293: A $100k Side Hustle - How to Balance a Full-Time Job and a Profitable Side Hustle with Brett Lindenberg

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Hey there and welcome to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. My name is Alexa and we are so excited that you're here today because we have a really exciting episode. So this episode actually came out of a live Q and a so on Food Blogger Pro for our Food Blogger Pro members. We have a live Q and A every single month and in those Bjork or sometimes we have a special guest will come on and answer our members questions live and they are so much fun and sometimes they focus on a specific topic. And a couple of months ago we had a live Q and A that focused on blogging alongside a full time job. So how do you balance the two? How do you grow your blog and you know, stay up to date with all of your full time job commitments as well? Um, and in that live Q and A, our interviewee today, Brett mentioned that he actually still works a full time job and he makes over a a year on his side hustle on his food blog. So we knew that this was going to be a great interview. And I feel like there are just a ton of great takeaways that Brett shares in this episode. I think, for example, I think one of the ways that he talks about viewing content creation is just really helpful and hopefully will give you some ideas to build out your content on your own site. So I really love this episode. Excited to jump in. Without any further ado, Bjork. Take it.

Brett, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. Bjork. Awesome to be here.

This will be a fun interview. We've already made the connection that you grew up in Minnesota. I feel like you talked about where you grew up. I didn't know where it was. I feel like anytime that somebody's from the same state, you should know all the cities in the state, but I don't. So you were small town, usa, Minnesota, then Twin Cities, you said California, Idaho, and all along the way, at least with some of those moves, you've been working a full time job and then also building a really successful side hustle, which is what we're going to talk about today. Can you tell me a little bit about your journey? You can touch on what you do for work and then also talk about your blog and kind of how it got started and the focus on food trucks.

Yeah, I mean, I would say one of the things that kind of led me down the path of even starting a blog, I'd have to say right after I graduated from college, University of North Dakota, baby, basically moved essentially because I didn't really have like any actual Job prospects or anything like that, moved out to the LA area, kind of to Anaheim actually, and ended up just getting a job out there. And I kind of just by chance ended up getting hired by an SEO company as that kind of like got me introduced to like, oh, there's websites and this is how they make money and that sort of thing. That kind of like I would say was like the beginning of just me being aware of it.

Yeah. And what did you study in school?

Journalism.

Okay, so you were a writer. So you're familiar with that?

Yeah. Work in a newspaper or magazine or something like that? Yeah.

And this, you connected with this company and they're like, hey, you can write content. But it wasn't just writing content. It was writing content kind of with a search angle to it. And at that point you're like, wait a minute, like there's these websites who are trying to rank high in order to create an income and kind of made the connection. What year was that where you started to realize, like, this is an industry that exists?

I mean, I kind of figured, I kind of realized that it was like an opportunity right away because I was even in high school, I like, you know, made websites about stuff. Like I was just always interested in it, but I never like made an actual connection that like, oh, you could turn this into a business or anything like that.

Yeah.

So it was almost like I remember within two weeks of getting the job being like, this is like it to get on Google. Like, obviously it's like oversimplified, but like you just write the word that you want to rank for and write a page about it and that's it.

Right.

Like, it's just kind of mind blowing, especially in like 2007, like totally different.

And you're like, now it's not quite as easy as it was. Yeah, yeah. 10 years ago. But you know, it's interesting I think back to like my relationship with tech and always being kind of interested in tech. And I remember my brother started a window washing business called We Wash Windows. And I was like, hey, I want to create the site for you. Like, I'd always kind of been interested in it, but at some point you realize like, oh, it's not just like tech and gadgets for the sake of tech and gadgets, it can be building an income or career or business. And I would imagine at that point you're kind of like, wait, so you can create content that people find on Google so you're not paying for it and you're seeing that happen. What were the Type of companies that you're working with, was there a specific industry or was it kind of a broad reach in terms of anyone they could sign up?

I mean, I really didn't. I kind of was able to switch myself into like an SEO guy position a few months after working there. But I mean, I remember right away it was like, write these 10 articles about rain gutters.

And I just remember being like, yes, totally.

Maybe this was not a good career decision after all.

Just like drinking so much coffee to try and get yourself through it.

Yeah, yeah. I was so hopeful two months ago before I graduated.

That's probably to contrast though, your. The site that you started, because my guess is that's an area of interest. Started at. With food trucks and you kind of shifted. So at what point along the lines did you start that? Can you talk a little bit about what, what that is? And did you start it with the intent of like, hey, I want to make money from this?

It was definitely like always a goal to create like a website that was profitable. And I would say even before, like this one, just like I said, kind of being aware of it, I'd started three or four probably different websites across different topics that you look back and you're like, that was a really, really terrible idea. But it kind of like you learn how to make an email list and you start learning all these different steps and building a blog and that sort of thing. So I would say, like, eventually, like, I tried a few things. None of them really like worked out or became successes. And I was just kind of like looking around for business ideas in general. Not even Internet wise. It was just like, what's something that I could start on the side and maybe work on the weekends and keep my job, but then start a business too. And that was kind of when the food truck craze was popping up. So I was like, huh, this is kind of an interesting business. You know, you could, you know, all the big events are on the weekends. That's like, logically when you make the most money.

Yeah.

So it's like, okay, like, let's look into this. And obviously everybody goes to Google and just starts typing. You know, you start typing in stuff, learn about it. And at the time it was like, there's maybe like a few general articles on like entrepreneur.com. yeah.

Like there wasn't really a specialty.

A superficial. Yeah. And that's kind of all there was. So I was just like, okay, this could be the opportunity to publish some content about it. And I was kind of thinking like, oh, Maybe I could be like the Pat Flynn guy for food trucks and document my journey and that sort of thing. So that's basically how the food truck site started.

Yeah. That's awesome. So Pat, who's been on the podcast before, we'll link to it the show notes. I don't know what episode it was, but was talked about his journey, building his businesses and was really like transparent in it. Pinch of yum. With our journey, we're like, hey, this makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about this as it relates. For a food blog, building that up other businesses, like in the SaaS world, software as a service, Bare Metrics is an example of one on the business side who's been really transparent in how they build. Buffer is another example. So these different companies and these different people who have said, hey, we're going to build a, like transparently build a business. Convertkit email company talks about like, build in the open or build transparently or something like that. And so you kind of taking this concept and saying, hey, what does it look like to kind of talk transparently about what it looks like to run a food truck? And that would obviously be interesting to people who also have food trucks. So for you, was it like, hey, I know there's this wave of food trucks and a lot of people are interested in it and I'm going to see if I can ride that. Or was it more like, hey, I'm super passionate about this, so I'm going to create content about it? Or had you kind of, after all your time writing rain gutter articles, been like, even if I just have a little bit of passion, I know how to get through this and write content. Like, where did that land for you?

For me, I would say, like, I'm passionate about business and like, business topics. So for me it's like I can be passionate about restaurant business, like Internet business, just any, any kind of learning in that area I'm really good about. But I didn't feel like I wanted, like, I never felt like I wanted to be a general business blogger just because there's so many of those already. Yep. I mean, like, I would never attempt to start something like that. So, yeah, I guess, like, I find passion in it from the business. And same with like talking with food truck owners. Right. Like, they're all, most of them are really scrappy, entrepreneurial type guys, you know, bootstrapped. So I really, really resonate with that too.

Yeah, totally. That makes sense. So the site is Food Truck Empire. You launched in 2014 and you're like, hey, no, I'm actually going to stick with this. You had a few other ideas that maybe got into and fizzled out a little bit. How did you know that it was one that you're going to stick with and that you, that you did? Was it traction related? Was it, you know, kind of early successes or was it just like, hey, I've kind of fizzled on these other ideas. I'm just going to stick with this until it works. Kind of just grit.

I would say it's much closer to the latter. Yeah, I would say especially in the beginning, I just wanted to be like a website guy, you know what I mean? Like a guy with a blog. And I just didn't have any other ideas. So it was just sort of like I felt like if I quit trying, it'd be really depressing and I'd just be sitting around working my job. So it's almost like, I don't know, like I'm just gonna kind of go ahead with this and we'll just see what happens and hopefully like the market is big enough and I can kind of like course correct and try some different things along the way and hopefully something will work out eventually. That's really more what it was. Yeah, like early success, having some big vision.

Yeah, it's. We kind of buried the lead a little bit with it because it came up when we were having a conversation and you. It was a, it was a. In Food Blogger Pro, we had a live Q and A and the focus was working on your site when, while having a full time job. So you have a full time job, you're working and building your site, but the thing is like you're making last year over a hundred thousand dollars from your site, which you shared in the chat. And Alexa, who you know is general manager of Food Blogger Pro was like, wait a minute. Like that's a great story. We got to tell that on the, on the podcast. Um, and you continue to work your full time job. We were chatting kind of about the reason behind that before, but talk a little bit about that. Cause that's like, you know, that's a very substantial income that you're earning from your site while also working your full time job, balancing everything that comes along with it. What, what's the reason for that? And do you think you'll ever make the leap to focusing on the site full time?

Yeah, that's a good question. And we kind of talked about this a little bit pre call too. Like if I was 27 and you know, fast forward now. I'm 38, I've got two kids, you know, I've got a house, got a wife, my wife stays at home with the kids, all that sort of thing, you know, 10 years ago, especially thinking about like the jobs that I was working at the time, you know, I absolutely would have quit my job if I was in like the position that I am now. Like, no brainer. Wouldn't have been a big deal. And I just would do this full time just due to like the life, I guess, time of my life that I'm in right now. It's like, I don't know, I've got to be like a bit, you know, responsible, keep the bills paid, you know, I mean, Covid happened last year. There was a big dip, you know, just for a couple months in ad spend and things like that. But it definitely makes it easier when, you know, you've got a job, obviously to kind of give you that consistent income. And also too, I would say for me right now, like, I have three full time contractors that work in the Philippines for me and you know, I've got another guy in the United States that kind of writes part time for me. And then, you know, and I don't, I don't do any like technical WordPress stuff. Like, I'm not really super technical or anything like that. So I guess for me right now I'd rather just invest in the things that I don't want to do and pay other people to do it versus quit my job and then be like, yeah, like, I don't have the money now to hire the WordPress guy to redo my site or something like that. So that's kind of the main reason why, I guess. And then, you know, last year too, I was able to like buy. I bought two different websites also. One of them, I think that'll help me a lot this year too, just, you know, build up a larger audience and grow too. So, I mean, if I didn't keep my job, I wouldn't be, I just wouldn't be able to do all that stuff too. So for right now anyways, that's kind of where it's at. Obviously, I would say it feels good just from even a working standpoint to be like, oh, if I get laid off, which we're kind of in a time period where anybody can get laid off almost any time. Just like, I know what I would do, you know what I mean? The next day it'd be like, okay, like this sucks. But you know, I know, I know what I'm doing, I'm not like kind of wandering. Wandering around.

Yeah.

So that's, that's why I've made that decision for right now in, in the future. I, I do like long term, kind of see myself as, you know, owning a business and being independent, but I love that.

I think what, I think what I really like about that is it just seems really methodical, smart, well thought out. And I think sometimes what can happen is I think we equate business to burn all the bridges, take all the risk. Business is risk and so often I don't see that happening. And I think having calm mind, not having stress allows you to be better at businessing. Like if you're not stressed about whatever it might be, paying the mortgage, you know, a dip because of a global pandemic, like, that allows you to have a more stable, successful business, which I think in the long run is a better thing. There's a couple different things that I want to pull out from there that I thought were really interesting and I'm guessing other folks would be interested in now or as well. One of the things I'm just curious about real quick is are you still doing journalism writing type work for your full time gig? What is your focus right now in terms of day job?

Yeah, it's actually interesting. I kind of repositioned myself early in my career as like an SEO guy. So that's honestly like what I do in my day job is pretty much what I do for my blogs. I kind of do like online marketing strategy actually for a company in the Twin Cities.

Can you share the name of the company or would you not want to share?

I mean, you could look at my LinkedIn.

Okay, we'll say that, we'll say that that would be the easiest way to do it. Got it. That's awesome. So there's some overlap there too, which I think is a really important takeaway. One of the ways that I first cut my teeth with like web design strategy, email marketing, was at the nonprofit that I was at. And one of the things I talk about occasionally on the podcast is like, hey, if you're in the position to get a position in your area of interest, do whatever you can to do that. Because not only are you going to be able to have the stability of your job, but it's kind of like on the job training. So you're getting, you're staying sharp, you're getting knowledge in an area that you're interested in that maybe you want to apply with the stuff that you're Working on and focusing on. And it looks like that really exists for you where the stuff that you're doing for your day job you're able to apply, you know, for, for your site as you're building it. And I think, I don't know. Did we say foodtruckempire.com is the name of the site? I don't remember if we said that or not, but. So you're able to apply that to Food Truck Empire as you're working on these other businesses. So I think that's great. One of the things you mentioned was working with contractors in the Philippines. Can you talk about what they're doing for the site and how you found those people to partner with?

Yeah, I mean the ones that I've found from. It's called onlinejobs. Ph, sure. And I don't know if you're familiar with that site or not, but yeah.

I've heard of it. I've heard some people, we've never used it, but yeah.

So basically the nice thing about it is I think you can pay like 75 bucks a month and then you can put out your job applications and then once that, you know, you can put it up for literally one month and then you can cancel. If you don't need to hire anyone, you know, you fill the position. So basically what I have them doing is on the site there is, I guess it's mostly all around content. So they'll kind of start out some content types. There's some that like they'll do and then there's some that you know either alright or you know, the guy that works for me part time in the US will write but essentially they'll do that. And then I've also got some things like there's a marketplace on the food truck site where people can list their units for sale. So they kind of do that stuff too because listing a unit for sale, for example, you got to get pictures, you got to get a description, your telephone number is there, that sort of thing. So I would say to kind of sum it up, it's time consuming, routine tasks.

Yeah, totally. Like you have a process for it and the process can be followed and it can't be automated entirely, but you can teach it to somebody and they can go in and they can say like okay, there's a new truck. So this is like a truck that needs to be listed, somebody's selling it, maybe they're winding down their business. You have a marketplace, kind of like an ebay for food trucks. Like you can't eBay, a food truck. So then where do you go? You go to your site to do it. One of the things that. Well, before I get to that, the other thing you had said before we get too far away from it, is you bought a couple other sites. Can you talk about what that process was like and kind of your thinking behind that?

Yeah, the way I bought them was kind of weird. One was actually the main competitor, I would say, of mine when I started out. It was a website called mobile cuisine.com and they were also in the food truck space. And there's a few. So I just had noticed later in last year that he hadn't posted for a while.

Sure.

And I like, hey, you want to sell your site? And a few days later he comes back like, yep, we just kind of worked out the deal. Yeah. Found out how much it was making and we just came to an agreement and did it that way. So that was the first site. He was actually the guy that was the author of the Food Truck for Dummies book.

Oh, interesting.

That owned that blog. I knew about the blog for a long time. I knew it had good content, I knew it had good links, that sort of thing. So I wasn't worried or concerned about anything like that. So that made it, I don't know, a pretty easy purchase for me versus, you know, buying something that.

Yep. Off of.

Have a big history with.

Yep.

Also, obviously, too, like, I've already got an email list set up on the topic of food trucks, so I can just kind of plug it into this one. So just. Yeah, it just made a lot of sense. Yeah. And then I got another one, too. It's kind of the same deal. It was. It was a smaller site, but it's called gredio.com and I'm not really, like. I mainly just used it to pull content from because the writer was really good. But he also had built a food business, but more of a. He had built, like, a mustard business. And he did a really good job, like, documenting the process. He wrote like a few books on the subject that all came with the website, too.

So mustard business, like, literally selling mustard?

That's. Yeah, like, that's literally what it was. Yeah. Jarring mustard. Selling it online in farmer's markets and all over the place. So he knew about CO packing and he had all these different guides that were, I guess, behind a paywall.

Yep.

So he had all this. He had like, hundreds and hundreds of pages of really good content, but he never, like, really pushed it forward into the world. So I Basically just bought that from him as well. And that obviously helped with the content too on the site as well.

And so with that, you're taking that content and bringing it into Food Truck Empire. Yeah, Upcoming it doing a redirect from the previous page to now Food Truck Empire. Got it. So it was probably beneficial from a revenue perspective because there's traffic. Traffic can equate to revenue. How do you go about, you don't have to share what those acquisition prices were, but how do you go about valuing a company in that regard? Like, if somebody's interested in buying a site, do you have any advice for negotiating what price to come up with?

Not really. I mean, the only thing just reading online and seeing, oh, an average Website value is 25 to 30 times monthly earnings and just kind of going with a ballpark from there. I did like with the mobile cuisine site, I definitely overpaid.

Because you knew it was going to be. It was almost like a strategic acquisition.

Exactly. And I mean, you know how it is too with like, if you have a site on AdSense and then you move it to ad thrive, there's just going to be a difference. You know what I mean?

Like advertising arbitrage. Like you're able to like 3 to 4x your earnings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a, there's a, in some circles that I'm connected with, there's people who, that's all that they're doing is they're going out and looking for relatively high traffic sites who are running ads sense Google adsense, which is they know that they can purchase that site and maybe pay like market rate based on this is going to get complicated for anybody listening. But market rate based on ebitda, which is a complicated word for essentially like.

Sand either, by the way, which is.

Complicated word for like how much money you have after you pay your expenses, essentially. Okay, so like if a site is making $1,000 and let's say they pay $200 a month for like hosting an email, you'd make 800. And so but to your point, these people, and you knew that, hey, if it's making, you know, simple math, $100 from AdSense, you pay like you said 30x based on that. So essentially it's like two to three years of earnings. So let's say, you know, you pay $3,000 for a site that's earning $100 a month, you know that you can turn ad thrive on and then suddenly with ad thrive on, you're able to, or mediavine or whatever. The ad optimization company might be you're able to multiply that earning in a pretty substantial way just through the fact that you've switched out to a more optimized type of ad network, at least for food type of content. So love, love that as a strategy and love that idea of like advertising arbitrage and going after it in that way. And a super, super smart thing that, that I see people doing. So a lot of cool things along the way. Before we hit record, you said you actually pulled out the earnings of the site through the years and you actually notated and said like here are the times along the way that I introduced something new. Maybe it was a new product or marketplace or maybe it's acquiring these sites, whatever it might be, that had a significant boost in your revenue. I think this is going to be really eye opening for people to hear that and to talk through the things that were most impactful along the way. So can you break that down for us?

Yep, yeah, totally. So yeah, I'll kind of go through again. Started in 2014 and now we're in 2021 I guess just early 21. So 2014, $0.

Nice.

And actually if you, I don't know what the expenses were for then but negative dollars for whatever the hosting and the domain fee was and that sort of thing. So 2014 nothing happened. And I would say if you are just starting a new blog too, that's probably you might beat me your first year, but probably not by too many thousand dollars it would be my guess. And that's okay. So 2015, 2015, this is like the case study when you say you're like whatever, like 1000x your first year's revenue, 10,000% growth. Yeah. So 2015 I made 2,300 dol.

Nice.

Or a full year.

And for perspective, in 2014 was like beginning of the year that you started.

So yeah, that's a good point. I didn't start at like the beginning of the year in 2014, but I would say it was definitely a solid half year of having it up. So 2015 through the entire year, $2,300. And that was made up with a combination of AdSense, the revenue clicks from that and then also I had put out. So I'd say it was half adsense and then the other half was I put out this like premium listing that you could buy from me.

Sure.

So I made like a food truck builder basically page and I said hey, if you want to be listed as a premium vendor, you know, it's 297. And I think four people signed up over the course of the year. So that's. Yeah, that's kind of how that premium.

Vendor, meaning like somebody who makes like a heating unit for a food truck or something like that. Like anybody who has a business in the food truck world.

Yeah, basically the guys that make the food trucks and kind of like install the equipment and things like that. Yep, yep. That's what was built around. So, yeah, that was 2300. That was. That was 2015. So 2016 had another leap to that one. Went up to 15,400. So, you know, a little over 10,000 bucks between 2015 and 2016.

And that's at the point where you're starting to think like, okay, this is a mortgage payment. Like, this is significant. And for you, you're probably starting to think like, this is something that I can, like, if. If I can go from 2,000 to 15,000, and then if I can go from 15,000 to. If I double that, you can start to play the math game a little bit at that point.

Yep. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That was made up of what then at that point?

So what got that up really was I worked out a deal with one of the food truck vendors directly that had been one of these premium suppliers. And I kind of said, hey, you know, I'm starting to get some leads through the site. You know, can I refer people over to you? And, you know, I'll add a banner ad. And, you know, it was kind of like a custom advertising deal for, like, this company. And they were just kind of like, yeah, sure, like, let's give it a shot sort of thing. So that was like a big chunk of the improvement. And then I also launched, which isn't like a huge deal, like on a monthly basis, but I launched a food truck ebook too, for like $14 apiece. So it's very, very low ticket item thing. So that kind of like snowballed on the previous year. Right. So AdSense revenue goes up a little bit. Get this, like, advertiser that you're working with, and then you add on a product, just a low little product.

And that was something where it's, you know, in terms of the. It's different than ads where if you get one visit and the average, you know, impression, you get like a cent from that or whatever. It might be this. Suddenly if you get somebody who lands on the sales page for that and it converts at 1 to 2%, like, you can start to play the number game a little bit and think like, okay, this this can add up if we can get enough quality leads, meaning people who are interested in visiting this page. And suddenly it becomes more valuable than just the ad impression that you'd get. So that was 2016.

Totally. So yeah, 2016, moving on to 2017, that was another big leap too, actually. So 2016 to 2017, $32,400. So basically double between 2016 and 2017. But the reason, and I think this is like an important one, the reason wasn't really because of traffic and it wasn't because of ebook or more AdSense clicks or anything like that. Basically that was the year that I launched a food truck course for the first time. So basically it's like an eight week course and I'm not a food truck owner. So I partnered up with somebody that actually operates a food truck, runs a food truck, that sort of thing. And I kind of acted as like the organizer/mc of the class and then the expert taught everybody. So that was a $297 course. So that obviously you get a lot more results that way with our financial income versus a $14 product. So that really was that thing that kind of made the difference in revenue.

Like if you didn't have that, it would have been the same as the year before, but you added another product and. Yeah. And with that, did you do like a big launch or was it like marketing to people as they signed up for the email list? What was your strategy with the course? And does that look the same now?

Yeah, I mean it is almost essentially the same one thing that's so I guess the main way to market it, email, which most courses, that's pretty much how you market it. And then the way we did it was live on YouTube live. And I might have been called something different at the time, but basically YouTube Live. So it's almost just like running a college class, you know, PowerPoint face, face to face, just like we're doing now. And then, you know, we take people through a curriculum each week, discuss a different topic and then at the end, basically the goal is for folks to complete a business plan for their food truck, submit it and then have it reviewed by a food truck owner. And then you get feedback on that, like during the last class.

Yeah, which is really valuable.

Yeah, yeah, totally. So and we're actually like, we run that class one time per year. Next month we'll actually run it again. So it's been, you know, just a good consistent thing that we always do.

That's awesome. Is there a reason you wouldn't do it like four times a year, just.

Yeah, yeah, just there wouldn't be enough interest. That's the main reason.

Yeah, totally. I mean, like, you have people who sign up email list, you know that, like, if you're. It's not like if you're doing it every month, there's gonna be a limited number of people who it's gonna be new for. Yeah. So, yeah, that rhythm makes sense.

Yeah, totally. Like, for a while we were doing it. I was doing it twice per year and that was okay. Like, I think I could make a little bit more by doing it twice a year, but just have like other things to do now and.

Yeah, totally.

Also too, like, I know another thing too is people have always said, like, oh, you should do it, you know, record everything and just have it all pre recorded. And I do agree that that would be like, easier. But I think for whatever reason, people just get more out of.

Yeah.

More out of the live. It makes it an event.

Yep.

And then. Yeah, the feedback part too is like important to me 100%. People get like the feedback on it. That's great. So anyways, good for you.

Good for you for doing that because I feel like it'd be easier. It feels like the consideration there is like impact and making sure that people are actually doing it and getting a result from it, which is awesome.

Totally. No, I. I completely agree. Okay, 2018, so it was 32,400. 2017. 2018 is 54,300. So basically another, not quite double, but another 20,000 and 2018 again. It's like one thing was added. Basically. That was the year that I switched from AdSense to Ad Thrive. Yeah. And actually it's because of your guys's website and Food Blogger Pro that I found out about it.

Good, good.

Because it's so funny because I don't like, I'm not in the food.

Yeah.

Like, I'm in a different part of the food.

Totally. You're not doing recipes.

Yeah, exactly. So, like, I had this like, preconceived notion, like, you know, ads are a waste of time.

Yep. Which is very common in the, like, online business world, where it's like, hey, don't do ads. You're not going to be able to earn enough. You got to do product. Which I think is generally good advice. But one of the unique things about this world is like, there's. There's the potential to drive a decent amount of traffic, especially with the recipes. But even not, like, if you have a high traffic site, it should be a consideration, especially if the purpose isn't solely to be like a product or a service that you're selling. So, you know, wptasty, which is WordPress plugins or food Blogger Pro itself, ads probably don't make sense because the negative impact they would have on the conversion or the site speed wouldn't be worth it. But in your case, it's like, probably get a decent amount of traffic, you have a product and so you can kind of layer it in as a diversification. In this case, you did. And it sounds like that was a pretty, pretty quick jump compared to ads, for sure.

And those things that you were saying too was like my big worry. Like I was even delaying the application process and like not responding to them because I was like, do I, like, are people gonna bounce?

Yeah.

Is nobody going to sign up for my email list anymore because they're mad at me? And then of course, you know, they go on and it's like, oh, there's pretty much no difference.

Yeah, totally.

In anything.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's kind of funny things you can have in your head.

Totally. Uh, and I think as a knowner, for anybody listening can be strategic about, hey, maybe there are pages of your site that are really important so you're not running ads on those. Like my guess would be or would be curious to know, like on a, on a landing page or a conversion page for the course, you probably don't have a bunch of ads on it because that's not going to be important for you to get ad impressions. It's important for that site to be like fast and for people to be able to load and to purchase the course. So you can be strategic about it.

Exactly. And that's 100% the case. Yeah, I don't put the ads on like the course page or even some of the email opt in pages either. I don't have them on there, so.

Awesome. So Ad Thrive was layered in in 2017. That obviously is a big win and something that just kind of carries forward. What about 2018? Anything else on 2017 before going to 2018?

Nope. Yeah, that was literally it. Let's see, 2019 is literally just more of the same. So 2019 is $80,000 and maybe a little bit.

Was that traffic then? Because it was 2018, you did AD thrive and then 2019 was a pretty significant increase.

It was, Yeah. I mean it was basically just, you know, more traffic year over year. And then also I didn't join. I didn't get on to Ad Thrive until I want to say, like april ish. In 2018. And you know how it is. Like, it's a little slow at the beginning and then it kind of ramps up.

So.

Yeah, it was. It was. Didn't add really anything aside from just, you know, content and stuff like that in 2019. And then. Yeah. And then that brings us up to 2020, which is, you know, 102,000 or. Yeah, 102,000. And that's. I mean, it's really more of the exact same stuff.

Yep.

You know, just growing the site traffic, focusing on that sort of thing. I did, like, launch based on that website purchase, like another ebook and just like a couple other little things that kind of incrementally help. But like last year, I would say, like, the split up is like 50% ad thrive, essentially. Courses and ebooks and other 25% and then like, direct stuff. Like, I'm actually still working with that same food truck manufacturer we talked about years ago. We're still, like, still going strong. It's awesome.

Like, their business, that relationship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I've visited them before a few times. It's really cool. So. So, yeah, there's kind of direct things and. And I would say in there too, like, I know I've kind of like expressed the wins, like, through each one of these years, but, like, I mean, I've tried.

Yeah.

Getting like, newsletter, like doing like the newsletter thing, you know what I mean? Like, all these different trends that you kind of see come up. I've tried having a paid subscription newsletter, which has not worked out. I've tried doing sort of like you guys do with Food Blogger Pro, have like a monthly type thing that, like, doesn't work out enough to the level at least that I need it to.

Yeah, totally.

To make it, like, worthwhile and like podcast sponsorships, I've, like, literally tried tons of different things, like, along the way, and most of them don't pan out. And I think that's totally normal.

Yeah. And what I love about that is one of the things that we've shared on the podcast before, a long time ago, wrote a blog post about it is this idea of the egg carton method. But this conceptually, you think of an egg carton and I think when we're starting something, we think, oh, I need to start a website and I need to make enough money to replace my income from ads. And you can do that. And it's possible, but I love to visualize it as an egg cart and say, like, okay, if I'm trying to get to, you know, pick a number $60,000 a year to replace my salary. And I'm gonna try and do, you know, $5000 a year. You don't have to get $5000 of ads. You can get $1000 from an ad network. You can do a product. You can layer in affiliate, you can layer in these things. And what I love about your story is you have done that. And it's not like everything you try is gonna work, but some things will. And then you keep them there, you improve them, you tweak them, you start to learn. Hey, once a year is better than four times a year for the course. We can do direct relationships with people to sponsor certain things. Hey, podcasts might be great, but not sponsorships. And you start to tweak and adjust, you kind of fill out that egg carton, and before you know it, you get to a point where you're making over a hundred thousand dollars a year from your site. But it comes from small improvements, right? On the podcast, we talk about this idea of tiny bit better every day and sticking with it, which I think is another huge part of the process. So as it relates to sticking with it, was there ever a point where you're like, gosh, I'm burnt out. I don't know if I can do this anymore. Or do you feel like the small incremental wins were enough to keep you going throughout the process?

Yeah, I definitely would say around, let's see, the 2017ish time period to 2018.

Three, four years in.

Yeah, yeah, I was definitely like. And I would say I can't remember what year exactly it was, but, like, I didn't add that much content to it. Like, in retrospect, I wish I would have gone harder because it would be much, like, better now.

Yeah, snowball. Like, you just are adding that earlier. So then it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I think one year I was maybe doing maybe like three posts per year or sorry, per month, which is like, okay, if you're like, starting out and just getting a feel for it, I think. But it's not enough to like, really move the needle, in my opinion anyways, at least based on my experience. So, yeah, like, it definitely, you know, looking back, it's like, oh, there's this, like, predetermined path that you're going to get there, but when you're sitting in it, there's definitely not a predetermined. It doesn't feel like there's any predetermined path. Yeah, but yeah, like, I absolutely, I would say until I got on Ad thrive and figured out that part. It was finally almost like, oh, cool, I can just focus on, like, the traffic part.

Yeah.

And, you know, just focus on content and that sort of thing. Because otherwise I was definitely like, you know, I. I feel like I've kind of tested everything that I think could work well.

Yeah. And this seems to be. That seems to be an area where the. The equation is really simple. It's like, I know I'm going to be able to make generally this much, and if I can increase this variable traffic, I know that that can go up, which is always so helpful to see that kind of correlation. So are you doing with the work that you're doing on the site, content creation? Are you doing a lot of keyword research? Or is it more like, hey, I know I'm going to be interested in writing this. I'm thinking about your SEO background. What does that look like as you fold that into kind of the content strategy for the site?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely do keyword research. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't. I'm not like one of those guys that's like, you know, some people go into ahrefs and try to figure out the perfect keyword difficulty for stuff. And like, only, you know, working a spreadsheet the whole time, I don't. I don't really get to that level. I don't think. I don't. I don't see the point of that, personally, but I guess for me it's more like, at least right now, like, what are the main buckets that I kind of want to go after? So one area, for example, that I'm looking at is bakeries. Right. There's a lot of baking business. There's a lot of baking courses and things like that. So that's one area that I would like to look into. Another one that we have covered is coffee shops.

Sure.

And you kind of, especially with mine, my market, it's like all food businesses are kind of the same in a certain way.

It's similar concepts, different niche.

That is exactly it. It's like, okay, so you're starting a coffee shop. So what are the questions that you ask? How much is a coffee shop going to be? How do you market a coffee shop? How much does it cost to start a food truck? How do you market a food truck? You know what I mean? There's very similar concepts.

Yeah. How much is your inventory? How much is to build a team? Like what? Yeah. What do you got to do about taxes? All of those questions still apply no.

Matter Business career shop, business plan for a coffee shop, business plan for a food truck. Yeah, all sorts of like things like that. So but yeah, I mean I would, I definitely like after kind of look, I kind of look at that as like the first lens and then do keyword research after that to find, you know, what are actually people looking up.

Yeah. Do you have an example like if you're not using ahrefs, ahrefs rfs, whatever we call it spelled for those who are curious. Keyword research tool. A H R E F S. It's the like HTML for a link. But for those who aren't familiar, it's something you can check out. We use it for pinch of yam but more of like tracking the performance of a keyword as opposed to keyword research. But what does that look like for you? Like is it hey, googling around seeing what the popular phrases are. Are you using a tool and is there one that you especially like?

Yeah, I guess what I always try to think about, I mean you guys probably do the same thing. I try to think in terms of like content types.

Yep.

So what are like similar types of content that I can like understand and then build a lot of content around? So I'll just use one from like my site is marketing ideas is a content type. So coffee shop marketing ideas, food truck marketing ideas, restaurant marketing ideas. There's like a hundred of them.

Right.

So that's kind of what I like try to identify is what are those content types that have a lot of search volume around them. I mean I do use like semrush to identify them. That's kind of like my personal favorite. But I mean really to where I find a lot of good ideas is just going into the auto suggest in Google and just kind of like exploring. Yeah. Like so like I'd be like, I'll be like marketing ideas, you know, I and just see what get pops up. Marketing ideas. D what pops up. So like if I was like a keto blogger, I would definitely be like yeah, 27 hot pot keto recipes. Wait, it's not a hot pot. What is it called? What's like instant pot?

There we go.

Not hot pot, Hot Pockets.

27 Hot Pocket recipes. That would be my post. That's what I would post. Yeah, it's interesting the auto suggest, you know, even if I go in there and search bakery business then you can see like the auto suggest options are like cards, plans, names, you know, and.

Every single thing that you just popped up is like a great place to start or like Content pieces.

So for you, it'd be like, if you're focusing on bakery businesses, then you can say like, hey, best places to get your bakery business cards. And like, that could be the key. And then you build out around that. Uh, that's, that's kind of a cool, cool thing to think about. If you're a keto keto blight blog, you could say like, keto recipes. I'm typing this in now. And like first auto suggest is just keto recipes, and then it's keto recipes with ground beef. So it's like, okay, you can start to see, you know, Google surfacing these as ones that they think people are gonna look for. Keto recipes for beginners, things like that. Uh, so that's really cool. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I hear people talk about that idea of hub and spoke, and you see that within the recipe category a lot where people are creating like a hub of blender recipes. And a lot of times it's just like a really well built out category page where they categorize stuff into recipes that are blender recipes. And then you branch off of that by having all these different blender recipes. So I think the thinking behind it let me know if you're tracking with this in the same way as you can be viewed as like an authority on a certain topic. And then part of that is, you know, the, the spokes. If you think of a bike wheel hub and a spoke, the spokes are the actual pieces of content and the hub is kind of where all of that is, is rounded up. Is that kind of the thinking behind it when. When you think about it from your content creation?

Yeah, yeah, I think of it that way too. Like, I guess, I guess for me, I just think of it like, how do I make this, like a comprehensive resource on this topic? You know what I mean? What are all the main. Like, if I, if I was starting this donut shop business, what are all the, like, subtopics I'd want to kind of write about? Yeah, yeah. What are the things I'd want to know?

So let's say that, let's say you hit the reset button, it all went away and you had to start again today. What are the first few things that you would do in order to try and get to that place? Because my guess is 2014 to 2020, there's six years to get to a place where you're making a substantial income from your site. If everything reset and you had to start over, it'd probably take a lot Less time. Because now you've seen the path, you've seen the journey that it takes to get there. So what would you do if it all went away? And let's say this, if you couldn't do it in the same niche.

Yeah, I actually wouldn't be too worried if I wasn't in the same niche. Like I feel like I could at this point, like pick something that was pretty good. At least I'd feel pretty confident about it. Let's see, what would I do? I mean, I guess ideally I'd buy something.

Yeah.

Another website. Just because you know how it is. Like starting it out right away is just so hard. You gotta build up, gotta build a bunch of content. So I would say even if it, even if it's not like anything super great, but if it gets like a couple thousand visitors a month and it's in a market that you like and you can kind of get behind and get excited about, I think that would be much better than starting from scratch.

It's an interesting point. Just while you're on that, I would call him a friend but he'd be like, wait a minute, I'm not your friend. We've talked a few times, but we're not friends. But his name is Walker Deibel and he has a book called Buy then Build. And the phrase, the tagline is how acquisition entrepreneurs outsmart the startup game. It's like exactly what you're saying. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in looking at something that's preexisting, already has a little bit of revenue, maybe you've saved up and have some capital or maybe there's a loan that you could get or like some way putting together the capital in order to acquire something that has traction I think is a pretty cool strategy for like pretty cool shortcut for getting that.

Well, it makes things so much exciting. It makes them exciting faster. Yeah, the beginning is not like that exciting from like the year one of, of that income that I was mentioning. Yeah.

And so acquiring something and then, and then building like, hey, how can I improve on it? How can I tweak it? How can I introduce other revenue streams as opposed to starting from scratch?

I would say that or I think too, this isn't like blog, but I would probably start on YouTube like if I was like a kid or you know, in my 20s, I would probably start on YouTube now. Just like I know my brother in law's brother did a van build and he recorded it and it like he had no audience, nothing put this video up ended up getting like over a million views. Uh, and then he basically like created and he's like a single guy or whatever, but he basically made a career. Like he's turned that one video into a career about van builds.

Yeah, yeah.

Just like, whoa.

See the formula and then you can kind of juice it and then there's all these companies.

Yeah, yeah. And it, I mean, I think too, like, it's like, I don't think. I can't see that ever happening to a blog post right now in Google. Right. Like you hit one and then it just goes to the moon. That's like a lottery win or something. I don't know. So I feel like on YouTube there's the opportunity still. It's maybe a little bit more wild, wild west where you could really get a hit and then kind of build off that. So I think that that would be my other thing that I think of.

Yeah, it's interesting. I've watched a couple YouTubers who talk about their business and it's like, oh, there's definitely a formula. Not in a hey, this is really easy kind of way. But you see something like, Mr. Beast is really good at this. I don't know if you know Mr. Beast, but I've heard of him. But yeah, he does a lot of the like, like last one off the island wins the island and it's like a million dollar island. I think he just essentially makes millions of dollars and then just reinvests it and giving it away in certain ways. But he's kind of figured out a formula of the type of content to produce and, and you see that with like millions and millions of views on, on that content. And you see other youtubers I think of there's this guy named Rob Built who has a smaller site which I bet in three years will be a bigger site or a bigger following. And he talks all about like tiny home Airbnbs and like when he does a tour of an Airbnb that he's built that gets a lot of, you know, traction a lot of followers. So it's a really interesting platform. I love that idea of looking at that as a place to launch. We have gone over time. I want to be respectful of your time, but I know that people are going to be interested in checking out what you're doing. I know that people will be interested in learning more about your space, whether observing what you're doing or maybe even interested in food trucks. But how can people connect with you and follow up and follow along Brett, with what you're up to. Yeah.

If you'd like to shoot me an email, head on over to foodtruckempire.com there's a contact form there. Just send an email to supportoodchuck Empire. It'll get to me. And yeah, happy to answer any questions you have. I mean, I tell you, I'll jump into the Food Blogger Pro forum too, if you happen to be a member and answer any questions to the, you know, follow up from the. From the group as well.

Yeah.

And I think be really cool.

Cool. Hey, that's awesome, Brett. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate it. Cool.

Thanks, Bjork.

And that's a wrap on this episode of the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. Thank you so much again for tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed this interview with Food Blogger Pro member Brett. And if you want to check out any of the links mentioned in this episode, you can go on to foodbloggerpro.com 293. You can get all of the resources that Brett and or Bjork mention. Again, if you are a Food Blogger Pro member, be sure to check out or keep an eye out for Brett in the Food Blogger Pro forums. He can answer any questions that you have about this episode. And yeah, we just really appreciate you tuning in. We're getting close to 300 episodes here on the Food Blogger Pro podcast. So whether this is your first episode or your 293rd episode, we just so appreciate you being here. And we'll see you next time next Tuesday. And until then, make it a great week.

Sam.