I recently did an interview for a website called Online Fanatic. The owner of the website is a guy named Kenny, who is from Malaysia but came to the United States at 18.
I met him a few years ago at a Internet Conference put on by Mario Brown but we were both mostly there to see an SEO guru by the name of Alex Becker, who was a guest speaker.
Anyway Kenny and I hit if off and have remained friends ever since.
The thing about Kenny is that he is not only one of the people who is inspiring me to quit my job and pursue an Internet business full time, I think he could also inspire you if you are having similar thoughts.
I make a really good salary at my current job but Kenny was in a different position a few years back when he took the leap to a full time Online income.
He was working at Starbucks as a barista which is barely above minimum wage. He had also dropped out of college and felt directionless in his life. Living at home with out a good income and no obvious prospects things were looking bleak.
That is when he first started looking into making money online. He started learning about SEO and ranking web sites. Every day after his shift at Starbucks he would get on the Internet for hours to learn and experiment.
He slowly built his skills until he was able to consistently rank keywords that he could then monetize.
This lead to him making a bit of an income from his efforts. Once he got rolling this quickly grew to surpass his monthly earnings from Starbucks.
As soon as he had 3 consecutive months of more money made online then his full time day job as a barista he quit!
That was over 3 years ago and Kenny has never looked back. Yes he still works very hard but now its on his terms. No more servicing surly customers at Starbucks for low pay. Now he determines when he works, when he does not and he is his own boss.
Like I said earlier Im really inspired by Kenny. No he is not a millionaire but he has control of his time and works on his terms.
Its one thing to read peoples stories online but when you know someone personally who has made this work its pretty awesome! He is much braver then me as I have still not quit my job.
I now have almost a years worth of life expenses saved up and that is why I’ve finally worked up the courage to give this a go.
Anyway now that you know a little bit about Kenny you will understand why I was flattered that he asked me to answer a few questions for his audience.
Among other things we discussed:
The hardest thing about starting a side online business for people with a day job.
How hard is it to get started online?
3 actionable steps for making money with Google Adwords
The difficulties in scaling in an online business
Tip on time management with juggling a day job AND an online business
Some recommend books for people who want to quit their day for an online lifestyle.
I hope you like the interview. You can find it here.
I encourage you to go out and meet and network with people who either have the same goal as you or even better, are where you want to be in 2-3 years.
People who working regular 9-5 jobs will often try to discourage people like us from our online goals. But there is no sense in listening to people who have not achieved what you want. You want to listen to the people who have.
Also its great to have someone to hold you accountable. I have told Kenny (and publicly to everyone on this blog) that I am quitting my job in January of 2017. Excuse after excuse has kept me from making the leap but with the growing success of my online business and the amount of money I have saved there is no more excuses.
Kenny constantly reminds me of that and lets me know that I will be getting shamed if I come up with another excuse and don’t follow through on my January 2017 plan.
In the very near future I will be interviewing Kenny here on this blog as well. I went into it a little bit but he has a very interesting story that will help inspire anyone looking for the courage to quit their day job.
Until then, once again here is the link to his interview of me.