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Interview with Web Marketer Will76

December 30, 2007

Will76 is one of the Net’s leading marketers of webcam and streaming media sites.  He has been in the business for over 11 years and his business continues to expand every year.  His latest online offerings seek to help webmasters make the right decisions in picking the right sponsors and provide them with industry information. His websites are http://www.referralmatrix.com and http://www.viraldiscussions.com.

1. How would you describe your job?

I work about 80 hours a week. I go to work around 10 am and sign off at about 3 am. I manage my business and spend most of the day monitoring its progress and going over new projects. I still do some tasks but I try to delegate as much as possible. Explaining what needs to be done and supervising work have become full time jobs as well. In addition to my online business, I am also involved in a real-estate business that builds and sells new houses.

2. How did you get into this kind of business?  Did you really see yourself getting into this kind of business?

I got into the business by chance. I had been online since 1996 but spent most of my time meeting girls. I didn’t envision making money online until I discovered ifriends.com in 1999. I set up a webcam and suddenly started making money. I was working as a bartender at the time and I was in my last year of college. I started making more money on webcam a few hours a week than I was making from bartending 25 hours a week. I saved up money and made an investment of about $4,000 which went towards new computer equipment and a designer to create my first membership site. I started making good money from my first website so I put my career on hold and expanded my online company.

3. What do you think are the turning points that helped make webmastering a money-making business?

The keys to my success were investing what I made and never getting comfortable. In the first couple of years, I put all the profit back into my online business. After a few years of doing that, I started investing into real-estate to diversify. I didn’t buy all the toys and nice houses like most people. Instead, I paid off credit card debts, lived very modestly, and kept investing. I also never got satisfied. A lot of people will hit a certain point where they feel that they are making good money and then work less and waste money. I wouldn’t say there were any turning points for me; understanding those two principles from the beginning kept me in the right direction. I also try to stay one step ahead. As soon as you are making money from something, other people will try to copy you so you have to evolve and improve your product. Keep your competition one step behind you. The hardest part isn’t making money but to keep making money. 

4. What is the most exciting industry-related development of late? 

MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook; because of the type of value those sites were able to obtain in a short period of time. It is exciting to me that I could start something now and in a few years, it could be worth over one billion dollars. It is exciting trying to come up with the next Facebook or MySpace. I am working on some new projects that I hope can come close to achieving that type of success. I love the challenge and the money would be nice too.

5. What do you think are the essential skills to become a successful webmaster?

You need to learn and observe. Every “know-it-all” is broke for a reason. I learn something new everything day. You have to know what you are selling; what works and what doesn’t work. Know your customers and your market. You also need to have motivation and goals. Invest smart when you do make money and then make your money work for you. You need to be creative, think outside the box, and find something that someone else is doing and make it better.

6. Webmastering has gone from being a one-person job to a field that allows specialization. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the business?  

One person cannot do everything. Sometimes it is better to hire someone else to do a job if it saves you time. Your time is worth money. If you can design and it would take you 20 hours to do the job, if you hire someone to do it and it would only cost you $200, which is the better way to go? That was the hardest thing for me to learn; to not try to do everything myself.

7. Do you think the industry is regulated enough?  Should the authorities or the governing bodies be more strict or less strict? 

I believe the industry needs to step up and regulate itself. I think that a line needs to be drawn that separates “good” business from “bad” business.  If you want to use spyware and help support sites that steal copyrighted content or if you cheat your partners or other companies, then you should be held accountable. The problem right now is someone can do all these bad things and are not being held accountable. If we can’t regulate ourselves then at some point things could deteriorate if the government intervenes.

8. What are the challenges the industry is facing today?

I think spyware is a huge problem that is going to get worse. Companies like Zango allow anyone to target your urls and basically hijack your traffic. There are other non-visible spyware programs that steal your joins behind the scenes.  Torrent sites and copyrighted content being stolen and given away for free are other issues. The traditional picture and video membership site model will have to change drastically in the near future if torrent sites are not shut down.

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