Scorpiono.com

I would like to thank Randy (TearaBite) for allowing me to take him an interview. DigitalPoint seem to still have a solution for things, and I have found it. It will be an interview about grownupgeek.com - featured on Google Adsense success stories - and everything that comes with the whole online business.

Nickname: Tearabite / The Firefox Referral King

Name: Randy Brown

Age: 41

Sex: Not enough

Location: Southern California, USA

Describe about your usual daily activity: For me most days consist of waking up early for my day-job, doing a quick check of the site to make sure all is well and doing a quick check on earnings. Throughout the day I try to keep an eye on the site, but it’s mostly on auto-pilot and in the hands of my moderators. In the evenings I go through all my email, resolve any issues that members might be having and process premium orders. Evenings are also when I do any maintenance or upgrades on the site.

Day job? : Yes, for the last 10 years my day job has been the IT Manager for all of our offices in the So.California area, but recently i have moved into our global-network management group, overseeing the private network of thousands of locations world wide. The company is one of, if not the largest company on the planet - making and selling everything from clothes-washing machines and movies, to jet-engines and nuclear power-plants..

Websites (Ordered by traffic): GrownUpGeek.com, Success.GrownUpGeek.com (my blog)

How many hours devoted to your work per day: 1 - 10

What was your first succesful website: GrownUpGeek.com

Highest visitor peak (don’t count traffic buying/link baiting): ~50,000/day; traffic from being on the front page of Digg in Aug 2006, another time from being talked-about on Leo Leporte’s national radio show.

Webmaster related forums/portals you visit: Digital Point, WebmasterWorld, BroadBandReports.com webmaster forums

Time to take a look at your main website: www.grownupgeek.com

Niche: help for “beginners” and novices

Describe it a bit: GrownUpGeek.com is a website where people can come to learn things. Initially it began as a place to learn about computers, internet and technology, but we have expanded it to include help on other topics such as Taxes, cooking, animals, and automobiles. We are a ’social’ website focusing on members helping each other. The website has been very successful, and has been published as an Adsense Success Story, used in the Adsense Support pages, featured in Kontera’s Presentations at BlogWorld, and also in Kontera’s press releases, among other places.
Where did the idea came to create such a site: I wanted a place where I could send people to answer common computer questions that I was getting asked all the time.

Avg Traffic: ~12,000 uniques/day

Main traffic sources: Organic Search

Best website referral: Digg.com

Revenue type: PPC, Premium Membership Fees, affiliate sales

Revenue sources:Adsense, Kontera, and Premium Fees account for 98% of all revenue

Avg Revenue: $80,000 in 2007; Average for 2008 so far is $8,500/month
Main marketing strategy you went for: “word of mouth” and anything else that is free

Sites you look up to: Markus at PlentyOfFish.com is my hero

Future Goals: Maintaing an upward trend in traffic, membership and earnings

A personal message for our visitors: Running a website for fun or profit can be fun and rewarding, but always remember to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and keep the internet a nice place by building a website that YOU would enjoy visiting and using. If you build quality websites you stand a much greater chance of being successful in the long-run. Treat your visitors/customers the way you would like to be treated, and remember that without them your website is nothing. Learn everything you can, keep at it, and don’t fear failure because it is one of the best ways to learn.