a restaurant or something like that, where it is a real intensive service business, sometimes good enough is not good enough — then you would perhaps aim to for a good deal better than 51%

But listen, if you are creating a website, or you are getting a new product or service out there and you are working and fine tuning it, you could fine tune it for the next six months. Get it out there. It is just a simple fact as that. It will not be perfect, but you can perfect it later, and you can start to make money sooner.

The longer you wait for perfection the longer you wait for money and the longer you wait for money the less likely you are ever going to get started in the first place.

No4: Tame the ego

Wow this is an amazing one. Tame the ego!

So many of us in life are always, always, always wanting to be the center of attention, to be seen as the big person. I wish I had learned this lesson earlier in my life.

Tame the ego. The ego will fool us and will trick us.

Another way of putting it is: please, please, especially if you are a business owner, give credit (praise) to others. The people working in your organizations, the people who are working with you are partnering with you.

I discovered that the more credit (praise and acknowledgment) I gave to other people somehow the more credit I got myself. I can’t really explain it, but the more credit I give away the more I get back.

I think it was Zig Zigler who said, that you can get everything in life that you want if you help enough other people to get what they want. . Please tame the ego, I promise doing that will serve you well.

When you can be the modest entrepreneur who is raking in millions and taking it to the bank, that is an absolutely awesome feeling. Of course don’t confuse this with having low self esteem – no successful entrepreneur has that. What I am saying is that in your organization and as a LEADER you build yourself up by building others up. Do not go around as the BIG Ego / superstar — even if you might think that is the case.

No5: You will never have an AWESOME / Out of this world Idea in the office

One thing which I especially have worked out in recent years is that you will never have a really awesome, mind blowing, out of this world idea in the office.

I am not saying that you won’t occasionally have some ideas in the office or while working in the business but I will say I have had my best ideas away from the traditional working environment.

I get some of my best ideas when out for a walk or even on the treadmill at the gym. One of my favorite pastimes is to walk the dog along the beach here in West Sussex in England – these days I take my iPhone with me and make NOTES on it when I have ideas – but you can also use a voice recorder or just a sheet of paper and pen.

Please, please get out of the office or normal work environment more often. Go to places where you can relax and just let the subconscious take care of whatever your challenge is. Your subconscious mind is your most obedient servant. What you ask it with intent -it will answer. But if you don’t ask and don’t get in the right environment, it will not answer.

Thinking hard does not work, but relaxing hard does.

No6: Success, is not the goal. Happiness is the goal

Success, whatever that might be, is not the goal. Happiness is the goal. When we go into business some of us think, “All right, success is the goal. I want to make this amount of money, I want to have this car, I want to take this holiday, I want to live in this home.

Barry regularly enjoys time out with friends, in this photo Tim Houston and Mason Thomas - Super affiliates - (returning from a trip to Mexico)

Those may well be some of your goals and they may well be worthwhile goals, and maybe they are goals that you will achieve. However, I would emphasize and just change it slightly and say, “Really, happiness is the goal.” This is a bit of a metaphysical situation here, I don’t want to go into it in detail, but just remember that happiness is the goal.

No7: Winners are Givers

When I first went into business, or first got into personal development people said, “Barry, associate yourself with winners. Hang out with winners and you will be a winner.” It is a good saying and I agree – but recently I have changed it a little.

You see, as I have got older I have discovered that the real secret is that Winners Are Givers.

Winning entrepreneurs are always givers. They are people who, obviously, support worthwhile causes, support charities. But they are also the kind of people who will lend a hand with a tip or some encouragement at a critical moment in your life.

Matthew Glover, Dr Koneru Satya Prasad and Barry Dunlop

<<< Barry is a very enthusiastic supporter of Heal.co.uk – a charity that provides education for Children in India >>>

I mentor a number of young entrepreneurs (and even not so young) – people that I love and I care about. This is just one way it is possible for me to “repay” the help I have received from my many mentors over the years. You see, what goes around, really does come around.

I believe fervently that entrepreneurs make the world go round. I know free enterprise and capitalism is much maligned and much put down, but for me being an entrepreneur is one of the best things in world to do. Entrepreneurs set both themselves and others FREE. Imagine what the world would be like without entrepreneurs?

Winners are naturally givers and entrepreneurs are naturally givers in my experience. Be proud to be an entrepreneur.

No8: Fall down seven times, stand up eight AND Money grows on the tree of persistence

Both of the above quotes are actually Japanese proverbs

I like them because for me they represent the essential secret to success in anything and especially as an entrepreneur.

Listen; there will be many times in life when we will fall down, the important thing is to stand up again. Get up again.

I have probably fallen down a lot more times than seven times. But I have stood up a hell of a lot more times than I have ever fallen down. That is possibly the single most important lesson that anybody needs to learn in life.

Life is about evolving, it is about becoming, I hope, a better person as we move along. We certainly shouldn’t be becoming a worse person.

Don’t give up if at first you don’t succeed, because you won’t succeed at first (no one does)

And for me, there will be times when you are going to be down. There will be times when you feel quite down. But the important thing is to get back up again. Fall down seven times, stand up eight. That is a grand mantra, that is a great motto for any entrepreneur to take forward with them.

Thank you to all the people who contacted me after my last interview. There are some links below of a few of the websites I am involved with. In particular check out BuzzProfits.com — we have a FREE & 7 Day Buzz Marketing eCourse available – so do go check it out.

You can also email me at barry@buzzprofits.com of find me on Facebook

BARRY’S WEBSITE LINKS:

http://www.buzzprofits.com

http://www.midascode.co.uk

http://www.barrydunlop.com

Have an AWESOME Day

Barry Dunlop

Bonus Video:

http://www.BuzzProfits.com Co-Founder Barry Dunlop talks with Tammy Fennell – a New Yorker and very enthusiastic member of BuzzProfits.com

In this interview Tammy reveals just some of the reasons why she loves being a member of BuzzProfits.com

PS: Dean Hunt is a genius

I’m currently the CEO of Bluefirepoker.com. What I do changes quite a bit from one day to the next since we just launched; we have a lot of new projects I’m working on each day, but I’d say my main focus is on marketing and business development.

It’s just 2 months since you launched Bluefirepoker, which was created to help people make money online by playing poker.  Could you share with us how this site is going?

It’s been phenomenal so far.  We’re exceeding our expectations, and are still growing at a rapid rate.  We’ve already been featured on Fox News, and have quickly become the place to be for people looking to make money from poker.  I couldn’t be happier with how it’s going.

Making money online with poker is something new to me. Is there a risk involved?  What is your top tip for making money online with poker?

There’s a risk with it, much like with everything else, but making money playing poker isn’t “risky” nor gambling as people assume.  Once you know how to play, it’s not really gambling anymore.  Same as if you’re an entrepreneur and do business ventures.  If you didn’t learn how to make money in business and research your market it’d be very risky if you were just investing money into it without first learning how to do it.  If you learn how to play poker and practice before you invest money into it, there’s a good chance you will profit tremendously from it.  Playing poker is how I built my capital to be able to start investing in real estate, and starting companies.  Most people assume it’s luck.  There is short term luck involved in poker, but in the long run the good players get the money.  It’s tough to give a quick answer on how to make money playing poker.  If I had to explain in one sentence the best advice I’d have would be,  ‘Play well within your bankroll at levels you know you can beat, and learn how to play correctly before you start trying to earn income from it.’  So many people who could potentially make a lot of money from poker will play over their heads and lose their bankroll before they have a chance to grow it.  Same with people who don’t learn the game well enough before they dive in. They lose and blame it on being “unlucky.”  If you play at levels you’re bankrolled for and put in the required work you will make money.  There is no question.

You are known as one of the authority websites in the, ‘making money with poker’ niche. What advice would you give a new entrepreneur to dominating their niche?

Be the authority on the subject.  Don’t put out “pretty good” content.  Put out the best content.  We brought on the top talent in poker.  Our lead pro, Phil Galfond has made millions and millions of dollars playing poker online.  He’s arguably the best poker player online, but even better than that he does a great job at explaining very difficult concepts in a way that people trying to learn can understand.  People have been waiting to learn from someone like that.  Do the same with whatever your niche is.  Whatever you are selling, it should be the best there is.  It can still be successful if it’s not the best, but it sure will make the rest of your job a lot easier if you can offer something that’s better than anything out there.

More important than that, you should try to provide immense value to your customer.  Don’t think so much about “what will they buy if I sell it.”  Think, “what do they need, and how can I help provide that for them.”  With our business people want to learn to make money from poker.  We provide a way for them to learn from top players, without them having to spend a crazy amount of money for it.  Personal 1 on 1 coaching from our pros would not be something most people could afford.  However, we create training videos of our pros and offer new videos on new concepts all the time.  We make them available to our customer base which enables us to offer something of great value for a price far under what it’s worth.  Make the deal so good customers won’t be able to pass it up.

Since launching earlier this year, you have managed to already attract well over 1,000 paying members.  How did you manage to achieve this?

This kind of ties in with the question before, so I’ll keep it short, but people see the value in what we have.  It’s a great testament to our team of pros, and shows how much people are learning from them.  People want to make money from poker, and word spread unbelievably fast in poker communities when they found out the team we had assembled to help them make money playing.  They knew the value from being able to learn from our team, and our system is set up to drastically speed up the learning process, so that players make money much faster than if they tried to learn without us.  It’s very fulfilling to have people so happy with the service we’re providing, and that they’re benefiting so much from it.

What advice would you give to people just starting out with an online business?

Know your niche.  Work harder than everyone else, but more importantly work smarter.  That often involves being creative and thinking outside the box, but it’s way more fun out there anyways.

You are currently living the “Internet Lifestyle”, what does the internet lifestyle mean to you?

To me it means doing whatever you want, whenever you want, and being wherever you want.  If your friend tells you about something going on across the country tomorrow and tells you to hop on a flight, you can.  It’s nice not being locked down by anything.  It also means if you do things correctly you can set your businesses up so that they’re pretty well automated.  Right now with Bluefirepoker we’re a new company so I’m working crazy hours to get us where we want to be, but it’s the type of business that if I wanted to work less it could be automated so I could work very little, yet there would be no change in how the business functioned from day to day.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?

I would tell myself not to try to make money at something just because other people are.  I used to meet someone making a ton of money each month from one online business and I’d try to learn everything about that business so I could make that too.  I’d see someone with a bunch of rental properties, and I saw the type of money they were making so I’d look into doing that.  I would try to pick their brains and learn from them, and then after a while the enthusiasm I had would die out since I wasn’t really into it.  I was only into the money I could potentially make from it.  I was kind of hoping I would just get shown the road to wealth by people already doing it, but I realized the road to wealth is much easier if I’m doing something I enjoy, because I’ll be excited everyday to grow businesses I’m into, whereas if I’m trying a business because of the money that’s in it, my enthusiasm will die off sooner or later.  My thought process shouldn’t be, “this person is successful, how can I make money like them,” it should be “here’s what I like doing, how can I find a way to turn this idea/passion of mine into a successful business like these other people have done with theirs.”

Thanks very much for the interview, Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?

Thanks for having me.  For right now my main business goal is to continue growing Bluefirepoker.  I have a few other business ventures I’ll be starting in the near future, but I don’t want to lose focus, so I’ll work on most of them once we get a little further along with where we want Bluefire to be.  There’s a good chance I’ll start a consulting business at some time in the future, but right now there’s too many projects I want to work on myself first.  People come to me quite a bit to get business ideas, creative ways to make money on certain ventures they’re involved in or would like to start, and I enjoy it a lot.  So once I’ve built some successful companies I think it’d be a blast to help other people do the same.

My goals really change from day to day.  Once I accomplish one thing, I go on to another thing pretty fast.  I guess I’d like to be in a position to never worry about money again in the next 5 years or so.  I don’t say “retire” because I enjoy working on things, so I don’t envision myself ever really retiring, since I’m already doing what I want to do each day.  At some point I’ll probably settle down in a big house with a cool girl, get a few dogs, and maybe a tiger.  For now I’ll probably continue traveling, working on business ventures and just having fun.

Could you describe what you do and how you earn your living John?

Officially, my title is Founder and CEO of TTZ Media Inc. However, I’m best know as the guy who makes money online by telling people how much money I make online. I earn my living by creating websites that help solve a problem.

You are living the life so many desire, The Internet Lifestyle! Can you tell me what the internet lifestyle means you to and how its changed your life?

Living the dot com lifestyle is like living the dream. The dot com lifestyle is about more than making a lot of money. There are many thing you can do to make a lot of money. The dot com lifestyle is about time freedom and location freedom. Most people who make a lot of money have very little time to enjoy it. In addition to that, they’re tied down to one place.

With the Internet, I have time, money and location freedom. I can be anywhere in the world and as long as I have access to the Net, I can make money. Right now, I am in Shanghai for a month long Asia trip. Just because I went away doesn’t mean paycheck stops. Try doing that with a job.

What advice would you give to a new blogger trying to drive traffic to their website? Could you share an example of the effects?

The most effective free way is to guest blog for an A-list blogger. Find the biggest blog in your niche and send them a guest post. If it gets accepted, you’re get some nice targeted traffic as well as bump in your brand because of the power of association.

I understand that you run three large websites, JohnChow, The Tech Zone and TTZ Media. How do you manage to run three really large websites and still have time for family and fun?

With the exception of John Chow dot Com, the other sites pretty much run themselves. TTZ Media is fully automated. The only thing I do is approve new affiliates and set up the mass PayPal payment every month. I have staff to run The TechZone. I spend an average of two hours per day running the John Chow dot Com blog.

The key is to automate and deligate. Too many try to do everthing themselves. If you do that, you’re falling into a trap. You think Bill Gates can run Microsoft all by himself? The sooner you can let go and get others to help you, the better off you’ll be.

When you first started blogging did you model yourself on anyone? How did you learn how to be a “Problogger” and do so well with your first blog?

I got into blogging for fun. I never intended for the blog to make money or to become a problogger. My blog grew because I applied what I learn from running high traffic websites to blogging. The marketing methods used to promote a regualar content site works with a blog as well. John Chow dot Com was my first blog but it wasn’t my first site. Experience counts.

Month after month you have been earning over $30,000 from your personal blog which is crazy! If someone is new to blogging and are looking to make money from blogging, what advice / tips would you offer?

Treat your blog like a real business. Because of the low barrier of entry, most people don’t take their blogging seriously because they don’t have much to lose if they fail. I mean, you can start a blog for zero dollars. However, a blog can make serious money if you take it serioulsy. Ask yourself this questions. If your blog cost $100,000 to start, would you be running it the way you’re running it now?

Don’t be afarid to test new revenue channels and models. Advertising is just one of many ways a blog can earn money. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Try to run as many revenue channels as possible while still preserving the user experience.

Capture ever lead that comes to your blog. If you don’t have a mailing list, get one now. Down the road, your list will not only be a huge source of traffic, but income as well.

Working less and making more money sounds like a good deal to me, have you got any tips for getting more done in less time?

Think passive income. Over the last year, I haven’t raised my ad prices and I haven’t added any new ad spots. Yet the income of the blog keeps going up. This is because a big chunk of the blog’s income comes from affiliate programs that offer passive income. For example, if I refer a new publisher to Market Leverage, the will give me 5% of whatever the publisher makes. Over the years, I’ve referred thousands of publishers to different ad networks that pay me a percentate of revenue. The reason my blog income keeps increasing is because I’m still getting paid for stuff I did years ago.

The really nice thing about going after passive income is it requires no extra time commintment. You do the work once and get paid forever. It’s also not dependent on the blog. If my blog were to go down today, I would lose my advertising income but the passive income will keep coming in.

What advice would you give to people just starting out with an online business?

Just like with making money by blogging, treat your online business like a real business and take it seriously. An online business has so much greater protentail than any normal business but it cost so much less to start. It’s a real some that most people associate high start up cost with seriousness.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?

Don’t do it all by yourself. You’re just buying yourself another job if you do that.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

If you can make something for a little less than your competition, and sell it for a little more, then you’re doing OK.

Thanks very much for the interview, Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?

My short term goal is keep growing the business. Mid term, I want to set up a schoolarship to provide post secondary education to deserving students. Long term, I want to set up my own foundation to fund causes that I believe in.