Forbes just came out with its annual list of the richest people in the world. According to the list, there are 937 billionaires in the world. None of them are bloggers.
Yet.
While I pride myself on publishing blogging tips that are both practical and applicable, this post is neither of those things. This is pure fun, conjecture, dreaming, and brainstorming. This post is also somewhat scattered and dense. Enjoy :)
What would it take to become a billionaire?
I’m 25 right now, and let’s say I’ll work on this billion-dollar blogging thing until I’m 75. That gives me 50 years to amass my fortune. $1,000,000,000 divided by 50 years is $20,000,000 a year. So I would need to earn $20 million a year for the next 50 years in order to become a billionaire.
That’s $1,666,667 a month or $54,795 a day.
Holy crap. Imagine making $55,000 a month!
Anyway, so we’ve got an idea of the figures we need to be shooting for. Let’s now shift our focus to HOW a blogger could do that.
How could a blogger become a billionaire?
Well, let’s start out with the bottom and work our way up! Note that I suck at math and might have inserted an extra zero in there when doing some of the calculations.
Note: This section borrows heavily from ProBlogger’s How to Make $30,000 a Year Blogging, which immediately came to mind when I thought about writing this post.
AdSense: If the average cost per click is 5 cents, we’d need 1,095,900 clicks a day to reach our $54,795 a day goal. Wow. I don’t even want to do the math of how much traffic you’d need to get that many clicks. But if we’re talking about a billion freaking dollars, let’s not nickel and dime ourselves here. Let’s cross AdSense off the list and focus on the bigger fish to fry.
CPM Ads: This is where you get X amount of dollars per thousand impressions or pageviews. If we get $2 per thousand impressions (again, that figure is stolen from the ProBlogger article), we’d need 27,397,500 daily pageviews. That’s a huge number… But how huge?
Well, YouTube apparently gets 2 billion pageviews a day. So we wouldn’t have to build the next YouTube. That’s good.
But how about the largest blog in the world, the Huffington Post? It gets an average of 2.9 million visitors a day [source] and on average, each visitor views 3.3 pages a day [source]. So we multiply the two and deduce that the Huffinton post gets 9.57 million pageviews a day. That’s bad. That means we’d need to build a blog that’s essentially 3 times as popular as the Huffington Post in order to reach our goal via CPM. So I guess we can cross CPM off the list, too.
Let’s cut to the chase here. Forget affiliate marketing. Let’s go straight to selling our own products.
Selling your own products: Let’s start out with the classic $27 for an ebook. To make a billion dollars over 50 years, you’d need to sell 2,030 ebooks a day. Wow.
Let’s go with a $97 course. You’d need to sell 565 a day.
How about a $297 course? 185 a day. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? At least that’s a number I can wrap my head around. But remember, this is every single day… for 50 years. And let’s say you’re managing 10 blogs, that’s only 19 sales per day per blog.
Let’s now go with a high ticket course, something like Product Launch Formula. I believe this bad boy costs $2000. You’d need to sell 27.4 a day, or about 833 a month. If you have 10 blogs, that’s a little more than 8 sales per blog per month. Sweet!
The problem I see with these numbers is that it would be REALLY hard to find that many new customers every day or month. So this naturally leads us to…
Big ticket continuity programs: Ok, now let’s get serious. To make big money, I think the best bet would be to go after businesses rather than end users, so let’s assume that we sell directly to businesses. Let’s say that we provide some sort of monthly blogging service or software or something for these businesses. If we charge $1,500 a month for our amazing blog software/services, we’d need to do business with 1,111 business. And if we charge $3,000 a month, we’d need to do business with 556 businesses.
So the key to making a billion dollars is… Charge 556 businesses $3,000 a month! Pffff. Simple, right?
Sell your blogs/blogging companies: Let’s say that you start blogs, build them up, and sell them. Well, earlier this week, AOL just completed its purchase of the Huffington Post (which I’ll go ahead and say again is the world’s #1 blog) for $315 million dollars. So you’d need to start and then sell 3 (and a bit more) Huffington Posts. For reference, the Huffington Post is the 120th most popular website on the internet, according to its Alexa rank.
This seems like the best route to take if you want to become a billionaire blogger. Start up a bunch of massive blogs and then sell them to AOL. Piece of cake! [Insert wide-eyed emoticon here]
Start one MASSIVE blog or blogging company: Of course, the “easiest” option might be to just create a single huge blog and sell it for billions of dollars :) Which leads us to…
How do you build a billion dollar blog?
I found a great article on Forbes.com about how to start a billion dollar company. The content for that article is lifted from a book called Blueprint to a Billion
Here are the main points from the article. In other words, these are the main ways you build a billion dollar company (or in our case, a billion dollar blog):
“Get a big idea”
There are 3 types of billion dollar ideas:
1. Shapers of the new world – Microsoft, eBay (create a new type of business)
2. Niche shapers – Starbucks, Nike (redefine old worlds)
3. Category Killers – Staples, Autozone (new business models that run old businesses out of town)
“Find a marquee customer”
In other words, find fanatical customers that will evangelize for you.
“Embrace Big Brother”
Piggyback off of the existing success and recognition of big companies.
“Master the inside/outside dynamic”
This essentially means partnering with the right person(s). The “inside” refers to one person in the partnership being responsible for things inside the company, like operations and innovation. The “outside” refers to the person that focus on how the outside world interacts with and perceives the company. So that means marketing, sales, etc.
“Put billion-dollar experts on board”
This one’s pretty self explanatory. Put really good people on your board of directors!
I’m not going to go any deeper into this; I just wanted to present the information because I thought it was interesting. Feel free to apply this more directly to a blogging scenario. Leave a comment or write a post about it (being sure to link back here, of course!).
Bloggers as writers
But after all of that, I guess the big question is still this: Is it possible for just a blogger (and not an owner of a company that provides blogging goods or services) to become a billionaire? Well, when it comes down to it, bloggers are writers. And the world’s richest writer right now is Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. And according to Forbes, she’s worth $1 billion.
So in order to truly become a billionaire blogger, I guess you’d need to sell millions and millions of copies of your ebooks … and then get them turned into Hollywood motion pictures :)
Let’s be realistic
Yes, I realize there are flaws with all of this. I haven’t taken into account taxes, inflation, or any other costs of any kind. I’ve kind of blurred the line between “blogger” and “person who runs a company that sells blogging products.” I’ve also assumed that making a billion dollars equals being a billionaire. But all of this was just a thought experiment to see what kinds of numbers we’re dealing with here.
Moral of the story? It would be freaking HARD to make a billion dollars blogging.
Further reading, part 1
Honestly, I find this all pretty dang fascinating. I came across some more really cool articles on the subject, and figured you might enjoy reading them, too.
Just be sure to leave a comment here and retweet this post before reading any of them:
- Build a Billion-Dollar Business
- How to Create a Billion-Dollar Company
- J.K. Rowling and the Billion Dollar Empire
Further reading, part II
I also created a short FREE ebook that you can download. It’s called Billionaires on Blogging, and it’s an ebook containing 20 quotes from the 5 richest people in the world. I’ve applied each quote to blogging. In order to get a copy, you’ll need to click the button below the image and share the post via Twitter or Facebook.
Billionaires on Blogging. Share this post using the below button to download the ebook!
[^^ I've never used this pay-with-a-tweet thing so it'll be interesting to see how it works... If you can't see the button because you're reading this in your email or RSS reader, you'll have to come to the page on the blog]
Final words
Just so you know, I will become the first billionaire blogger :) But I welcome competition. I think there’s room for a few of us on the “Richest People in the World” list.
But tell me…
- Do you think it’s possible for a blogger to become a billionaire?
- If so, when do you think we’ll see the first billionaire bloggers?
- What do you think the best path to blogger billionaireship would be?
- Do you have a billion dollar blog idea?
And again, please comment on this post and share it via whatever social networks you like :) Also… I switched my web hosting company. The blog is now SIGNIFICANTLY faster; have you noticed?
{ 106 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems that creating blog that can be sold in future is feasible but yeah, it will be very many hard work that must be done to reach a Huffington Post level. But, it is still okay since we can still make money during the works.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s a very realistic goal, and I’m not sure if it’s possible. But it IS something that’s pretty fun to think about, right?
Thanks Dana!
Dude..what a fun read…and useful..I really liked the 3 types of billion dollar ideas. I love the “pay with a tweet” thing as well…very neat-o.
In terms of becoming a billionaire, thats not what most bloggers aspire to be…is it? I know I dont aspire to be a billionaire. Who needs it? What for? Furgedabuddit.
I think most bloggers want to have independent, location free lifestyle. Or is it just me?
You’re right, Dino. I think most of us are after a location independent lifestyle. But I’m sure most of us wouldn’t complain if we had an extra billion or two in our pockets :)
Is this practical? No. Is it realistic? No. Is it fun to think about? Yeah! I’m definitely not serious about making a billion dollars blogging, but I did enjoy reading the Forbes list.
Thanks Dino!
Hey Tristan
Personally I think that trying to be a billionaire via some connection to blogging is probably unlikely.
However the value of actually working through an exercise like this ISN’T that it will provide you with a blueprint to become a billionaire – but that it stretches your thinking and you might encounter ideas that are ‘outside the box’ (to use a cliche), and then progress to examine whether any of these radical ideas will actually serve to build the reach of your blog, or the monetization methods that you’re using to increase your income.
Be interesting to see what others have to think too – interesting and thought provoking post!
Paul
I meant to add – but pressed the submit button before engaging brain – that the Pay with a Tweet feature was genius! Really liked it. Be using that at some stage for something….(I do like following in your footsteps!)
Yeah, the Pay With a Tweet thing is pretty neat! It’s something I saw several months ago on a blog about new business ideas, and I’ve been wanting to try it ever since. And it seemed to work well! I got more RTs than average :)
I’m glad you liked the post, Paul! I agree. Becoming a billionaire from blogging is probably… Not so likely. It definitely won’t happen any time soon, if ever. But like you said, the point of this post was 1) just to have fun because it was an interesting topic to write about, and 2) try to get people (myself included) to have a longer term mindset.
Thanks, Paul, and I’m looking forward to posting your guest post tomorrow!
It’s a fun idea to think about making a billion dollars while blogging, but I don’t think it’s a reasonable goal to try and achieve. By the time you work 50 years to achieve a billion dollars, being a trillionaire will be the new, bigger thing to shoot for. It is hard enough to achieve a billion dollars, but I bet it is even more difficult to spend all that money in its entirety. No one needs that kind of money.
I have been seeing the pay with a tweet option popping up more and more. Hopes it works out for you!
Yeah, being a billionaire isn’t super practical, necessary, or realistic. But writing this post was a lot of fun :)
The Pay With a Tweet thing has worked well. This post got more RTs than average, so I’m definitely pleased with it.
Thanks James!
Hi Tristan,
That was awesomely entertaining post. I think nobody can become a billionaire by blogging that is a known fact but nice calculations and estimations you did out there with each of our earning tools.I think a person becomes a billionaire because of his unique idea which changes the market. It is pretty much unlikely thing that anyone doing just blogging can be a billionaire, maybe someone owning a company , a media conglomerate (i.e. a media mogul, a network of blog owner who has a squadron of writes writing for him/her) but not a blogger who blogs himself/ herself.
Regards,
Shiva
Shiva, I’m glad you liked the post! I had a lot of fun writing it :)
I also think that becoming a billionaire from blogging is not a very realistic goal right now. But I think every blogger can learn something by examining these billion dollar businesses and seeing how they became successful.
Thanks for the great comment, Shiva!
Hi Tristan,
It’s damn hard to earn even a thousand dollars through blogging, i just can’t imagine how much work we need to create lots of Huffington post for sale to reach one billion dollars. But its really fun and interesting especially you have listed out three brilliant ideas for us.
Honestly i don’t believe it’s possible to become a billionaire blogger unless AOL decides they have too much money to spend. I love your aspiration. I wish i can live long enough to see that happen.
Thanks for sharing this interesting post.
Lye
Yeah Lye, I don’t think it’s really possible to become a billionaire through blogging, either. But like you said, it was just something that was a lot of fun to think about :)
Thanks for the great comment, Lye!
SWEET. I was going to go suggest for you to go register billionaireblogger.com… until it checked and saw it redirects to some Wichita dude’s blog with a guy in a cowboy hat…
Nothing is impossible. What’s with all the negative comments? LOL.
Anyway, I think you MIGHT be able to become a billionaire blogger… but you’d probably have to get into other stuff as well. Like, who KNOWS how blogging will change in the future, or even the internet itself.
I think if you ever want to really become a billionaire blogger, monetizing it through products or advertising for $1 billion will be too hard. You will probably need to SELL the blog for $1 billion… which could definitely be possible in the future, especially as virtual real estate becomes more and more valuable. People may be willing to pay a crapload of money for .com domains and websites, especially those that are aged and whatnot.
I sure do wish I was Ariana Huffington or Michael Arrington sometimes. But it’s so hard to predict the future and build blogs like they have. Sometimes, I try to analyze it all too hard and end up with the conclusion that it all comes straight down to just dumb luck and fantabulous timing. I dunno.
This was a fun post to read. I liked it. And I see you’re using that pay with a tweet thing that I really want to try out too! AWESOME.
Great stuff, Tristan!
I just checked out billionaireblogger.com too. Weird…
As the internet currently stands, I also don’t think it’s possible to become a billionaire blogger. But it’s something fun to think about, right?
I wonder who the richest internet marketer in the world is, and how much he/she’s got. Hmmm… That might be worth some Google-fu.
I’m glad you liked the post. This one was a lot of fun to write. And yeah, the pay with a tweet thing worked really well. I got more tweets than average, so I’m happy with it :)
Thanks Elise!
I think the main reason you don’t really see billionaire bloggers is because blogging takes a lot of time and work, and you can’t really scale the method. Most billionaires have more than one business, they keep investing and expanding. When you only have one blog, you can’t really expand. More than one would be overkill for your spare time.
You could get to the point of earning a hell lot of money, but you won’t have time to enjoy them anymore.
Maria, I think you hit the nail on the head. Blogging doesn’t scale well. One blogger can only blog so much.
But yeah, I don’t think being a billionaire is possible for bloggers. Not yet, anyway.
Thanks Maria!
Blogging is always expanding, right now it’s not doable, but in the near future…
Hey Tristan,
You have done some amazing Maths stuff. Seems you got a good career in Maths. While coming to the article its not impossible to become an internet millionaire but I am not sure whether we can do that just with a help of a blog. On other scale if you start some businesses online and if one of them becomes top notch then you can become a billionaire (GroupOn is the best example).
Sathish
Nooooooo no no. I am NOT a math person! If it’s anything more than addition, subtraction, division, or multiplication, I hate it and don’t understand it.
Like you, I think it’s possible to become a millionaire, but a billionaire? I don’t think it’s possible right now.
Thanks Sathish!
Wow Tristan, that was a fun read!….I love your forward thinking. If you look at the most successful bloggers on the web, these folks have their hands in everything; product development, product promotion, sales, consulting, etc. But the one thing they have in common is that their blog was their springboard to success. But as successful as these ‘guys’ are, I don’t think any of them are sniffing the billion dollar mark. That would take a new breed of animal. One that doesn’t just speak to other people in their niche, or to other businesses, but to the everyday household…..on the scale of a Disney or Coca-Cola. Just my thoughts.
Tristan, thanks for all the effort you put into your posts….TONS of value brother!
I agree, Jason. As successful as the top bloggers and internet marketers are, they’re nowhere near the billion dollar mark.
Is it possible to become a billionaire blogger? No, I don’t think so. But it’s a lot of fun to think and write about :)
Thanks Jason!
Two words: You’re Brilliant. :)
4 words: “Not true” and “Thank you.” :)
Tristan.
Not to be a negative nelly…But giving it 50 years it would be likely to have a few billionaire bloggers simply because of inflation. Of course by that point I expect there will be about 50,000 billionaires in the world.
50 years ago being a millionaire meant something. Maybe not enough to get your name in print, but it was “real money” now any middle class person with a good job, a little financial saavy and just a bit of luck will likely be a millionaire before they retire.
a little off topic…but just saying…
All that being said your analysis on the ways to potentially make the big bucks is quite good. And hella ambitious. I would be quite proud if I heard you became a billionaire at 75… Of course I will be wanting to download my body into my new robo-form at that point since I will be pushing 86
I agree, Steve. This isn’t practical or realistic… But it was a lot of fun to write about :)
I definitely wasn’t serious about really wanting to be a billionaire blogger, so I won’t be disappointed if I don’t have a billion dollars by the time I’m 75. But if it *does* happen by some miracle, I’ll buy you a nice new robot body.
Thanks man!
I believe building a web based product/service can get you rich much faster than blogging. And it’s not really necessary to be a billionaire. I like “small is the new big” – I like the New Rich of whom Tim Ferriss speaks in his book.
Enjoying a good life, independence, love, travel, cool friends etc – one can have all this without tons of money. And that’s all that matters in my opinion.
Also, there are niche blogs/websites that do a killing. Much more than the big marketing blogs out there (I think this is a crowded space).
I also like to think money is a byproduct of doing something great/unique that people really need/want. So I think “how can I make my clients crazy happy?” is a better question to ask than “how I become a billionaire?”
I wish you success! And I hope you’ll share your knowledge with us as you get richer. :-) I want to refer to you as a cool billionaire (one who blogs about it)! ;-)
I agree, Constantin. Being a billionaire just isn’t necessary, and I definitely wasn’t serious about becoming a billionaire.
You make an interesting point about smaller niches. I think you’re right. It’s hard to make money writing about marketing or blogging or whatever because the niches are just SO saturated.
If I DO become a billionaire ever, I’ll be sure to blog about all of the awesome stuff I’m spending my money on. Most of it will probably be climbing gear :)
Tristan, thanks for crunching the numbers and providing interesting and entertaining analysis.
I’m not thinking about being a billionaire. I do have several friends that are millionaires. One is a true entrepreneur who created an infoproduct in the 1980s. Another was a top executive for much of his career. And another picked the right parents and gets to live off of his trust fund.
I think the first blogger billionaire will create an infoproduct empire that will include services that can be franchised.
To be honest, I’m not really interested in being a billionaire, either. I don’t think it’s possible just by having blogs and small-ish internet businesses, which are what I’m interested in.
I like the idea of an infoproduct empire. That’s my plan. As long as I can make a comfortable living and provide for a family, I’ll be happy. I don’t care about being a billionaire.
Thanks John!
55 grand a day huh? I do beleive I’ll stick with my ice tea and porch rocker. But I’ll be watching the news tickers for the announcement that Tristan Higbee is a billionaire: If anyone can, I beleive you can do it! Go get ‘em tiger!
Soooo… just what is that Pay with a tweet thing… first step toward the 55G a day? I clicked it but it gave no indication of what it was or what it was about to do. Paranoia kicked in and I backed out. I’ll tweet ya the regular way today and use that when i learn more about it.
Oh… I just thougt of how to get to be a billionaire really quickly: I’m getting 3 to 5 e-mails a day from the executors of dead millionaires who want to leave the entire fortune to me, all I have to do is give them my bank account information. It wouldn’t take but a few of those!
Yeah, can you imagine 55 grand a day? Holy mackerel… I definitely don’t plan on becoming a billionaire blogger. It was said very much tongue in cheek :)
Allan, the pay-with-a-tweet thing doesn’t have anything to do with money. It’s totally free. You just need to click the button and tweet the post that way in order to get the little free ebook that I made for this post. That’s all, and it has nothing to do with making money, and you don’t sign up for anything :)
I think you might be on to something with the dead millionaire emails… Man. You’re so luck!
Hi Tristan,
This is definitely an intriguing idea. I’m glad becoming a billionaire isn’t my goal for blogging :) But I’m glad you when through the various ways an income can be generated from blogging – despite what beginning bloggers believe, the bulk of a bloggers income doesn’t come from ads or affiliate sales, but more from what you can offer as a service or product yourself.
I think this pay with a tweet thing is cool. I’m going to try it out for sure!
I agree, Kiesha. Most blogging income doesn’t come from ads or anything. Unless the blogger is only making a few bucks a month. Then I’m guessing most of that income probably comes from ads :)
Thanks for commenting!
Affiliate marketing is not really true blogging, it is a separate genre of online venture earning in my opinion. I never did consider true blogging being reduced to selling products, but it is about sharing ideas, opinions, feedback on whatever topic you blog about and creating interactive exchanges with readers. Though blogging can make use of affiliate marketing, it really isn’t the same.
They key is to create reasonable and reachable goals, not strive for impossible, what do you need to be happy and comfortable for the rest of your life and blog toward that goal. Some can be happy with 60k per year, others with 150k per year, and others more. Just set your comfort and pad it a little for emergencies and work toward that, if you can reach that level then it will only climb from there.
So in your opinion is ANY form of making money blogging truly blogging? Because I know you’ve got ads on your blog… How is having an affiliate 125 x 125 ad in your sidebar any different from having a 125 x 125 sponsored ad?
I think blogging is awesome because it’s whatever you want it to be. If to you it’s not about selling products, that’s awesome, and more power to ya. If you want it to be all about money, sweet. Go for it.
As far as the amount of money you should be aiming for, again, I say go for whatever you want! I wasn’t serious about becoming a billionaire blogger. It’s not practical and it’s not reasonable. If “striving for impossible” (like you said) doesn’t quite get you to reach that impossible thing but still gets you past where you would have been if you’d set your sights lower, I see nothing wrong with that. Some people work better with more realistic goals, while others thrive when going after seemingly “out of reach” goals.
Great stuff, Justin, and thanks for dropping by!
Had a great laugh reading this, Tristan.
This part:”It would be freaking HARD to make a billion dollars blogging.” I would change it to It would be freaking impossible to make a billion dollars blogging. Just my opinion, lol.
Love the RT function. I have used it on my blog the other day, had great results. But I used ViperChill’s Cloud:flood. Is this service you are using free???
Anyway, loveeeee the read.
By the way, you are one step closer to a billion – you have evangelizers :)
Glad you liked it, Brankica! This one was pure joy to write :)
Yep, the RT thing is free. It’s been around for a while (I first saw it maybe 6 months ago and it’s been around longer than that), so I have more faith that it will continue to be around in the future :) The ViperChill one looks like the exact same thing, so I don’t think it matters too much!
And yes, I do think it would be impossible to make a billion dollars blogging. I’ll settle for a million or two :)
Thanks for the great comment!
Uh, you mean you guys aren’t *already* billionaires?
Sheesh. Who knew? I guess I’ll keep my massive earnings statements to myself cuz I don’t want to embarrass the rest of you :)
Anyway, for real though, this was an awesome piece, dude. Sometimes you see those big numbers and you can’t truly grasp what’s necessary to attain it, that’s why it’s great that you threw in those examples for us mathematically challenged types.
This post is all about inspiration, man. You’ve done it again, Tristan. Hat’s off.
Thanks for the kind words, John! It’s funny… I read that Forbes list of billionaires and then went for a hike in the mountains. And the idea for this post just struck me!
I’m glad you liked it. It was a ton of fun to write :) Thanks for the great comment!
Wow, a billionaire. It reminds me of the song by Travie McCoy :)
Another brilliant post. I especially like the way you explain how we can do it, how much work it takes.
I am going for J.K. Rowling and making it as an author, not a blogger :)
I’m satisfied if I can earn just a few hundred dollars a day from my blog. But when it comes to the billion dollar ideas, if I ever got one it would be #1 − 1. Shapers of the new world.
Hi Tristan,
Great thought and I’m sure you would be the first one to become the billionaire blogger. I would the 2nd one. I’ll pray to God that it really become true. ;)
Awesome! I think the world could definitely use a couple billionaire bloggers :D
Thanks Riya!
After this article, I’m thinking seriously about opening 5-6 Huffington Posts:). So I need partners. I put? Not able to keep them accountable, so I need members:)
Sorry. In the previous comment, I wanted to write: “You’re in?” instead of “I put?”
Yes, I’m in :D Just let me know when you broker the deal for a few hundred million dollars :)
Tristan,
I love the breakdown of figures.
It reminds me of a story about a sportsman called Adrian Moorhouse. He missed out on a medal in the 1984 Olympics.
Moorhouse explains how he set about winning his medal in the Seoul Olympics of 1988. After failing at the previous games in Los Angeles, he was determined to win the next time around.
To do so, Adrian realised he would need to break the world record, which was then 2 minutes faster then his personal best.
It seemed an impossible task: who could improve by 2 minutes. But Adrian worked out that to speed up by that amount, he needed to reduce his time by 30 seconds each year.
Thirty seconds a year meant 2.5 seconds a month; 2.5 seconds a month was 0.65 seconds a week and 0.65 seconds a week was 0.08 seconds a day.
That means, if he did two training sessions a day, Adrian only had to improve his speed each time by one four hundredth of a second to become Olympic Champion.
It’s easy when you look at it like that (or is it?).
Andrew
P.S. He did – he won the gold in 1988.
Andrew, what an awesome story! I love it. You’re right; 2 minutes off of what’s already your personal best sounds pretty crazy. But .08 seconds a day? Pfff. TOTALLY doable.
Thanks a bunch for sharing, and thanks so much for taking the time to comment!
I’ll take up the challenge Tristan :D
If you think about it: what if you built multiple continuity programs that all synced with one another?
For example: Offer website design but then upsell on a monthly retainer for doing their adwords (and charge percentage), if you scale up their business than you go along for the ride.
Then, work on your own products. Build a few authority blogs and leverage each of them into new projects.
A billion dollars is quite a lot; achievable by most? Definitely not but still, it’s a lofty goal that makes you think outside of the realm of your normal, everyday blog :D
I really enjoyed writing this post. I knew it wasn’t “practical” or anything, but it definitely has gotten me thinking about the future of my blog and what’s possible. I wasn’t serious about wanting to be the first billionaire blogger, but there’s no reason there can’t be a ton of millionaire bloggers out there.
I like your idea of multiple continuity programs that feed off of each other. I think that’d be a great way to go!
Gotta get working on that, I guess :)
Thanks man!
Tristan, aloha. What a fun read. As it happens, I was ready to share it even before I finished reading it so I loved your surprise at the end. The tweet/share for download technique worked well for Brankica a week or so ago. Look forward to reading your results.
Do what you love and the money will follow. Tristan, your life may well become a book (or series), then a movie and, over time, that billion will flow your way. Your chapters written to date are most intriguing and with your outlook on life, will become even more amazing. You are designing your life and, in my opinion, are living life as it should be lived–on your own terms. Aloha. Janet
Janet, thanks so much for the kind words! I really do love my life. I get to learn new things every day and I love waking up every morning. Every day is an adventure. How many people can say that?
Will anyone ever make a movie of my life? Doubt it. But all that matters is that 1) I love what I’m doing, and 2) I’m helping others.
It doesn’t get much better than that :)
Tristan, what a fun read.
Let’s make a deal….when you become the 1st billionaire blogger, start re-directing some of your traffic our way! :-D
But seriously, I also think that most bloggers love what they do, and if money follows, that’s great!
Thanks, Anne! I had a lot of fun writing this post, so I’m glad you liked it. And when I do become a billionaire blogger, I’ll definitely liberally link to those that helped me get to that point :D
Wow, a billionaire. It reminds me of the song by Travie McCoy.
Another brilliant post. I especially like the way you explain how we can do it, how much work it takes.
I am going for J.K. Rowling and making it as an author, not a blogger :)
I’m satisfied if I can earn just a few hundred dollars a day from my blog. But when it comes to the billion dollar ideas, if I ever got one it would be #1 − 1. Shapers of the new world.
A few hundred dollars a day from my blog would be GREAT. That’s what, about US $100,000 a year? Yeah, that would definitely be nice :)
And yeah, sorry, your comments were stuck in Akismet purgatory! I recently activated Akismet because I was getting a ridiculous number of spam comments a day. I’ll have to go through the spam filter daily and make sure no real comments got caught.
Thanks Jens! I’m looking forward to seeing your novel turned into a movie :)
I have started using Akismet myself, because I have recently switched to a new blog design, and have switched from disqus – now I am all about commentluv :)
I’ll probably get the novel translated into english first, then a movie :)
Ah… Good point :) And then maybe they can make a Bollywood version, too? With lots of singing and dancing and stuff :D
Sure, I’ll go where the market brings me :)
Although it might be one of the first serial killer novels turned into a musical :)
Those numbers are pretty crazy to think about. Simply blogging, there is no way someone will make a billion dollars.
I don’t think most Billionaires make all their money doing one thing exclusively though.. and I do think that someone who accumulated the initial start of their wealth could be a blogger. Huffington post had to have made millions of dollars per year in order to be worth $315 million. There is no telling how much political money may have been (or not been) pumped into that site. I would not be shocked if that blog has generated over a billion dollars profit since its inception.
Pretty amusing to see the numbers broken down like that… crazy
Yeah, those are some pretty insane numbers, right? I wonder if there’s any information online regarding how much the Huffington Post brought in every year. Hmmm… That would be really interesting.
But you’re right… There will be no billionaire bloggers anytime soon :)
Thanks Blake!
Hey Tristan,
I thoroughly enjoyed this post! Is it possible? Anything is possible, especially when you don’t follow the herd and you look inside and around yourself for a different way to do things. :)
Go for it!
Peggy
I forgot – meant to say I like that Pay With a Tweet. Very cool. I’d be interested in hearing your results with it.
Peggy
Great, glad you liked the post, Peggy! I really enjoyed writing this one. And the Pay With a Tweet thing seems to have worked really well. I got more tweets than average, so it was a success :)
Thanks Peggy!
Hey Tristan,
What an awesome ready. Love it. I’ll take up the challenge too :D.
I really like the idea of three Types of billionaires!
#Affiliate marketing – I’m already some good money with affiliate marketing and i think it’s one of the best way to make money in case you don’t have your own product.
#Products – This is something i’m working on. Selling your own products is much easier then affiliate marketing.
#Adsense – I’m yet to try adsense on any of my blogs. I don’t think it works on mmo or blogging tips blog.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great post here and submitting it to Blokube. Keep up the rocking work.
~Dev
I’m glad you liked the post, Devesh! Yeah, I haven’t tried AdSense on my blogs recently. I’ll add it soon to my rock climbing blog. I’ve made some OK money with it in the past. Not a ton, but I guess a little bit is better than nothing, right?
Some of my posts do really well on Blokube. With 16 votes, this is one of ‘em :)
Thanks Devesh!
All I can say is BRAVO I love this post very detailed and well thought out I need to get on board the billion dollar ship. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Jurrell! This post was a lot of fun to write. Is becoming a billionaire through blogging realistic or practical? No. But it’s fun to think about this kind of thing every once in a while, right?
Thanks again!
Don’t worry, i’ve already thought about that one ;)
Create a political up-rest among nations. Fight some crazy ass concept that could get me assassinated – and then get 500 million people to donate $2 for my efforts :P
Dude… Brilliant :D You name the country and time and I’ll be there to assist with the revolution.
Hi Tristan,
Loved the post!
I believe if you can conceive of something in thought then it’s possible. The only thing standing in your way is your belief that it’s not possible. You have to believe it BEFORE you see it which is contrary to the usual “I’ll believe it when I see it.” approach.
So the work lies in working on your belief not blogging which you are pretty damn good at already! :)
~Marcus
Marcus, I need to get my eyes checked… I thought your post title in ComLuv was 4 Point Goat Replacement Surgery… I was trying to work that out in my mind when I looked closer and realized it was “goal” not “goat”.
Peggy
Peggy that may have made as much sense to some people. LOL
I’m so glad you liked the post, Marcus! I really did love writing this one. It was fun to take a break from “serious” blogging and just write about something else for a change, you know?
Thanks for the kind words. I do think I need to work on my belief, though! A billion dollars through blogging? Yikes! I definitely don’t have that much faith yet :)
Hi Tristan,
Great post title.
Make a million first, then repeat the process. Great article.
You got my attention.
Thanks James!
Yeah, I think this is one of my better post titles :) I’m glad you liked the post, and thanks for commenting!
Its really really amazing and funny post. I enjoyed it alot.
Its impossible for a blogger to earn billion dollars only from blogging.
Regards
I agree… It’s impossible. But man… It sure is a lot of fun to write about :)
Thanks Nazim!
Hi Tristan,
Those are a lots of numbers lol..but if others can do, we can too, that’s my principal, but it needs patient of course..
Also work and persistence, failed once, get up and try again, over and over, till we are there. If we love what we are doing, I believe the result will be positive, either blogging, being mechanics, or others.
Mine is of course blogging, oh affiliate lol
Thanks!
Yeah, this is a pretty numbers-intensive post. I’m not a numbers person, except when the numbers add up to a billion dollars :)
I think you’re right; work and persistence really can take you far when it comes to success in life. Will it add up to a billion dollars? Probably not. But really, how many of us need a billion dollars? :)
Thanks Kimi!
I really dig this post. It was very thought provoking. It caught my attention, because I am a blogger….with full intention of being a billionaire one day.
I guess I couldn’t imagine someone becoming a billionaire just off of maintaining blogs and writing content for those blogs…per se.
BUT….Let’s say, for example, you managed to start the most successful investment/ trading blog in the industry (of both finance and blogging).
Not only could you manage to rake in the dough, but if you were that good at trading, actually trading to get the material for your blog, and ending up with successful trades would easily make you a billionaire. It’d be if Warren Buffet had been born about 50 years later and decided to share his insights via blog and offer an investment newsletter via internet and email.
Then….you would be a billionaire blogger.
Just a thought.
I think you’re right, Anthony. I think that Warren Buffett could charge a pretty penny every month for access to his blog.
Your example kind of reminds me of TimAlerts.com. That dude has made millions of dollars trading stocks, and I’m sure makes hundreds of thousands every year (if not more?) from his membership program. That’s still a far cry from billion dollar territory, but I think most of us would be happy with merely millions of dollars in the mean time.
Great stuff, Anthony, and thanks for commenting!
Loved it! First time visiting your blog, via Blokube, and I enjoyed it. If you’re the first billionaire blogger, then I plan on riding your coat-tails to second! :)
Great post!
Dani
Awesome! Glad you found the blog here, Dani :) I had a lot of fun writing this post — could you tell? :) — and I’m happy that you enjoyed reading it.
Thanks so much for commenting, and be sure to stop by again soon… or now :)
Nice Post i am Going To Bookmark your Blog
Nice Work With very Nicely explained
Thanks For Sharing That Information With Us
Regards
Gaurav Garg
Thanks Gaurav! I appreciate the comment, buddy.
I’d be curious even if there are billionaire internet marketers out there. I mean, people who started small to grow large, not big companies that pour a lot of money from the start. As for getting a billion from blogging alone, don’t think it’s possible. Of course, until someone proves me wrong :)
Hmmm… Good question. Are there billionaire interenet marketers out there? I doubt it.
I’d love to prove you wrong and show you that it is indeed possible to make a ton of money blogging… But I agree with you here :) I think it’s impossible. But it’s a lot of fun to think about, right? :)
Gulp. Tristan, I know you always step up your game but this! Totally unexpected and completely fun! I’m not that far behind from Huffington Post…only by a few billion websites. :)
I had a lot of fun writing this post, Stella, so I’m glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, I’m not *too* far behind Huffington Post either… Just lacking several million dollars a year in the revenue department :)
Hey Tristan,
It seems that my blog comment on this particular post have been stopped. I tried to send the same comment two times, but it hasn’t showed up. I guess it might be because I had several money-related words related to the blog post in them, so it probably ended up in Akismet or something :)
Well, I’m not giving up so easy. What I tried to say is that you’ve made a brilliant point. What we should do is to measure what we are doing (and what we want to do), and make them become subgoals. I believe that this is the best way to make anything become possible.
Great post.
Yeah, sorry your comments got eaten up by Akismet, Jens. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, though. I recently activated the plugin and am still getting used to the stupid thing :)
I like what you said about subgoals. Though that’s what I did in this post, I didn’t really think about it that way. You should read Andrew’s comment above; he shares a GREAT story about goals and subgoals!
Awesome read Tristan. You’re right, we have to be realistic. It would be very hard to make a billion dollars JUST by blogging. The best path would be “selling your own products”, but then getting new customers everyday would mean a lot of advertising. Plus you would need to be selling to a really broad market with many potential buyers.
Anyway, fun to think about :0) How’s your infographics course coming along?
Is it possible to make a billion dollars blogging? You know… I don’t think so. But it was a lot of fun to write about and think about :) And I think these are still principles that we can apply to our blogging, even if we’re not going to be floating in a lake of $100 bills any time soon.
I’m pleased to say that the infographics course will be released next week! I still have a lot to do by then, but I think I can pull it off. Thanks for asking :)
And thanks for the comment, Hector. I really appreciate it, man!
I wonder if we would ever know if a blogger was a millionaire…would they advertise it or just retire? I have always said the only difference between any of us and Richard Branson is belief.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
That’s a good question. I’m not sure. There have got to be millionaire bloggers out there, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
Thanks Mandy!
Interesting post, but I don’t think being a billionaire is possible for most bloggers. Er… Make that ANY blogger. Maybe if the blogger were someone like Tiger Woods or LeBron James or President Obama, and they cut off all other income streams to focus solely on blogging, then MAYBE they could become a billionaire… But I still doubt it.
That’s an interesting idea, Stephen. I can see companies like Gatorade and some car company spending $22 million a year for ad spots on LeBron’s blog (if he had one). So I guess I just need to be either the president to the best athlete… No problem :)
Thanks Stephen!
I think this is a great angle that you’ve chosen here Tristan. I think you’re right one day there will be a billionaire blogger. Maybe Darren Rowse? Latest figures I saw he’s pulling in around $1m a year, he just needs to step it up a bit!
So not everyone is going to build a huffington post. But if you started looking at your blog as a business you’ll be selling for a $1bn what would you change about it? What would your expectations be? What would it look like?
I think it will be possible for a blogger to become a billionaire, but they got to reinvent the wheel and come out with something that everyone would like, not just a specific niche
This is a fun article written in a lighter vein, and probably lighter mood as well.
However, on a serious note if we look at all the members of the Forbes list we find that not one of them is “stand alone” – be it Bill Gates or JK Rowling. All billionaires are leaders of enterprises with tens of thousands of people behind the value being offered to the customers.
So can one be a blogger billionaire, my thought is YES and NO.
No because the way bloggers work ,and the reasons for being bloggers – I think you mentioned lifestyle and locational freedom.
YES, if you convert blogging into an enterprise – with thousands of writers churning out blog posts for large companies, helping companies market their products on the internet etc. Then list this blogging enterprise on the NYSE, NASDAQ and other such stock exchanges. And the value of the stock will be in billions and you will be a billionaire.
But billion dollars in cash – I don’t think even Bill Gates has that in “his” pocket. Just a hunch, I didn’t ask him nor did he tell me!!
Hey Tristan,
You definitely took on a difficult topic. But it’s interesting to see the numbers needed to earn a billion dollars in 50 years.
And, I must admit – I cracked up all throughout this article, especially when you wrote, “So the key to making a billion dollars is… Charge 556 businesses $3,000 a month! Pffff. Simple, right?”
You really know how to put humor in a post. ;) I especially enjoy coming here because of the humor; it’s relaxing to read, especially on a hard day of work.
Though, I don’t think I’d ever build a massive blog with the end result of selling it. Also, who needs a billion dollars? Who even needs a million? No one, that’s who. I’m just as content settling for my $150k a year (not that I’m making that much… yet, but I plan to! ….eventually). ;)
Thanks for the entertaining read. And, if you keep this up, you’ll be on your way to your very own billion! [insert giddy laugh here]
Christina
Wow this a a great post. Very entertaining!
It really makes you wonder if it is possible and I believe it is.
Lets think of it a different way. Why can’t we build websites that are worth millions of dollars because of the income they produce?
After building the first million dollar website, outsource it and move on..Keep doing that.
If a website makes $10,000 a week and costs $500 to run…Where do you get that profit in any other business? The value is amazing!
I remember when I made my first dollar…then I made $1 a day…$10 a day….$20 a day and so on….Why can’t I get to $50,000 a day?
I am already amazed that I can make money while I sleep and make money even when I am not working, so why can’t I make $50,000 a day? I didn’t expect to do what I am doing now either… :)
Wow! This would be a great feat. I’m excited on who will be the first billionaire in the blogging industry. I would be glad if that blogger will start from scratch.
huh!
{ 3 trackbacks }