I’ve been involved in online marketing for around 30 years, which means I started back when making money on the internet still sounded slightly suspicious.
In my case, sometimes literally.
I first discovered affiliate marketing through Corey Rudl and his Internet Marketing Course. I became an affiliate for the course, made my first commission, and eventually received something that felt very exciting at the time: an actual physical US dollar check.
There was just one small complication.
I’m in Malaysia, and US dollar affiliate checks weren’t exactly an everyday sight at the local bank.
When I walked in as a young guy trying to deposit one, the staff looked at me with the sort of expression normally reserved for someone trying to exchange Monopoly money.
The check was genuine. It also took months to clear.
Welcome to internet marketing in the early days.
I’ve Seen a Few Things Since Then
Over the years, I’ve tried plenty of different ways to build income online.
At one point, I ran a blog about Walt Disney World and earned some pretty decent money from Google AdSense.
Unfortunately, I also experimented with some black-hat techniques that eventually got me banned.
Not one of my finer business decisions, but certainly one of the more educational ones.
Experiences like that taught me something important: shortcuts can work right up until the moment they don’t.
I had better luck with another site I built around automatic coffee machines.
That site eventually reached the number-one position in Google for its niche. I later sold it for around 50 times its monthly revenue.
Before that sounds wildly impressive, I should add that the monthly revenue wasn’t enormous.
Still, the experience taught me a lesson that has stuck with me ever since.
A website isn’t just a collection of pages. Built properly, it can become an asset with real value.
Why I Started Profit for Passion
A lot has changed since I received that first affiliate check.
Search engines have changed. Social media arrived. Advertising platforms came and went. SEO changed repeatedly. AI has now entered the picture.
But some fundamentals have proved remarkably stubborn.
If you build useful online assets you control, grow an audience that trusts you, and develop ways to stay in contact with that audience, you’re building something far more durable than simply chasing the latest traffic trick.
That’s what Profit for Passion is about.
I want to help beginners take their interests, skills and experience and turn them into useful online assets that can grow into real businesses over time.
That might include a blog, an email list, affiliate income, digital products, services, advertising or some combination of them.
The goal isn’t to promise overnight riches.
I’ve been doing this far too long to pretend the internet works that way.
The goal is to build something useful, something you own, and something that becomes more valuable as you keep improving it.
If I can help you avoid a few mistakes I’ve already made and shorten the learning curve along the way, I’ll be very happy to have played a small part in your journey.