It all began back in 1993 when my neighbor knocked on my door. She had just purchased the software for America Online (yes, you actually had to buy it back then!) and had no idea how what to do with it from there. Since I had my own computer at the time, I was considered to be the neighborhood geek (lol!) and people had a tendency to ask me questions about computers and related matters.

We went over to her place and before long she was up and running - and then, of course, I had to run out and buy a copy for myself as well. I’ve been online ever since that day! It’s hard to even remember what I did before the internet took over my life….

Over time, I taught myself a bit of HTML, Javascript and some other programming languages. I wanted to work as a computer programmer so that I could have a better chance at working a telecommuting position. Working as an accountant, I would never have that sort of opportunity. I liked the work itself alright - it paid the bills and all - but I really disliked having to always dress up, sit for hours in traffic, be stuck in a cubicle and deal with office politics/drama all day long each and every day. I’ve always been somewhat of a non-conformist and knew that I had to eventually find a career that was better suited to my personality or I’d go nuts before too long.

In order to become more familiar with PHP/MySQL programming, I decided to start a website as a fun way to learn how to work with the technology. It was a site of interest to women and I really enjoyed the project and the site began to take on a life of it’s own. Around the same time, I noticed that dating sites seemed to be springing up everywhere and thought about implementing my own dating site as a spin-off for my website. Before I got around to building the dating site, however, I came across an affiliate program for the Dating Tech Network. I dug a little deeper and found that all I had to do was promote the site and get a 55% recurring commission for every member that signed up through my links. No customer service, no programming, no overhead or anything else for that matter! What the heck - I began promoting it on my site and was thrilled to find out that people were actually willing to buy memberships!

That was somewhere around 2004 when things started coming together for me in affiliate marketing and I’ve been hooked on it ever since. I abandoned my accounting career in 2006 as the affiliate “experiment” turned into a full-time business. Since the affiliate business is 100% based on commissions, I’ve been hesitant to completely abandon all aspects of a regular salaried job (especially in this crappy economy), so I also have a telecommute position as a link developer for a large internet retailer that I still work at 40 hours per week. Life is really sweet now (albeit waaaaaay too busy)!

Putting in 80 - 90 hours per week consistently for several years really starts to get old after a while. After much careful consideration, I recently decided that in order to continue to grow the affiliate business and still keep my telecommuting position at the same time, I would need to hire additional help. On Halloween Day 2008 I actually hired an assistant!  There are so many ways to grow an affiliate business but unfortunately, there are only so many hours available each day. I’m looking forward to 2009 becoming the year when I can finally branch out into other industries (in addition to online dating) as an affiliate marketer.