MonkeyBlogger’s First Interview!
You guys are in for a treat today. 
I’ve been able to get Michael Dunlop from Retireat21 to agree to let me interview him! This is great because as a 19 year old internet entrepreneur, Michael is setting the stage for all of us young bloggers, freelancers, and webmasters. So enough of my gibberish, let’s take a look at the interview we were able to get.
Hey Michael, it’s great too have you with us at MonkeyBlogger.com, it’s great to be able to interview you. So tell me a bit about yourself. How old are you? When did you get your first computer, and when did you start getting into the online business?
My name is Michael Dunlop and I am 19 Years Old. It all started when I was
about 11 years old and was playing a computer game called Runescape, I played it on and off for a few years. When I was 14 it some how destroyed my parents computer and they banned me from every playing it on there PC. So I decided to go ahead and buy a computer, with the help of my parents. I then moved on to a computer game called Counter Strike and I met some people on there who where starting webdesign so I decided to download Dreamweaver and get in on the craze. I am now the only one left doing websites and making real money online.
When did you start your first website, and what was it called?
My first website was called Just-Shout.com and was a graphics design forum. Soon after launching it we received a lot of sign ups and visitors. I then quickly moved everything to a new domain called ShoutGfx.com which received over 2000 sign ups in 6 months with around 100,000 forum posts. My competitors started to hack my site because of the quick growth and after a few hackings I decided to move onto my new project Webdesigndev.com
How did it feel to be the owner of a website?
I had freedom! Money buys freedom, you can do what you want, when you want. I enjoyed it, it wasn’t like a job, it was about having fun!
What were some of the challenges you faced when you first started up your sites?
Main challenges I faced was Money, Skills and Maturity which I spoke about on my blog, 10 Reasons why being a young entrepreneur sucks! (http://www.retireat21.com/blog/10-reasons-why-being-a-young-entrepreneur-sucks/ )
What recommendations do you have for “newbies” when starting up a website or online business?
Do it today, so many times people say they will start tomorrow and never do!
Do you have any tips regarding marketing a blog, for instance?
- Be unique, we don’t need another “How to make money with Adsense Blog”. I took the Make Money Online niche which was really busy but then I niche it further by making it just for young people.
- If you are going to pay to market your website, I recommend buying paid reviews, you get life time links and triple the traffic that a 125 x 125 in my experience.
What’s your favourite website on the net?
I have a lot of favourite websites, mainly http://problogger.net and http://zenhabits.com and http://dumblittleman.com
Do you believe that everyone can run a business online?
I don’t see why not, so many people (http://www.retireat21.com/blog/top-young-bloggers-under-21/ ) are young and making so much money online so why can’t you!
Lastly, what do you think of MonkeyBlogger.com? Any potential in your eyes?
Sure there is, you need to include more images into your blog posts to make them look more interesting. I like the design and content, keep it up!
Well Michael, it was great to have you, I hope we’ve helped some of my readers to learn a bit about online “biz”, and I hope you are very successful with Retire@21 and all of your other online ventures.
Well, that’s the interview, I hope you all enjoyed it and take away something of value from it
